I was sitting on the couch trying to decide whether I would shoot up enough to give myself that high I loved or enough to just end everything… it was a tough decision to make, but I decided to pick up the phone instead. For me, drug addiction was something of a family hobby. There was plenty of alcohol around all the time. My mother would usually have a cocktail in the car with her friends and I grew up thinking this was normal. After all, alcohol use can seem glamorous when it is used out by the pool or on the country club lawn. I mean, I didn’t start using because I thought it would make me look like a movie star… I just thought it would help me fit in better with the people around me. See, I was always the odd man out… I always felt I was different, strange and growing up in a small town near Los Angeles doesn’t give much room to anyone to go down a different path. That was, until I checked into a drug addiction treatment center.

This week marks 70 days of being clean for me. I know this may not seem like a big deal, but it is when you’re 30 years old and 70 days is the longest you’ve been clean since your 15th birthday. So, what makes me think I’ll stay clean this time? For starters, I went to a great luxury residential drug treatment program in Malibu. I was able to get treatment, therapy, in a realistic and real world setting. I was able to build up my self-esteem, which is probably one of the reasons I ended up where I was to begin with. Perhaps the other thing is, that for the first time in 15 years, I really wanted to be clean- and it worked.