So you shared your face with us, but what makes you YOU?

[Craiga 01453]

Ok, I'll play along...

I grew up in Leominster, MA and have lived there or in a neighboring town my whole life. I grew up with a great family including my mother, father and brother. I seriously could not have asked for a better family. My parents were phenomenal parents and my little brother looked up to me and supported me like no other. We lived comfortably, but by no means well off. My father worked hard and often worked a second job to ensure I could play hockey and we could have an annual family vacation.
I was always a good student, a good athlete and popular in school.

I ended up being looked at by Div 1 schools for hockey, but was ultimately told I was too small at 5'8" 160 lbs. So I played juniors for a while hoping to catch on somewhere, but it never panned out. In the meantime, I went to college for accounting. I was the first in my family to go to college and had a lot of expectations on my shoulders. However, being away from home and having discovered booze and marijuana it was too easy to skip class. I struggled to pass my classes and halfway through 2nd semester was well on my way to failing all my classes. I was even failing an ICE SKATING class!!!!

Well, I ended up taking a leave of absence to avoid a 0.0 on my transcript. I moved home and got a full time job. I had a paper route as a kid and worked part time through high school, but that barely paid for my hockey sticks and gas in the car. Now I was working full time and making "good money", hahaha.

By this time I was partying nightly and having fun. I decided not to go back to school and got an apartment with some friends. By this point, even in my home town, I was no longer Craiga the hockey player, but Craiga the Kegger, I was known as a party animal. Once I realized I wasn't going anywhere with hockey I needed a new identity, something else I was good at. And I could party with the best of them. I was always surrounded by booze, drugs and girls and loved every minute of it. I had a new identity...

Well, it gets blurry from there. I can honestly say, I remember very very little of the next 14 years or so. I moved a lot, partied a lot and had a lot of fun...for a while. By the time I was 21 I was drinking and using drugs daily, and I mean real drugs, not just pot. I honestly don't consider pot to be a drug. I was tending bar and making good money, but had nothing to show for it. I lived paycheck to paycheck. I had bar tabs and dealers to pay each Friday, my bills were always late, I was constantly having phone, electricity, etc... shut off. But never went without booze or drugs. I partied daily and partied with the goal of partying til I forgot my name.

I knew a had a problem in my early 20s, but accepted that that is who I was. I knew I would die young and I knew it would be booze or drugs that killed me. I became very depressed, suicidal and unlikable. If you weren't partying with me or could help fuel my need I had no use for you. I avoided family and alienated all my friends. I was alone except for my party "friends", none of which I've heard from since getting sober over 5 years ago. Safe to say they weren't real friends.

Anyway, after 15 years of daily annihilation and burning every bridge I had, I finally hit my rock bottom. I was living in a very dark, lonely place for far too long. On the surface, I seemed like a fun-loving, crazy man. But on the inside, I had been broken far too long. In Jan of 2012 my brother proposed to his now wife. He asked me to be his best man, but told me he was afraid I would ruin the wedding and begged me to stay sober til after I gave the toast, at least and to not bring any grubs to his wedding. I promised him I would stay sober til the toast, and I did, kinda....
The wedding was in October and was a blast, I didn't ruin the wedding.
Fast forward to December...things were BAD. I knew I'd be dead or in jail within months and I didn't care. I had accepted who I was. I was an alcoholic and a drug addict and I would die that way. I had broken my leg 2 weeks before my brother's wedding (yup, was in a walking boot on crutches for his wedding) so I wasn't working. I had nothing better to do than start drinking as soon as I woke up. Well, one day I was at the hockey think watching some friends play a tournament. I got a mid-afternoon phone call from my mother. I answered, but could hardly speak I was slurring so badly, speaking Craiganese as I liked to call it. She told me I would be receiving a letter in the mail within a few days and explained that she had no choice but to cut me out of her life completely until I got help. I told her to "have a nice life" and hung up the phone. I ripped it up for another few hours until i just couldn't do it anymore. I broke down completely. I was a blubbering, broken mess. I cried and cried and cried for hours. Sometime around 7pm I called my mother, and to my surprise, she answered. I told her I was going to an AA meeting at 8am the following morning. She asked why I wasn't going that night, hahaha. I told her I was too messed up and wanted to show up at my first meeting on the right foot. I kept my word and went tothat meeting...and another one at noon...and another that night....
Well, just over 5 years later I can proudly say I am still clean and sober!!!!

I am alive again, I look forward to every day again, I want to grow old and live a full life. I no longer wake up and curse god for not letting me die and making me live another day hating myself. I went YEARS not being able to look in the mirror and look into my own eyes. I now look myself in the eye and am proud of myself. I have my family back in my life and I have an amazing girlfriend. I even managed to re-establish a relationship with my father, who I went YEARS barely speaking to.

I live a very simple, but wonderful life. I live with my girlfriend and I work as a kitchen manager/chef right down the street from our house. We have a cat, 4 ferrets, a 55 and a 75 gallon fish tank and 4 snakes.

I LOVE my life today and I am happy with myself for the first time since I was in my early 20s (I'm 39 now). I enjoy quiet nights in with the girl, and since I work mostly days now we actually get to spend most nights together.

I also see my family regularly and am in my neice and nephew's lives, which my brother has made very clear wouldn't be an option if I was still the "old me". I babysit them and even take them for weekends here and there. It means the world to me to watch them grow up and that my brother trusts me with his children....geez, tearing up typing this... I look forward to family events and my family looks forward to seeing me.

Aside from my animals, I am a music junkie. I love my tunes and often say it's my music therapy. I like to read books aboit WWII, memoirs and biographies and I am a big Boston sports fan.

Well, I feel like I just typed forever, so I'll wrap up.

@Zina10, thanks for starting this thread.

To all the rest of my friends here at BP.net, it's been great getting to know you all. I look forward to checking this forum out at least once a day and it's great to share my passion with you all and learn from one another.