Dom's Sober Living Success Story

I am originally from a small town called Scranton, Pennsylvania. There’s really not a lot to do there.

My first conscious drink, outside of when your parents might give you a small sip of champagne on New Year’s Eve was, in high school at the age of 14, though it wasn’t frequent in the beginning the consequences started immediately.

For me, it wasn’t a lot of fun, ever. But it was just, it was something that I knew I wanted to do was, you know, live this lifestyle of using and doing things. So I fell in with the people who were doing drinking or smoking weed and so I surrounded myself with likeminded people, which eventually transferred into my recovery because I learned that it works both ways today [as far as finding out that alcoholics and addicts are still the fun characters, we can be but without substances].

When it came to drinking and partying, my use was abnormal from the start. I went to rehab my senior year of high school, which should say something about how things escalated in the beginning. Though I managed to pass high school and went on to attend a local community college where I studied illustration and painting. My using continued to escalate to the point where drugs and alcohol were more important than getting good grades and establishing a career. School wasn’t working out and before long the only thing I had left was the substances. For the next few years, I traveled down a lonely road of building towards a better, more successful future, and then I would tear it all down to restart once again. 

At one point I decided to move to Orlando and attend Full Sail University to study game art and computer animation which is a huge industry today and something that I thoroughly enjoyed. I was able to meet a lot of great people, make friends, and felt this time would be different. But again, as I started to gain new levels of success, my addiction progressed and just like before I basically destroyed all that I had worked for—relationships, jobs, material possessions, status, trust, and my security.

I ended up failing out of Full Sail University. This was a really dark time because I didn’t know what to do after that. I had to move back in with my family in Pennsylvania. When I looked around to reconnect with all my “friends” from high school… it seemed like everyone had careers, they finished college, they were doing well, had nice cars, and all the things guys my age were “supposed” to have. And here I am, a college dropout who is back home with his parents.

Depression really took hold, alcohol and drugs were the only solution I had left to numb the pain. By this time, I was essentially drawing pictures at home and calling myself an artist.

That’s what it looked like to everybody. Even though in my mind, I was still so wrapped up in thinking about what I was going to do, to achieve, and thought that art would be my ticket to success. I just thought, well, maybe I’m a misunderstood crazy artist like Van Gogh. But honestly, I was deluded and sincerely believed at the time that the minimal effort I was putting in would produce grand results.

So, you know, alcohol and drugs completely took hold of me at that point. I was lost in my own life. I was completely consumed. I didn’t know which direction was up. People were distancing from me at this point. It felt like I was looking at everybody else through this glass window, and nobody wanted to have anything to do with me. Life got really difficult and depression exacerbated the usage.

The consequences started rolling in at that point.

But I was fortunate enough to have parents who kept trying to prop me up. They would help me get a car, an apartment, go to another college and the results were the same because I continued to live the same lifestyle. I ended up smashing a few cars, more than one DUI, I went to jail a couple of times.

Of course, each time I was under the influence. It took me a long time to put those pieces together. And just kind of understand. In hindsight it’s easy to see, everyone else saw it but I wasn’t able to tell myself—“You’re ruining everything because you just won’t stop.”

Initially, I was introduced to the program of Alcohol Anonymous through my father who has in the program for decades. He’s always been leading me in the right direction and telling me the answers from the perspective of somebody who knows through experience.

But as a father figure, I never wanted to believe him. I never wanted to listen, I was always pushing him and others away. I was obstinate. I wanted to do things my way. And of course, I did my way right up until I couldn’t anymore because I was going to die.

After being introduced to AA, I got clean for varying lengths of time but wasn’t able to “stay stopped.”

Of course, I went back out, crashed more cars, failed more things, lost more friends, and put everyone around me through hell. I eventually managed to put together over a year sober when I was 25.

This time I was a clinical technician at the same rehab I attended. After the year mark, I remember thinking—“I’m sober and like talking to people who are having problems. Maybe this is my calling, I can help other alcoholics and addicts who are struggling with addiction.” Helping others made me feel rewarded, made me feel good, and paid the bills so it seemed like a no-brainer. It’s funny how even sober, we’re always trying to find ways to “feel better” on the inside by using external stuff.

I was attending meetings, had a sponsor, was going through the steps, and for once, was listening to my father’s advice. But alcoholism/addiction is a cunning, baffling, and powerful disease.

Eventually, the same thoughts came back—I thought I was too young, that I only needed more experience. I needed to go back out and test the waters, do more research and confirm that I truly am an addict/alcoholic. Naturally, I thought—“This time will be different” and “I learned enough that I can successfully moderate my drinking/using now.” What a load of shit that was.

I will say if you’re reading this and thinking the same thing… good luck but I hope you can realize that it’s just the disease of addiction trying to convince you “you’re different” and give you an excuse to pick up. Hundreds of thousands, probably millions or tens of millions of addicts and alcoholics have thought the same thing, picked up, and returned to a living hell or worse for your parents—death.