You Are Not Alone

One of the first big milestones in my recovery was recognizing that I wasn't the only one who let drugs take destroy my life. Once my family found out how badly I screwed up, I spiralled into a bottomless hole of depression.

I spent all my money. I took money from the mortgage. I lied to family and friends. I even stole from them. Anything to get the next high.

I must be the worst husband in the world, surely the worst father, and probably the worst friend or work buddy.

I was a really bad, dumb guy, and the life I used to have was gone.

Not only would this make me more depressed. This kind of thinking was seriously getting in the way of getting better. Not only did the stress make me want to score, but it got right in the way of me being able to start putting my life back together.

I learned this lesson going to my first group therapy program. There were about a dozen guys there, who'd all been there before. My first thought was that I was in the wrong place. I was nothing like these guys. I went to university. I had a $100K salary. And I'd neve been in jail.

But as we went around the group for check in, it hit me like a brick. Sure we might all look different, but the stories that every shared - stealing from family, maxing out credit cards, taking 20 minutes to go grab milk - sounded almost exactly like mine. And over the next few weeks, I heard the same stories from lifetime criminals to retail clerks to accounts and company execs.

You are not alone. You might think you're the worst guy in the world for what you did, but someone out there has done the same, or worse. You can make $8/hour or $350K a year. All the stories are the same.

You have company. Your are not alone. And bad behaviour doesn't make you a bad person.