Greetings From Hell on Earth My Prison Cell I used drugs and alcohol for twteny years. From the time I was fourteen in 1984 until I was thirty-four in 2004. I tried to quit many times. In fact, I did quit many times, but I always eventually started back. I never could seem to accept the fact that pot and beer were harmful to me. They seemed like such innocuous substances. The drugs that always got me in trouble were the ones I knew were dangerous cocaine, opiates, crack, and pills. But I'm an addict. It wasn't the highly addictive nature of the drugs I was using that caused problems for me. It was the highly addictive nature of me. There's a beast that lives inside me. I don't know how he got there or where he came from or if I was born with him. I do know he has an insatiable appetite for ANY mood altering chemical. The more he is fed, the more he wants. If I feed this beast with pot or alcohol, he's going to gain enough strength to get what he really wants. If also discovered that if I'm craving any high at all, then something is not right anyway. Relapse happens a long time before I actually use. Why to I want, so badly, to escape from feeling normal? What feeling am I trying to escape from or replace with a better feeling? Why do I feel the need to get high in the first place? It's just for a feeling. Is it that important? What am I willing to sacrifice in order to feel good? Why can't I feel good without a chemical? I've sacrificed everything for that feeling. I traded everything away. I reached a point where life was not worth living without that feeling. And I've suffered the most horrendous consequences for it. I literally gave my life away. Sold my soul to the devil. For a feeling. Read my book Running Away From Me when it is released later this summer.