09/09/2021
This was written by Kevin Alter ~ The Addict's Diary
December 25th 2006, my mother and father walked into my bedroom, handed me a duffel bag, and said, “We’re not going to watch you kill yourself. You can’t live here anymore. You’re welcome back here when you have one year clean.” I was all of 18 years old, and every bit of a ju**ie. I was given exactly 12 minutes to pack up my belongings and off I went. On my way out the door, they had me hand over my keys to the house.
So began my journey of experiencing what drug addiction is really like. No more comfy beds and meals to hold me back from my bottoms. No more folded laundry, or warm showers to shield me from the harsh reality of what I had done to my life.
I hated them for it. I promised them they would pay. But deep down I knew the truth. We all do. I knew what I was and I knew where I was going. Trust is the first thing to go in the life of an addict. It was the first thing I ever lost. People just stopped trusting me. My parents were no different. They are realists. They knew what it was. They knew it wasn’t their fault. They never second-guessed themselves.
This weekend I visited them. Nowadays they insist I stay with them. They even force plans upon me. Scheduled dinners, brunches, whatever they can. I get it. They missed me. This is the real me. The one they always hoped would come back. My father left a key on the countertop this weekend. A simple text followed, “I made you a key. We love it when you come by. Don’t be a stranger.” To most people, this key is nothing more than a half-ounce two-inch piece of metal used to unlock doors. But not to me. To me this is everything. This is progress. This is the culmination of a 15-year journey. This is the end result of all those trips to central booking. All 29 of those intakes I did at treatment centers. All those halfway houses I lived in. This is for the hundreds of nights I slept in a train station. This is called trust. The easiest thing for a drug addict to lose. The hardest thing for us to earn back.
Kevin Alter