Looking back on your life - could tell me when you think you first developed a problem with addiction?
I think - as I look back at it now - when I was - five years old - my mother and father when they went to see my teacher - grade one or kindergarten teacher. I know that - my mother - then she came home in tears and - I was in trouble and I didn’t know what I was in trouble for - but - my mother was heartbroken because her little angel she’d just been told by the teacher that he was a menace to the classroom and something had to be done it and - they went to a - well they made an appointment and they went to my family doctor and he prescribed a medication for me to control the way I acted and felt - and I - so I look back on it now - that - that was the start of - a cycle of trying to please my parents - being in trouble and not knowing why I was in trouble. And - I think it was at that stage - that point in my life - that the moment they started to medicate me for my behavior and the way I felt - to change that was the start of bad things to come.

Do you now have any idea what sort of things your teacher was concerned about?
Apparently I was disruptive - and that this was a lot younger and - disruptive and couldn’t sit still and - would burst out and - would say things that wasn’t supposed to. And I know I was never ever in - did anything major but it was just all the little things that added up. And - this nice teacher - that I know that she was an elderly teacher - and I guess she just - that wasn’t - - that wasn’t just something she was going to tolerate. And - that was a behavior that - my mother accepted at home and she didn’t feel that it was in any shape and form a problem with me - because I was an angel in her eyes basically but - in a classroom setting - that just wasn’t - just wasn’t going to be accepted.

And do you remember anything the medication that was prescribed? Like taking it or how it made you feel?
I know that now - they told me the doctor prescribed was phenobarbital - is what they prescribed and I know I felt - I was sort of tired and bagged out all the time - just a feeling I didn’t like and I guess I complained so much to my mother that they finally took me off the medication. I don’t really recall the withdrawal or anything I went through and I don’t really remember that part of it - now but - I think I was on the medication for probably a no more than year or so - but just that year in school I know for sure I was. I think that it affected the way that I - it took away any of the life - the spunk I had in me is what my mother thought that just I was myself and she just didn’t want me to be like that so I think I remember when she took me off the medication.      

How is it - or why is it you relate that to the start of your addiction?
Why is because - that - my whole I - spent trying to please people and I know that I spent - that I was always in trouble for not being - not being able to control myself - and doing things that didn't make people happy - and I always wanted to please people - people pleaser. It was the start of living two lives - and I spent my whole addiction trying to live not two lives - but many lives - and that's why I sort of associate with that - with the addiction. Being two different people. My whole life has been spent trying to be somebody I'm not.

So if I'm hearing right - that was the first moment that you remember when it occurred to you that somebody thought there was something wrong with you?
Yes - yes - and I didn't know what it was. I just knew I was a bad person and I had to become good. It was my actions that was bad - and not knowing what they were - but I just knew that I was a bad person and I had to become good. And I've learned in recovery that it's - I'm a sick person that has to get well.

These events that you've just be describing - do you think that you learned anything from it - either healthy learnings or learnings that turned into a problem for you? How did these events affect you as the years went on?
Well - I think that I learned that I need to be myself. I - the actions that I do I need to be responsible for. And it's not anybody else's responsibility to look after my recovery. It's my responsibility to look after my recovery. It's my responsibility to look after myself - and to do what I need to do in my recovery. That through using drugs and alcohol - it's not a way to control my thoughts and my feelings or my actions. I have to be who I am - and just not jump out at things and lash out at things like I've always done. I have to slow down and maybe think about what I'm doing and saying - and if I do say something wrong I have to be responsible for it.

And if I said something that offends somebody - I have to make amends for it as soon as possible - and that type of thing. I know that it's okay that I say things that may be wrong or do offend people. I know that I deliberately wouldn't do it on purpose - it's just that we do things that - for whatever reason - offend other people - and - if that wasn't my intent - you know - I can apologize for it. Now I knows there's cases that  - you know - if people accept my apology that's fine - and if they don't well that's fine too. But - at least I have to do my part. I guess that's where I'm coming from as far as learning how to work my program.

Do you remember the first time you took something or used something you liked of had fun with?
I remember my first drink like it was yesterday. I remember the feeling of it going down - the way I felt - the way I acted. All of a sudden - I had arrived. I was a big person. I was like - an adult. A grown up. One drink had made me an adult. I was drinking with some - I was thirteen at the time - and I was drinking with guys who were probably - four or five guys probably 18 to 22 area. And I just - I was one of the adults now. I'd grown up. From the time I had the first beer to the last beer. And I knew exactly where I was - how many I drank. I remember boasting the next day about having twenty beers - the truth was probably four or five and I was acting like I was all slobbery drunk. And all of a sudden at the end of my drinking - it was always Oh - I just had two. and trying to hide the way I felt. At that time though - it was lying about how much I drank till I could be a big person - an adult and pretend. It was a game.

Do you have any idea why that's such a powerful memory?
Yeah - I just felt that I could just do anything or be anybody. It just - the feelings of acceptance - with them other guys - and being a part of that group of guys - and fitting in so well. I'd just always felt all my life that I just didn't fit in - and I had these strong feelings of being one of the group - just being a big person. It's funny though that I have a hard time remembering my wedding - and stuff like that - but I can remember that first drink - that first day with them guys - them four guys - the four twenty year olds or whatever - and that I have trouble remembering - major things in my life - but that's just so vivid to me.

Well it sounds like it was a major thing in your life.
Yeah - it was. It really was one of the most - and as I look back on the highlight reels of my lifetime - they're all associated with with drinking and drugging. They're all - I remember the first day being on the train - and finally if you spent five dollars for a submarine sandwich on a Sunday you could get beer - and that was - we took a train from Toronto to London - and we were partying all the way back from Toronto to London. We got here - we had arrived - and we had a couple of guys with the guitars and the mouth organ - and we were going to stay on the train and go all the way to Windsor and then come back because we were having such a good time. But that's just like - one of the highlights of my life - being able to drink on a Sunday.

My life's full of things like that. Highlights where it's all associated with drinking. I remember one time there was a beer strike coming up - and there was a fellow - Brad - a friend of mine was living with me. He also had a problem - self admitted alcoholic - as his father was and my father was. And I suppose we were in our twenties. We heard about the beer strike on a Friday - and I'd come home with seven or eight cases of beer - and sure enough he showed up home from work with six or seven cases of beer. And so we were set for the beer strike - well - the beer strike never actually happened - which was a good thing because all the booze was gone by Monday. That was sort of typical of my drinking and drugging - was like until it was gone. Just drink it like there was no tomorrow.

Do you have a sense what it was doing for you?
What it was doing for me was just making me fit in - and just be a part of a - it gave me whisky knowledge - so much knowledge in a bottle of whiskey. At the end of drinking a bottle of whiskey - I could give you advice on anything from brain surgery to politics to religion. It was just - the amount of knowledge - it was unblievable. I was an expert on everything. And I really knew nothing about anything - but I just felt like I knew more than anybody else. I just had to keep this facade up that I did know more than I really knew - 'cause I didn't want anybody to find out. But the booze - I just felt like I was - better than -  better looking - better dancer - could sing like a bird - could play pool better. But it was totally not true.

So it was important to you obviously that you felt part of people - and felt confident and maybe even felt one-up on people - and alcohol helped you keep that facade up and helped you sort of fix that feeling in you?
Yes - it did.

So it met a need for it?
Yeah - it sure did. It filled a void in my life - a huge void in my life that felt like it was alway missing. I always felt like there was something missing in my life. It felt like when they were passing out the instructions on how to live life and cope with life that I called in sick that day. I just never got the rules for that - I just missed out on that sometime. I felt like I just missed out on something. Everybody knew more than I knew. Everybody looked better than I - felt better than I did. I always compared my insides with everybody's outsides. How I felt was - everybody looked better than I felt.

And alcohol fixed that?
It sure did.

When was the first time you recall that it came back and bit you - or you had some problem come into your life as a result of drinking?
I remember being in a car - my first car accident - I was sixteen. I guess there had been several things. I quit school at fourteen - because I wanted to go into a career with the horse business - and that way I could be on my own and I could do what I wanted to do with no responsibilities and drink when I wanted to drink. But I was in my first car accident and - actually the fellow that - the arresting officer - it was my fault. I was driving a hundred miles an hour down a thirty mile an hour zone in London here and hit four cars and basically cut my car in half - and came out of that without a scratch. And jumped out of the car - started hollering at one - the guy that I hit originally - sucker punching him because it was his fault obviously.

I remember telling them it was obviously his fault - he was on my side of the road - when it was on the other side. I was unable at that particular time - the officer that - the arresting officer drove us around - me and my friend for forty-five minutes to an hour - and took us down to the cop shop. And by then too much time had slipped by to do the breathalyzer. That was a loophole in the law that they had to do it within a certain amount of time. That had slipped by so there were no charges laid there. That just - another time where I didn't have to pay for my actions. I'd gotten away with it again. Enabled me to continue on with my drinking.

So you're saying even before that you'd already had other problems in your life from drinking?
Oh absolutely. It started right off the start. By the time I was sixteen I was a full blown alcoholic. I was drinking daily - smoking marijuana daily. I remember right back then my father being a self-admitted alcoholic. He had quit drinking. I remember thinking at that time - "I know that if I continue like this - alcohol is going to be a problem for me. I don't really know what an alcoholic is - but I know that I'm not one. But if I continue to drink and act the way I'm acting - someday I may become one". But I certainly knew than an alcoholic was something I wasn't. But I needed to look out for - it might walk up and bite me.

So how did you know at the time that you weren't an alcoholic?
I don't know. I  know that now - 'cause of the fact that I was - but at the time I just was comparing it. I didn't know what it was - but I knew my dad was. He used to do things when I wasn't there. It caused arguments and problems - and I suppose I was - in and around that time - I just wasn't seeing what was going on in the household - the things that he was doing. I know there was an article - my brother and I - we played in a hockey tournament in Goderich. It's called the Silver Stick - we were both pretty good hockey players.

My father and him - the president of the Ontario Minor Hockey League had sat in the bar in the afternoon - and they ended up - my dad didn't - they went back to the rink and they didn't like the call - and my dad chasing the referee around the rink - so that made the headlines in the paper. So - stuff like that. So - you know - I guess I thought there must have been a lot more to it than that. That certainly didn't make him an alcoholic. That was just some of the things that he did when he drank. But I knew I didn't do stuff like that - so I certainly wasn't that bad yet - so I couldn't be an alcoholic - 'cause that's somebody - probably - that does worse things than I was doing.

So you saw yourself as a little different than the rest of those people who had problems from drinking?
I knew that I - my problem was that I just drank too much - that I just wanted the problems to go away. I didn't want to quit drinking or anything. I just wanted the negative things that happened in my life to go away. I just knew that my problem was that I just drank too much. I could quit at any time I wanted to - of course - and I didn't drink every single day. I could take a day off and it didn't bother me. So as long as I could take a day off from drinking I wasn't an alcoholic. That's what I figured in my mind - that an alcoholic was somebody that had to drink every single day - and if they didn't drink one day they looked like people on TV did - or the people that were underneath the bridge - when they shook and had a little trenchcoat and lived under a bridge.

And that was really what I thought an alcoholic was even though my father was one. I didn't really - I had no idea what it was. I just had - I had the impression like it was - the alcoholic that we seen on TV. That's what I thought an alcoholic was. I didn't realize it's not how much you drink - it's what it does to you. As I look back - I know for a fact I might have been an alcoholic even before I took my first drink. I just needed the alcohol to make me one.

What makes you say that? Where does that come from?
Just the way of thinking I always had. Anything that gave me pleasure of - I wanted more of. I just could not get enough of it - no matter what it was - I needed more - more. more. more! And I think that's my addiction - my addiction is more. I just - at no time did know how to have any balance toward anything. I remember when I was a kid I broke out from head to toe in a rash. My mother had made me a tomato sandwich - and I thought I really liked tomato sandwiches. For some reason - three times a day I had to have tomato sandwiches no matter - even though she didn't want me to - she wanted me to have nice balanced meals - that's all I would eat - when I broke out in a severe rash from all the tomatoes I'd eaten.

Well that's just how I was on anything. I just went and had it like a lunatic. I just had to have more and more until there was - bad things that would happen. Bad things had to happen for me to quit. I never really wanted to stop anything on my own. I just never fit in. I just always felt like a square peg - trying to get into a round hole. I just always felt alone in a crowd. I spent my whole life - if I was sitting on the north side of the street - I felt like if I'd only sat on the south side of the street things would have been different. I'd missed out on something. If I should have been - so I couldn't enjoy the moment - because I was always thinking that if only I'd have been somewhere else. If only I'd have been sitting somewhere else - things would have been better. I'd missed out on something.  That's just sort of how I always lived my life.

So it sounds like in the beginning alcohol and cannabis helped you with things. You started to run into some problems. What other sort of problems did drugs bring into your life?
Well - I got married when I was eighteen. Besides the car crashes and the stuff that went on like that - my wife - she was going to split up with me unless I quit doing drugs. So I promised her No more drugs - but that didn't count for - I could still smoke marijuana - that wasn't drugs. As long as I didn't do the crazy acid and all that crazines - hard drugs - then everything was fine. I went for a number of years where it was just drinking and the marijuana.

The drinking and the marijuana would make me tired - and I didn't like having to stop partying so I discovered - at an early age - I discovered amphetamines. That was the next thing I put into my arsenal was amphetamines. So I started to take pills to keep me awake - and the marijuana would make me tired but - calm me down. I got selled some stuff from ADD - so that fit in nicely with that. That helped with me being so hyper. But then I found at night time I couldn't go to sleep if I didn't have enough to drink or I'd eaten to many of them pills. So then I discovered I had to take sleeping pills at night - so I had pills to go to sleep with - I had pills to wake up to - and in a short time I had this problem going on. I had a pill for every - a pill - or a smoke - or a drink - for every occasion - for every feeling - for every ache - for every pain. That was the cycle that I started down.

Did that just seem normal to you at the time?
It didn't seem to be any problem whatsoever. It just - the only problems that I had was if I run out - or trying to find it. That was the problem. Having to wait for drug deals. Trying to live like a - by this time I'd had my son. So I had my wife - and son - and a business - and when working and just trying to run the business and everything - and try to keep everything so that - I wouldn't be found out. That was the difficult part. For a while I worked at a company - it was a grocery store. It was a wholesalers. My uncle was the manager - and he had to quit drinking. The assistant manager - he was an alcoholic - a full-fledged alcoholic. We ended up being partners in business and partners in crime. And so we had - in a short period we had it figured out for the money part of it looked after.

We needed money to be able to do all this drinking and partying - so we - had a system where we could sort of just steal the money. And that way our finances were looked over - and so that would enable us to continue very nicely without having to worry about the money at any time. Money was always there. This made it handy too - with my uncle keeping a sort of blind eye - 'cause him being my uncle. The assistant manager being my partner - and him being an alcoholic - and me being the manger trainee - well I was sort of third on the totem pole. And so I made my way into a pretty nice way of life there - with - avoided headaches - met quite a few connections by that time. So I had - as far as keeping the marijuana supply going - that was looked after. Enough for me and myself - and - of course I happen to have enough marijuana around to be the big shot and the big wheel - flash the money - and show how great I was with having a bag of weed and flash it around at all times. So I got to be a "ten cent millionaire". That was part of my life.

You haven't said the word - but you've mentioned pride quite a bit. Is pride something that fueled your addiction?
I was - I had such low self-esteem - I really did. No matter what I did. I was - when I was younger - I think I mentioned I was a pretty good hockey player. Well I sort of lied about that. I was very good. I was given - 1967 - I got a plaque from the mayor of the city for my outstanding achievements playing hockey that year. It was a gold plate - twenty-two karat gold plate. It was a centennial year - and we won the Canadian championship that year - was captain of the team and that. But I always felt that - I just felt like I didn't deserve this - I didn't deserve this. If they really found out what I was like - the wouldn't be giving this award. They'd be giving it to somebody else - because I didn't - anybody could have done what I did. They just didn't get the opportunity.

I just figured I was given the opportunity - and anybody else could have done exactly what I did. So it was - and the pride thing - it was just sort of a false pride. It wasn't really how I felt - but I - I didn't really like people giving me compliments - but I absolutely hated any type of criticism at all. I just could not handle criticism. I just flew off the handle. Almost as bad was getting compliments - 'cause I didn't feel like I deserved them. Another thing - was as far as athletics - as far as track and field - I won one year - at Labatt Park - the city championships - I was in five events and I won all five events. I set three records.

But the relay - I believe the relay was the other race - and I slipped and then we - I didn't win that one. That was the only event I didn't win. And I just remember feeling so - letting down everybody - I let down everybody that - I just felt so terrible - I couldn't even concentrate on anything that I had done well. It was just the pure frustration of letting down everybody. And I was like that about everything. I couldn't focus on any of the good things I did. It was just all the negative. It just overwhelmed me. With complete - I disgraced everybody - let everybody down. That's how I always felt about everything.

How did you deal with all that?
At the time - what I usually did was I would take it out on people that criticized me. I had an odd sort of last name. Anybody that made fun of me - they were going to feel the wrath of it. I was a bully. I attacked them. I beat them up. Anybody that would ever give me - any kind of criticism - they got beat up. I jumped out and people and I attacked them. That's how I sorta handled that.

And what about yourself? How did you deal with it within yourself?
I did a lot of crying. Spent all the time in my room. That's the only way I remember being. Just being withdrawn into myself. I don't really remember much about it - other than being angry - you know?

And through all this time that you're telling us about - you were drinking and/or using drugs pretty much every day?
Well - I started - at the time I had my first drink I was a chance drinker for about six months and was like any chance I had. And when I become fourteen I moved to - in the summer - it was the summer I was going to be fifteen. It was that summer where I was out on my own - and I could get into bars - then I was a daily drinker from that time on. I was full blown - right from the moment I could get into bars it was a daily thing.

So when was the first time that you saw this as the problem it was?
When I lost my first job - I guess. I was sixteen. I lost my first job - I was spending a lot of time - I just wasn't showing up when I was supposed to be showing up. I wasn't doing what I was supposed to do. And uh - I lost my first job of it. I guess was the first time I really had to pay a price.

Did you realize that at the time? That losing this job was related to drugs or alcohol?
My boss told me that was the reason. That was brought it to my attention.

How did you respond to that?
I just remember being a little shocked. That he would think that or know that.

Did you think anyone could see what was going on? Or nobody knew?
No. I was really surprised when he said that. It caught me off guard.

How did you first get into any sort of recovery?
Recovery started when I - like I said to you - my partner when I had the business - when I was working at National Grocers. I quit from National Grocers and went into the horse business full time - and I was training and driving horses. He lost his job there - and he got clean and sober just before he lost his job at National Grocers - and he ended up at the Ford Plant as a substance abuse representative. And I think my wife had called him - or whatever - we had had an argument and I tried to save face with my wife - a call was made to Dave anyway. And Dave came in and hooked me up and took me off to Westover Treatment Center.

When was that?
That was in 1987.

How old would you be then?
I was thirty - twenty-nine I think at the time - twenty-nine.

And that was the first time you'd gone to any sort of treatment?
I had gone to a few AA meetings. Actually I remember going to my first AA meeting. He'd come and pick me up and took me to a meeting. The Wilton Ave meeting. And I got there and there must have been twenty people there that I knew. And then I assumed that he had gotten ahold of everybody - these twenty people. And I assumed that he'd gotten ahold of them - and had them come to this meeting to get on my case - an intervention or something - to bug me about the way I was drinking. I totally thought that's what they were there for.

That was my ego. And it had nothing to do with that. These people that I knew over the years had gotten clean and sober and they were in AA - and they were they for themselves. I just - With my ego at that point I thought they were there for me - and I couldn't get out of there quick enough - really. It wasn't for me. As soon as I got bad enough - I thought maybe that was the place for me to go back to if I ever got that bad. But I remember thinking - what the heck are these people - he told everybody I was coming and that's why they were there.

And how old were you then?
I suppose I was twenty-five. Around twenty-five at the time.

So presumably someone had recommended you go there because there were some problems happening?
Yeah - well - like I say - you can't keep up a front forever. And the way I was drinking - I was drinking every change I - the problem was I was managing to hold everything together so as long as I could keep everything together there was no need for treatment. I didn't need it. I was going to work on time everyday. I was enjoying my work. I was just going and - when work was done I would start drinking - then. I was a very functional alcoholic or addict at that point. I was putting my job first. I think when it interfered with my job was when I realized - that something needed to be done. 'Cause it had started to interfere with my career.

And someone told you that or you started to realize it?
I think a little bit of both. A lot of it was to do with the fighting with my wife - and the arguing with my wife. -- My dad and mother -- this time and got in on the scene - my words that I'm straining for. They just seen the problem. They just got me on an off day where I realized that hey - something needs to be done. I need the crap to stop. I didn't want to stop drinking or drugging but I wanted the crap to stop - the problems to quit.

So - fair to say - both you and these other people saw the problems going on in your life - but they saw the problem as drinking and drugging - and you still weren't too convinced about that.
No - I knew it wasn't that. I just knew that I had to quit drinking as often or whatever I was. I needed a plan. My plan just wasn't working very well at that time.

How many accidents of any sort would you say you've had in your life - related to alcohol or drugs?
I think by the time I was eighteen I had crashed - I had my first car - it was three weeks old - I totalled it. I rolled it over drunk. Drunk - drunk - drunk. Rolled it. One - two - three. I'd totalled four cars by the time I was eighteen. I'd totalled four cars.

And any other accidents later in your life?
Several. I was either in a jackpot or getting out a jackpot my entire life. I was either in one or getting out of one. There was always a ticket that needed to be paid. Or there was always a court date coming up. Or there was always a legal bill that had to be paid. There was always something going on in my life. There was never a time where everything was smooth.

And during all this time it sounds like your teens and throughout your twenties - it never really clicked for you that all these problems were somehow connected to your drinking or drug use?
No. No.

How old were you did you say? Did you go to Westover?
Yup - I was twenty-nine - when I went to Westover.

What was that like?
Well - Dave picked me up that morning. The morning I was to go. It was a Monday morning. Westover was only one year old so it was in it's infancy as well. At that time you didn't have to be detoxed - or anything - you just went. Or at least that's what happened in my case. He picked me up early - seven o'clock on the Monday. On the way down to Westover - I heard on the news that a fella - such and such - had been in a fire - and I went "Oh-my-god - last night I sold him a couple of pills." and that's what had happened. I'd sold him a couple of sleeping pills and he had fallen asleep with a cigarette and burned his house down. And he was in it. He did survive it - as it may be. He did survive it - but later died from complications. He -

You heard this?
On the news. On the way to treatment. So I made arrangements with the fellow that was driving me to go home when he came back to London - to go to my house and flush these ten thousand pills down the toilet.

Ten thousand?
Tuinals. Ten thousand tuinals was what I had - and he had to flush down the toilet. And he had to put a bunch in flush - put a bunch in and flush - and that was another guilt I felt.

Sorry - I'm not sure if what you're saying is hearing this has shook you up and made you decide I gotta clear this out of the way?
Yeah - this was another thing. I was on my way to treatment - so I - and I was going to treatment because there was just so many things happening to me that were just - crap kept happening to me. I knew I wasn't an alcoholic or a drug addict - but I knew that I had to somehow control my drinking - and to put it - I had to - change my habits to some degree so that the problems would quit coming . There were just to many problems in my life.

And at this time you had ten thousand sleeping pills in your house?
Yes - yes. I had ten thousand Tuinal's in my house. And I also had - small amounts of personal drugs in my house that I had to clear out of course. All that stuff had to be cleared out of my house before I came home. So I told him where everything was and what had to be done - and he took it on his own to clean my house up for me. See - remembering I didn't want to get rid of anything. When I went there I had no intention of quitting because it wasn't a problem. So - I was just going to get everybody off my back.

When I got there it opened my eyes completely. I got there - I thought I was in - I wondered what the heck I had done here - But I found - I learned - I settled down. I settled in a little bit - and got to hear some good things - and started to identify with a lot of the things. I remember there was a girl there - I would call her Detox Debby was what I would call her. I'd call her that because she was in and out of detox - in and out of detox - in and out of treatment.

She told me that she'd been in treatment four times. And I was looking at her - looking down my nose at her like What kind of a person are you? You gotta have something wrong with you - you'd have to go through this more than one time. I knew that I would never have to go through this again - because I wasn't an idiot - and I'm smarter than that. This was only going to have to happen one time in my life. I'd learn from this. I'd never have to be back. Just looking down my nose at her like she was a lesser person and whatever. I certainly went down the same path if not worst than her.

This may be a good time to ask. How many different treatment centers have you been in your life?
Different? I've been to Homewood twice. I've been to Bellwood. I've been to Westover. Westover day program. I've been to Turning Point - stayed at Turning Point twice. I was in detox for stays of  - a week at a time for forty-five times. I went back on my record and got that checked out. So I've been there forty-five times. That's the times I was dead serious about my use and abuse and I was gonna change my life and I'd had enough. That was the times I'd hit my bottom.

Forty-five times? You'd hit your bottom?
Yes. I'd hit my bottom. That was it for me. I was done. I was never gonna use again. Forty-five times I went to detox for that. I certainly wouldn't go just for a day or two. I went there to change my life. I'd had enough.

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