“I was visiting a friend in New York. By then I was like bones;...

“I was visiting a friend in New York. By then I was like bones; I was using all the time. And at some point she finally told me to leave. It was 5 AM. I had nothing but a hoodie, and it was negative degrees. In one hand was a bottle with 45 pills of Xanax. In the other was my cell phone, with my Mom’s contact open. It was either make the call or take the drugs. That’s when I got my higher power push. My friend came outside to see why I was still standing in front of her building. I said: ‘I’m talking to my Mom,’ and I quickly tapped the ‘call button.’ When she picked up the phone I broke down. I told her that she was right, and that I’d been using this whole time. I apologized for everything. She told me: ‘It’s ok, I just want to get you help.’ She bought me a flight home to California. It was five days of detox then straight to rehab. It’ll be nine months sober on Sunday. In a lot of ways I feel like a child again. I started using when I was twelve, so there’s a lot I never learned about being a person. I’m learning how to talk to people. I’m learning how to be bored. I’m going back to school; I never thought I’d be back in school again. My sister used to say that it never felt like she had a brother. But we’re closer now. That’s something to be proud of, for sure. Same thing with my parents. I used to never call my Mom. Or if I did, it was something negative: I need something, or I want something. Now I’ll just call her to see what she has going on. She tells me about her interior design stuff, or maybe a house that she’s trying to sell. I enjoy hearing about that stuff. My relationships feel real now. For the longest time, I wasn’t even a person. There was no Jake Black; it was just drugs. Now I’m actually a person. And that’s a big motivation to keep going to my meetings, and to keep picking up my phone. Because if I relapse now, it’s going to hurt everyone who’s gotten to know this side of me.”