The best thing I have ever done in my life was to get sober, which I did over 9 years. I was 12 years old I began drinking. At that time I also started smoking pot. I recognize now that I was trying to escape my adolescent feelings of inadequacy, and I wanted to fit in with my peers.

It was the early seventies and it appeared that everyone seemed to be getting high. I continued abusing for 24 years, until 1997, when I finally woke up one morning and realized that I couldn't do this anymore. I was very lucky, as bad karma was surrounding me everywhere I turned, however for some reason I was protected from any real harm. As I jokingly like to put it I was a medium bottom drunk. I lost my integrity and scruples, but got to keep my furniture.

I was earning very good money at the time, but a huge hole continued to build inside me, and I realized that I wasn't going to stop using. My drinking and pot smoking turned to cocaine and then eventually crack. I was sinking fast. It was by the grace of God, a good therapist, and a caring doctor, who finally helped me get on the track to sobriety.

I committed myself into joining an evening re-hab, and completed the program in a few months. The important key to remember that I have a disease which is called alcoholism. It is a fixation of the mind which affects our physical, emotional, and spiritual states.

If you are travelling the same path, my suggestion is to truly turn your "will" over to a higher power, the energy of the universe, God, whatever you choose to call it. If you can recognize that there is a power greater than yourself, you are half way home. It causes an immediate sense of humility allowing you get out of your ego, and step into some sense of freedom. It is a new path, and a new day.

For me a twelve step program truly worked. Everyone has their own thing that will help them from picking up a drink or a drug. Find what that is, and stick with it. It also helped me to be reading spiritual literature. Books such as "Conversations with God" and anything by Marianne Williamson really helped.