FFS Student, Josh K., Shares About Some of His Struggles in Life and the Experience He Had After Enrolling at FFS
By Josh K.
To preface, I would like to thank The Family Times staff for the opportunity to share my story through the newspaper. I have never been very good at sharing and opening up to other people. In fact, when it comes to being vulnerable I’m a nervous wreck. I’ve always had a much easier time expressing my thoughts and feelings through my writing. Also, before I begin I wanted to say that my story involves only nine or ten months of drug and alcohol abuse. I never experienced serious drug or alcohol dependency, nor did I ever “hit bottom” while drinking and drugging. However, I believe I am an alcoholic and a drug addict because I recognize within myself the phenomenon of craving. So with that, I’ll begin.
My story really begins with my relationship to my father. I don’t know how to explain it, but my dad was my hero. He was larger than life in my eyes. He was the high school all-star at every sport he tried (football, wrestling, baseball, etc.). He was a former Navy man, and he was the owner of a bar and restaurant. He was also an alcoholic.
When I was 11 years old my dad got very sick and was taken to the hospital. I didn’t know about his alcoholism because I never saw him drink. He was sober for my entire life up until that time. I remember never thinking much of his hospitalization because, after all, he was my hero and nothing could touch him. It just didn’t make any sense to me.
The last time I saw my dad alive was February 19, 2003. When I walked into his hospital room to say my last goodbyes, he was lying unconscious on his bed and his body was completely yellow from jaundice. He was twitching and writhing in pain. He had blue and purple bruises the size of baseballs all over his body. I remember running to the bathroom, locking myself inside and liquefying with tears. My system was completely shocked; I couldn’t handle the sight of my dad, my hero, reduced to that broken, dying man lying on the bed. His liver failed and he died early the next morning.
I was told that I needed to mourn but I didn’t want to. I was told I needed to be strong for my mom, so I shut everything inside of me and refused to cry or express my pain.
For me, middle school was absolute hell. I was incredibly awkward and shy. I wanted nothing more than to fit in somewhere, but no one would have me. I wanted to be popular, like my brother. My brother, Will, had all the athletic ability and popularity that my dad had and that I wanted so badly, but instead of being cool, I was bullied throughout middle school.
I never felt like I belonged anywhere. I thought that if the real Josh, the sensitive, open and honest Josh, wasn’t good enough to accept, then I didn’t want to be him. I developed a charming personality and a good sense of humor to try and collect friends like trophies…to try and find someone, some group that would love me and accept me. I never did.
All the while I grew up in a tight- knit community. I knew what was right and I was absolutely terrified to do what was wrong. I was the hero, the young man that parents and teachers loved. I had a good collection of “friends” (people I managed to entertain), and all of my parents’ friends couldn’t praise me enough.
I had my first drink when I was a freshman in high school. I had gone on a school trip to Europe with my chorus and I was incredibly nervous, being one of the only under-classmen. I wanted nothing more than acceptance. I got drunk for the first time with that same group in a hotel in Prague. I remember every thought and feeling I had that night. The minute I began drinking all of my fears and insecurities disappeared like magic.
After the trip was over, I was sober again and back in the States, and life was back to normal; normal fears and insecurities, normal high school popularity contests…I hated it. I only drank a handful of times (maybe a few handfuls) from the first time I drank in my freshman year until I began to drink heavily in my senior year. I was insecure, fearful, and resentful towards everyone. However, I knew the line and I was much too afraid to cross it. After all, I went to church, I loved my family, and I believed in God. Why should I have any reason to drink?
Although at first I didn’t make it a point to look for a drink, it did occasionally find me, and when it did I could never resist it. I had experienced the phenomenon of craving and I was never more confused. I felt horribly guilty about my cravings and I could never talk to anyone about them.
After three years of suppressing the craving, the dark cloud hovering over my head that had been gathering strength and momentum, burst. I stopped caring about rules, morals, people, God, and my family. I drank and used drugs whenever I wanted to, I slept around, I lied and cheated to stay out of trouble. I didn’t care about how much I hurt my mother with disrespect or how much I hated and used everyone around me.
I never hit my bottom, but my family certainly did. I came to The Family Foundation School and I was a mess. I was what Terry McCarthy calls “a walking resentment.” But thankfully my 18th birthday rolled around less than a month after I arrived and I was forced to make the first adult decision of my life: to stay and live, or to leave and die. I chose to stay because I was afraid of death and I began to try the program because I was tired of being miserable. The last thing I wanted was sobriety. None of my problems went away immediately, but all I had to do was turn myself in the direction of God and allow him to work in me. I simply realized I was drowning and grabbed onto the live-preserver that was thrown to me.
I have learned more about myself in the past seven months than I have in my entire life, simply because I was open to God and to what the program had to offer. Through AA I have found the missing puzzle piece to my life, and I now have the tools to live healthily and to my fullest potential. I am truly happy for the first time in a long time.
