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My name is Thomas and I am a gratefully recovering alcoholic and addict; my story is as follows. I am a 33 year old male who
was raised Irish Catholic in a middle-class two parent home. I probably do not fit the average person's mental image of an
alcoholic and drug addict, recovering or otherwise. I took my first alcoholic drink at age eight with a friend of mine who
was two years my senior; we intended to get drunk and we succeeded. My friend's parents found him shortly after we had drank,
but I managed to "handle" myself in a normal enough way to escape detection from my parents. From that point on,
I recall a strong feeling that I had something special that I could use whenever the time was right. I had a place I could
go to hide when big bad life was trying to hurt me, I could go when I was happy, whatever the reason was that took me there,
it was my place.
Following what I now know to be the natural course of addiction, the years went on as I relied on my special place that
I now went to more often. That special place was simply in an altered state of my perception of reality. My special place
was in oblivion, where I enjoyed the escapism. The substances I used were now simply a vehicle to my place of oblivion, of
distorted reality, which I found myself arriving at alone more and more frequently. Approaching my late twenties I found my
reality becoming increasingly dysfunctional, and my escape act becoming equally as difficult to achieve.
Soon, my altered reality was as painful as reality itself, after twenty plus years I had lost my special place, as well
as many things along the way. Looking to the past for the fun times that once were there, I traveled to my old neighborhood
to visit my friend who I first drank with. Sadly, I found that he and I had taken similar roads and that was all we had in
common. He and I spent a weekend in oblivion together and I returned home; neither of us were the people we once were. We
were literally killing ourselves to live. By the grace of my higher power, I found my way to what felt like the last rehabilitation
center I could face having endured several prior incidents of institutionalization.
The direction remained positive upon my discharge; after a few phone calls I made my way to the We Center Ministries in
Harrisburg, PA. I had to stop the pain I had caused myself and those who loved me, I had to try for real this time. I was
relieved to find others like myself at the We Center Ministries. All the men I met were recovering alcoholics and or addicts,
we could relate to one another. We came from places hundreds of miles apart, the disease of addiction reached us all.
I spent a little over one year at the We Center Ministries; my life was changed for ever from this experience. The executive
director, Wayne Eisenberg, was teaching us addicts how to live our lives drug and alcohol free. He counseled us, educated
us, and provided us with all that we needed; and a little more. I am now back at home and working on my fourth year clean
and sober. I am also accomplishing the things in my life that active addiction convinced me I could never do. I saw true brotherly
love for the first time in my life while at the We Center Ministries. Thanks to a special place and the special people that
were put in my life at that time; I have a good chance of making it through another day clean and sober.
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