Jim’s Story

Recovery Triumph: Crack Cocaine and Cigarettes

I quit cigarettes after 26 years, and I stopped getting high from crack cocaine after six years. Neither was easy to do. Even so, I don’t think I’m a hero for telling why or how I recovered. It’s more of a duty I owe the community.

I quit crack first. I kept doing a geographical cure. When I would get to a new place, I would tell everyone that I didn’t get high or use drugs. I would also find things to do when I wasn’t working–fishing, swimming, anything that could keep me from thinking about getting high.

I found that I would be okay as long as I didn’t have money. When I got paid, or was about to be paid, I couldn’t think of anything but buying crack. It was vital for me to pay my bills and get rid of any extra money as fast as possible until I could be away from crack long enough to handle small sums–usually less than seven dollars. Soon I was able to keep twenty dollars in my pocket at a time, then more. But I had to treat myself like a baby. A baby doesn’t start out eating steak and eggs. It has to learn to do things slowly, as did I, all over again.

For me, Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings felt like self-hypnosis. You tell yourself that all you are is a crackhead or whatever and you say it to everyone, putting yourself down, making yourself feel low, when what you really need to do is build your self-esteem. You need to feel, I can beat this! I’m not just a crackhead. I’m a decent person.

It took me a couple of years but I beat crack. I refused to be defeated by something so small I could hold it in the palm of my hand. Quitting cigarettes was easier than quitting crack. I learned that if I wanted to quit an addiction, I had to want to quit. My girlfriend at the time–now my wife–told me she wouldn’t marry me if I continued to smoke cigarettes. I wanted to marry her more than I wanted to smoke. Love–isn’t it great? I learned to love myself more than these addictions.

—Jim