S1:E10 – Brian C.

Hi, my name is Brian and I am a person in recovery.

A little bit about me . . .

I am a native Staten islander. I grew up mainly in West Brighton although my family moved at least 13 times before I entered the 7th grade.

My parents were hippies and yes, there was even a VW micro bus 🚌 … with peace signs which was parked out front for a while.

I am the middle child of five, two older brothers (Irish twins) and two younger sisters and then, there was me – a skinny little cross-eyed kid with a messed up last name basically fending for himself.

Life sucked!!!

Then I found out that if I took drugs and alcohol life sucked less, and that’s how it started.

I started dealing weed and moved on to selling other things, (…do the math…), needless to say I didn’t do well academically. After high school I went to work as a carpenter’s helper, got married, had a couple of kids and then, got divorced. Through it all, I was drinking and drugging the whole time.

I always tried to kill the pain, to find a solution to “my problem”, although I really didn’t what the problem was.

I’ve been in and out of recovery my entire adult life. Currently, I’m 56. I’ve been admitted over 30 times to detox’s, rehabs and psych wards hoping to find out what was wrong with me.

I’ve had many successes in life, but the self-sabotaging and falling apart, I never really hit rock bottom until the last time – I had to literally, lose everything to alcohol and drugs.

Thankfully, I’m sober now … but, it’s been one hell of a journey.

S1:E10 – Brian C. – The Lengths We Go to Before the Bitter End of “Rock Bottom” – 10/31/18 Show