Tim is a big man with a calm and humble air. But he told a rather startling story about substance abuse, addiction and drug trafficking in Texas.
He started using marijuana and alcohol in high school but they were never used so much that they were problems. The drug that did bring him to his knees was methamphetamine, a drug that was destructive not only for him but for his entire home town in Texas.
He was in his early 20s when he first used methamphetamine. A friend brought the drug to his bachelor party. He didn’t touch it for another couple of years but then when he started using it again, his use became continuous.
He ran into the drug this time on an oil rig in West Texas. A salesman for the oil company, he was working long hours and was exhausted that night. A worker on the rig told him he had something that would wake Tim up — methamphetamine. That was the turning point for his whole life — for the worse.
Tim Lost Everything He Had
He went from being well off financially with good credit to losing everything he had. It got bad enough that the drug finally owned him.
Meth tore his whole family apart. His family was lost trying to understand what the problem was and how to handle it. He continued to use methamphetamine and started selling it in his community to finance his habit. He joined in with other groups who were helping distribute methamphetamine that was coming across the border from Mexico.
He avoided his family as much as possible but showed up for a few holidays. His mother would cry when he would nod off at dinner after not having slept for days. She would beg him to please stop using drugs but he wasn’t able to quit without help.
He tried using a short-term program to get off meth but in the end, it was not the program that he needed to help him. He commented that it did not give him hope to consider that he had a disease, he felt that it was his bad choices that had got him into trouble.
Finally, in 2010, after eight years of addiction, he was working on a ranch, building a fence and thinking over his life. He realized how much he needed to recover from the addiction, that nothing else was as important and nothing else would go right until he did. With the help of his family, he made his way to the Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation program.
He found that through the Narconon program, he could understand why he had made the bad choices that had got him into trouble and he could find his way out of those choices into a new sober life.
Tim Gives Back to Help Others After His Recovery
After his recovery, he knew he needed to give back, to help others recover from the same situation he had been through. He decided to stay at the Narconon center where he found recovery and use his understanding of addiction to help others win the battle.
“Recovery is all about regaining control of your own life,” he said. “I don’t believe that addiction is a disease. It’s a choice. The end result of addiction can only be one of three things: death, penitentiary or sobriety. By working here, I can help others find sobriety instead of the other two outcomes.”
Tim added that his new sobriety taught him how to be a better Christian. What he had learned about himself and the new discipline he gained “made me a more spiritual person,” he said.
If there is someone you want to help recover from addiction to drugs or alcohol, call anyone of our Narconon rehab centers and one of our counselors will assist you.