Growing up in 12-step a family
Cameron grew up with family members who struggled with alcoholism and addicts in what he calls a 12 step home. However, it took him awhile to see that his drinking had turned into a problem.
His dad used to tell him “Cameron, you’re screwed from the get go,” because alcoholism and addiction tend to be genetic. Not everyone who has alcoholics in his or her family becomes addicted themselves, but there is a much higher chance.
The first time his dad caught him smoking Marijuana he took it from him and flushed it down the toilette.
“He told me never to do it again, but of course, I wanted to do what I wanted to do and I didn’t care what anyone had to say about it,” Cameron said.
While Cameron often abused substances, like Cocaine, he ultimately preferred Alcohol.
“That was what I truly enjoyed – because I could drink a ton of it. I remember drinking about 21 beers in one night, puking at that point, and then kept going afterward. That was the insanity, and I thought that was normal.”
Cameron said that his mind was sick, he had no desire to do anything. But alcohol and drugs helped to make him more social.
“There was one thing that we all had in common, we all liked to drink and get high. However, I was pretty comfortable being by myself. I liked to isolate; I got my drugs I don’t want to share, but I want what everyone else has.”
Getting on the Right Track
One night Cameron was with the girl he was dating, they were using together and the cops here call out to the house on a noise complaint.
“I took the fall, got a ticket [then] I drove 45 minutes home. Let me remind you I’m just completely smashed … I don’t know how I got lucky. I get home I see my dad sitting outside smoking a cigarette … I light one up myself and he takes one look at me and says ‘Cameron, what’s wrong?’ I looked at him and I said I’m okay. Then he says ‘Cameron, you’re my son I know when something’s wrong’.”
And that’s the moment when Cameron’s dad told him something that would change the rest of his life.
He recalls his dad saying, “Cameron recovery has saved my life. Give it an honest 90 days and if you don’t see your life change, that drink and that frog will be out there waiting to kill you.”
That’s just what Cameron did.
“Jumping into recovery, I didn’t know what to expect, all I knew is that I didn’t want to live the way I was living anymore. I had to find out for myself that this was a problem.”
It took Cameron over a year of sobriety before he really admitted that he was an alcoholic.
“The difference with alcoholics is the alcoholic changes his goals to meet his behaviors, nonalcoholic changes his behaviors to meet his goals.”
Life in Recovery
“After I got sober I started experiencing some amazing things. I went to school, I started making something of myself. I got a solid running car, a roof over my head, food in my stomach … Life is great today.”
Cameron equates everything he has to his decision to get sober.
“Without recovery, I would absolutely be nothing. I found something that is bigger than myself, it took something bigger than me to fully get this program.”
