Dear Alcoholic, It’s 6:45 am Saturday, August 11, 2018. As I write this, I’m surrounded by alcoholics and addicts in various stages of denial and recovery. 49 of them to be exact. No, I’m not at a meeting. I’m in Promontory CF, Draper Prison. This is the ConQuest drug and alcohol program, and I’m in recovery. I’m 42-years-old; from the Bronx, New York; and am totally sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I’m here on a 1-15 year sentence for identity fraud, from 2015. I had a chance on probation and blew that, too! How, pray tell, does this happen to an extremely well-educated individual? (I had no clue!) Now I have a clue! It’s a hard pill to swallow as well.

I’ve been in and out of recovery for 20 years. I began my career as a drunk in my mid-teens, and ¾ through an 8-year army stint I already had 2 DWIs under my belt but weaseled my way from convictions. In 18 years of back and forth in the rooms (sometimes with a year or two sober) I still was in a relapse state of being. Why? I did my Steps, worked coffee commitments and went to minimum 3 meetings per week!! What was my problem? I didn’t have a clue! Now I look back and with arrests for dumb stuff in six (6) states all alcohol or drug related, I did some soul searching, and in 2016 it finally clicked!!

Alcoholism was a symptom of something much deeper inside me. Much more painful. Much, much darker.

My early childhood (0-10) was very traumatic for me. Raised in the Bronx in a virtual warzone in the ‘70s and ‘80s, I could not trust my environment and the people in it. Especially my very sick family. I never dealt with what I experienced and the developmental milestones were never achieved. I paid a hard price; truly I did. In 2016, having done a searching and fearless inventory I resolved some very real pain and conflicts I still had. I work my Steps daily, and our Heavenly Father gave me (The Holy Ghost) the power I needed to persevere. I’d like my fellow alcoholics to know I love you, am sorry for my trespasses, and I pray for your lives and souls diligently and believe in our unity, indivisible, with Liberty from Bondage under God!

~Nicholas K.