Stories of Addiction

Carlos, 45, grew up in the East Bay and Northern California. In his teenage years, after numerous Grateful Dead shows and experimentation with using and selling psychedelics, he was eventually consumed by alcoholism and trapped in a cycle of relapse brought about by cannabis use and his drinking. This is the story of how he came to arrive at the Gault House SLE, and what his hope and inspiration for recovery look like today. He joi...

Jeff K’s best times with drugs consisted of hiking trips where he and his friends went hunting for psychedelic mushrooms. He remembers it as a fun experience of connecting with friends, something that he didn’t to come down from. But then there’s the flip side. As Jeff progressed into alcoholism and meth addiction, he started to struggle in leading a decent life and cultivating fulfilling relationships. There were times he wanted t...

Elijah is a 26-year-old Oregonian who began smoking pot as a sophomore in high school. He soon began drinking and eventually turned to cocaine which took over his life. Unable to hold onto a job and grappling with mental health concerns, he is newly sober (13 days at the time of recording) and a resident at the Gault Street Sober Living Environment. He has never been to a treatment facility and is determined to hold onto his mental...

Robert is a 61-year-old man from Southern California and a current resident of the Gault Street House Sober Living Environment. The son of alcoholic parents, he picked up his first drink at only ten years old, malnourished, afraid, and seeking an escape. His drinking led to cocaine use and jail, and finally a desire to free himself from the misery of addiction. He has been struggling towards sobriety for a long time and has renewed...

Losing a loved one at a young age and having to grow up in an abusive environment can take its turn for the worse. With this kind of background, Dave, a client of The Gault House Sober Living Environment in Santa Cruz, California, eventually turned to marijuana, LSD, and meth at age fourteen. Spinning out of control, he later progressed to full-blown heroin addiction. Dave shares his entire story of addiction and recovery and the t...

Everybody has a chance at a better life, even when that chance means reforming your life in prison. In this episode, Paul Noddings interviews Tommy who is a 43-year-old male from the Hayward area of San Francisco Bay. Tommy started using crystal meth at age 13 and was soon living a within-the-gang lifestyle. This led to a long period in prison which led to a desire to experience a different lifestyle. Tommy’s road to healing and re...

The great Nelson Mandela once said, “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.” This quote strongly applies to how Billy made his way through constant terror from bullies growing up. Having started weed at age eleven, he progressed to booze and drugs thereafter. In this episode, Billy shares his life story from childhood to present day, going to Genesis House, finding...

Dysfunctional family life tends to manifest for some people into addiction. Having learned he was adopted at a very young age, J.J. has since tagged himself as different from everybody else. He then spiraled into his story of addiction, beginning at 14 years old. A client at The Gault House Sober Living Environment, J.J. is on his recovery from his drug of choice, alcohol, along with meth. He shares his story with us on how he went...

Luke had very little structure in his early teens. Smoking weed occasionally at eleven years old led to smoking pot heavily at thirteen. Luke is a big, strong, young man who was a stud on the football field. A broken arm introduced him to pain pills, which lead to heroin and then crack. He could not get off the drug train and would openly smoke crack on the Bart train system in San Francisco. A month in rehab would give his body a ...

Katie was an athletic teenager, winning a national championship for springboard diving. A back injury led to too much idle time and Katie used that time to party, smoke weeds and drink beer. A car accident at age 21 added more idle time and heavier use of drugs and alcohol but then Katie met her husband and the two of them got sober, got married, bought a house and had the first of their two boys. Katie started drinking "socially" ...

Heather had ambitions of becoming a doctor. However, too much alcohol caused her to redirect her goals towards becoming a paramedic. After several years as a paramedic, Heather became a firefighter where she handled many horrific calls. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder crept up on Heather. With the Fire Departments being generally a heavy drinking “boys club,” Heather soon after joined into the drinking and then added cocaine by her ...

Whitney is a very attractive, slim, blonde, blue-eyed, white woman; not the typical look associated with severe drug addiction. Whitney had her wisdom teeth removed as a teenager and received Vicodin for the pain. This was her first abuse of opiate drugs and it led her to heroin and meth. For most of the past five years, Whitney has been homeless, living on the streets of Santa Cruz, California. Her addiction caused her to lose sev...

Hayley was adopted as a baby to loving and caring parents. She did not party in high school; her early adulthood started well. At the age of 23, Hayley was awarded a court settlement after a car accident, and with the money she bought a home. This allowed her to live alone and to hide the volume and frequency of her drinking. Even her boyfriend didn't know she was doing cocaine so she could drink more alcohol. Hayley's downward spi...

Mike started using alcohol at age fifteen and progressed quickly to ecstasy, cocaine, norco, roxy and heroin. Mike was expelled from high school two months before graduation for selling marijuana cookies at school. After this, Mike sold loads of drugs to fund his own drug habit. He got into debt selling drugs and he felt sick every morning. This caused him to consider recovery. Now he is three months clean. He seems solid in his re...

Michelle is a single woman aged 29. Her parents did not provide a good environment for her and her siblings growing up. At age eleven, Michelle's uncle sexually molested her and used guilt to keep her quiet. Michelle was in denial that she had a problem with alcohol for a long time, until she had literally spent all her money on alcohol and had no source of income to buy more alcohol. Her honesty in discussing her journey is except...