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In this excerpt from our book, The Craving Brain: Science, Spirituality, and the Road to Recovery, my coauthor James B. describes a critical turning point in his addiction. Losing a job because of drinking and/or other drug use is most often a sign of late-stage addiction. For James, this stage came while he was still in college.
When my boss called me into his office, I suspected he wanted to congratulate me for the timely way I had just pulled off a critical project. Or—not so good—maybe he wanted to give me another lecture on punctuality and living up to my potential.
When I walked in the door, he tossed some timesheets on his desk. They were the ones I had falsified to increase my overtime hours. I needed some extra money to pay a lawyer for a second DUI and a wrecked car.
“That’s it, James,” my boss said. “You have potential, but this time you’ve gone too far. I’m not willing to cut you any more slack. Get your stuff and get out.”
The only reason he wasn’t pressing charges, he added, was because I had worked enough hours in my current pay period to cover the funds I had fraudulently received.
No one looked at me as I gathered my things together and left the building. I felt like I was drowning in shame and embarrassment, and then panic set in. How would I make my rent and car payment, or maintain my supply of alcohol and cocaine?
My mind went into overdrive, calculating how to stay afloat. I could find another job. My roommate might advance me some cash. Maybe my parents would step up with another loan. Facing the most serious problem of my life, the simplest solution—to stop drinking and using—never crossed my mind.
It was the first day of a downhill slide that even now feels like someone else’s horror show. Without work or money, I began spending virtually every moment of my day either high or thinking about how to get there. I abandoned the pretense of balancing my party life and school, and my grades dropped lower than ever.
I couldn’t even pull it together for my final semester job search. When an engineering company flew me to its headquarters for a last round of interviews, for a great job that was all but in the bag, I stayed up the night before snorting cocaine. In the airport parking lot, I used again. On the way to my departure gate, I bought over-the-counter uppers to help me stay awake.
The interviews seemed to go well, and I was confident that no one had noticed my agitated state. So I couldn’t have been more surprised—and ashamed—when the company sent me a letter saying they were no longer interested in me.
From that point on, I gave up any hope of escaping the pull of alcohol and cocaine. I let myself fall into the fog of everyday drug use and quit going to class. Just 16 credit hours from graduation, I dropped out of school.
Feeling like a drowning man, I could hardly absorb what had happened to me. Five years earlier, I had arrived at college with high dreams and realistic hopes for a rewarding career. Now I was leaving college, not with a degree and a high-paying engineering job, but with massive debt—and an uncontrollable craving for both alcohol and cocaine.
