Wow Mike, I had no idea you had done so well. Your story is quite inspirational! My story is more like a cross between Arnie's and Jeff. Thanks to both of you guys for opening the door for me. I've had various degrees of success and failure over the past 20 years. At one point had more money than God and at another was in a State Mental Hospital for commiting suicide. I was at that "bottom" when I first found the StraightSurvivors messageboard. I was visitor number 15 or something. Kathy made me feel so comfortable at a time of terror as the memories of Straight began to flood my mind. I learned about Dissociative Amnesia and why I had lost so much memory. My life has been filled with death and tragedy since I was 12 when I watched my father take his last breaths under the wreckage of a Cessna Airplane. My Grandfather and Aunt died later that year, then my mother slowly died of cancer, my grandmother later on and...just as I was healing at about 28; My sister was kidnapped from her suburban home, raped and murdered for the PIN number on her Gold card. I medicated and sedated myself heavily for the next 5 years. Nearly got my face blown off in a chemical explosion which sent me to the burn unit and 7 months of quarantine while my skin grew back. I became a champion in commercial real estate; Development, rezoning, assembling large tracts of land for shopping center developers and then pain and addiction caught up with me. I bought a farm, quit my job with plans to restore a herd of musclecars I had accumulated. I didn't. I stayed high or drunk most of the time and thoroughly damaged my reputation. Alone and completely isolated, with too much money, drugs, and pain I didn't know how to process, I started remembering Straight. That didn't help. I started out with rage and anger. I heard of all those who didn't make it. Eventually, I too, tried to "off myself" (in Ginger's words). The police found me unconcious in my truck in the woods with a garden hose in the exhaust pipe. When I got a little better, I felt compelled to tell everyone on the messageboard that I almost got added the memoriam page. I believed that it was important for some reason. Ever since I haven't felt very included. Several emails went back and forth where they forgot to take me off of the email list and I got to read about how I was a whacko, unstable, and dangerous. Shortly after that I found NA and AA. I've been clean & sober for 17 months today. Worked for a year a job to re-learn some disapline, and am now selling all those classic cars cars and property to pay for medical school. I've got about 2 more years to complete Bio-chemistry and then I'm going to Harvard Medical School for my MD. Sure, I won't finish my residency until I'm 47. I am finally doing what I want to do, and living up to my own potential. I feel better than I ever have, and am in better physical health than ever. I do have rather severe case of rheumatoid arthritis but sobriety qualifies me for a special treatment that keeps it in remission. I'm always afraid to say anything about recovery but, it's been great for me. And, it is so very different from Straight. Straight wasn't about recovery, perhaps that was the initial intention, but it didn't stay that way.
Being connected to others who shared that experience has been especially beneficial for me. That's why I put time into the StraightInc.com site, to allow others the benefits of contact. Some people hold special places in my memory, and finding them has been awesome. I guess I mostly want to help anyone I can avoid the pain I've been through. My bitterness towards Straight has run its course. Now I just see it for what it was. I was there when I needed grief counseling, not incarceration. After I left I stayed straight for 2 years, had a 4.0 in college until my mother died, then started drinking. My addiction took over only after years of unresolved pain and grief.
Reid Martin
StraightWebMastR@AOL.com
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