Refresher: After Years of Drug Use and Months in Prison, Chad Is Now Clean and Sober!
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Get the details and your tickets now at drlaura.com slash event. That's drlaura.com slash event. Time now for a refresher from my Dr. Laura Call of the Day archives. Remember, you can hear my live radio program weekdays, 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Sirius XM Triumph 111.

Chad, welcome to the program. I understand you were an addict. Yes. I talked to you about six months ago about my nephew, and I've been wanting to call in because I always hear at this subject almost every day, and I thought it was a good time to call in. I'm 34. I'll be 35 in March, and I've been out of prison for two years. I'll be clean five years in March.

And I just was really bad on drugs. I was a billion. My parents never knew where I was. Texas, Ohio, Florida. I was going to pharmacies and all that. And when I got arrested, I had about $10,000 in my pocket. So, I mean, I was okay. I would try to make it. I would try to call on birthdays and things like that. So they were kind of forced to let go of me. And

And since I've been out, I've stayed local. I just closed on a dream house a month ago. I moved in in April. I take possession of the home. I finally bought a home. And about a month after that, my mom and sister will be able to come over and have a cookout at my house. I'm back in everybody's lives. I have trust of everybody. I work for a company that knows my past, and they've

I've got keys to companies that I can go in after hours and do my work. I'm a truck driver. And there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And I couldn't get clean for anybody else. They begged and begged me. They made deals with me. And it just didn't work. Why doesn't it work? When you're an addict, you don't know that you don't care about what you're doing to other people.

I didn't know that I didn't care about the outside world until now that I'm clean. And I'm like, who was that? I can't believe that I was ever in that position.

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I went to prison for dealing drugs in Ohio, and I got out early, and I thought I'd learned my lesson. I only did 15 months of a four-year sentence, and a year and a half, I was back in prison. I was back dealing, and aclonoxycontin was the drug that I was addicted to, about $800 a day worth. It was a deadly amount, but I'd built a tolerance over five years.

And went to prison again and finished out the four years, so it's 33 months, and that's how long it took me to be able to come back to reality and know that I don't think I'm in danger of every relapse. I don't associate with the same people. I block them when they try to contact me on Facebook.

Yeah, a different person. Can't even believe I ever was that person. So the key in what you said about parents not being able to make their kids change is that when you're an addict, you really don't care about anybody else.

And you don't know that you don't care. You think you care. You'll feel bad that day. You could cry. You could feel bad. But the next day, you want that pill or whatever drug it is, and you forget that you just went through this emotional happy time where everybody's hugging, plus you're promising that you're going to rehab. And for that hour, you really do think that you're going to do that. And then it disappears. Well, Chad, I'm really appreciative that you called. Dee, would you like to ask Chad anything based upon your kid making a turnaround also?

No, but he made... One of the points that he did make that I don't even know if he knew he made it was he was in prison. He was forced into sobriety and wasn't able to do drugs for a certain period of time. However...

As soon as he could get back into it, he did. So his mind, even though he was clear of drugs, he still hadn't made that click. He still hadn't made that change. And I'm just so proud of him and so happy for him. This is just a wonderful story, and it just warms my heart. And the fact that he didn't have...

have his mom making him soup, you know, to get him sober, you know, just goes to prove it was all him. It was all him. And I'm just, I'm so happy for him. Thanks. I appreciate that. Thank you, Chad. Appreciate your call very much. That was, I'm glad you pointed that out, Dee. That was very significant.

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