Below I share my journey around addiction and rising up out of the ashes and into the light of life.

I Don’t Know How to Live
Life is a Journey, Not a Destination

 As I stared from the back of the ambulance at the dark-colored SUV, which always seemed to show up when I was using cocaine, a voice from deep inside came like thunder, I don’t know how to live. This was very different from all the times before, desperate moments when I’d make a promise to something beyond me. Help me this time, and I swear I won’t do that again!

Growing up in a household filled with alcoholism and co-dependence was emotionally confusing, and when my parents divorced, I stopped believing in anything, especially in a loving God. We moved from a suburban Southern California home to a trailer park in Fresno. I began using alcohol and drugs to mask the pain and rage in me.

My first drug experience happened while walking along the beach with friends when one of them handed me a joint. I remember taking that first hit and it moving through my body. I immediately felt a sense of peace I hadn’t yet experienced in my life. My mind stopped spinning, and the pain and anger were gone. This was a fantastic feeling I would chase throughout my life.

I abused alcohol and drugs for the next decade to escape every good or bad feeling. I just did not want to feel anything. Cocaine found me through my sister’s boyfriend. We were going to a Supertramp concert that evening, and he asked if I would like a snort, and I said, “Of course, I would.” Three seconds after I snorted the white powder, I was rocketed into a state of euphoria. The concert started, and it was just Supertramp and me, and nothing else mattered. The lights were brighter, the sounds were mesmerizing, and my mind and body were one.

I entered military service when I was 19 in an attempt to quit using. That proved ineffective, as the urge to drink and use drugs was too strong. I was in pain, angry, and alone. I was discharged after three and a half years because of cocaine use.

I called in sick off base after spending three days snorting cocaine. I couldn’t speak that day, and my body was completely numb. The shower water did not even register on my body. I stumbled into the office and was immediately escorted to the base hospital for a urine test. As my manager walked with me after the test was complete, he asked me, “How much cocaine did you use?” I did not say anything because I did not want to admit to using, and I did not want to lie if the test returned positive. After a pause, he joked, “Your urine was so saturated with cocaine that the lab techs were getting high!”

In 1986, my family and friends staged an intervention. I went into a 28-day twelve-step hospital treatment program, and I was able to stay dry for 13 years. During that time, I held a steady job, got married, bought a house, and looked like I enjoyed being normal. Halfway through the marriage, I began to feel restless, irritable, and discontent with my life. I did not use anything, but I did have an affair. This was a form of addictive behavior because I was not taking care of the underlying issues causing my addiction.

The marriage ended in divorce, and I was laid off from the job I had for 11 years. I started taking prescription pain pills and illegal narcotics. For the next four years, I went through the darkest moments of my life up to that point in time. I was admitted to a psych ward because I was a danger to myself and others.

The first time I was admitted, the police came, and I was afraid and confused. They were somewhat friendly as they put me into handcuffs. Later, restrained in a straight jacket, I thought, I’ve really done it this time. As I sat alone in the rubber room, I thought, I need to get out of here. So,

I dislocated my left shoulder, took off the jacket, and ran out of the room down the hallway with the attendances chasing me.

The exit doors were in front of me, and so was freedom. I went through the doors, and the security officer standing there asked me, “Where are you going?”

I said, “Out of here.” He laughed and asked me to look and see how I was dressed. That’s when I realized I didn’t have any clothes on. They marched me back into the rubber room, put the straight-jacket on so tight I could hardly breathe, and strapped it to the table. After a few days, I was released and went back out into the world, still feeling the same pain, anger, and loneliness.

Two weeks later, I was back in the psych ward after chasing a woman in my apartment complex, thinking she was out to get me. The same police officers came to my door. They were again kind and asked if I would like to take a few days to get better, and I agreed. After several days, I was asked if I wanted to be admitted to another 12-step hospital treatment program, which I accepted. I was able to stay dry for another four years before I started using drugs and alcohol again.

I dealt with alcohol blackouts and abused prescription pain pills and cocaine during this time. In the summer of 2015, I found myself in the back of that ambulance in another blackout, having shot up three and a half grams of cocaine. That day started like any other day: pain pills to mend the pain and hangover from the day before, double Baileys and coffee to wake up, and a six-pack of beer to get ready to play golf.

I was tired of living that way, and my overdose was a cry for help. Later, a therapist would tell me, “There are other ways of asking for help.” Friends of mine found Summit Estate while I was sitting on the bench outside the hospital the next day, and they encouraged me to give it a try. I did not want to go to another 12-step hospital treatment program.

Summit Estate’s approach to recovery was different—a holistic view of overall health. There, I learned healthy ways to deal with my addiction and how to live differently, without drugs and alcohol.

They taught me how to sit with myself, breathe when confronted with difficult situations, eat and hydrate, meditate, and even start practicing yoga—simple steps that worked. I would walk around the grounds, stop at the pond, watch the ducks, and dream of a simple life.

Summit Estate introduced me to this holistic approach to recovery, which is different from the 12-step hospital treatment program. They taught me to take care of all the aspects of life to gain proper healing. I stayed for the recommended 40 days and continued with the intensive outpatient eight-week program to further understand myself. My body and mind were starting to feel better, and I had a sense of hope. After the outpatient program, I entered an eight-week recovery coaching program that continued my progress.

During the eight-week program, I met Tommy Rosen, the founder of Recovery 2.0, while vacationing in Jamaica. We played a round of golf. I was playing the club’s golf pro for money. After hitting my opening tee shot into the row of trees a hundred yards to the left, he asked me, “Have you ever had a mental lesson?” As we talked, walking to my ball, he said, “You prepare for everything you have control over, and once you start the swing, you have to let go of all expectations.”

The shot called for the ball to go under a branch, rise to miss trees ahead, and hook about 50 yards. After imaging the shot, I swung the club and let go of the result. I did not even see where the ball went and started talking to Tommy right after the shot, asking, “What’s the next lesson?”

The ball landed on the green about five yards away from the hole, and after making the putt, I was 1-up on the golf pro playing alongside us. I do not remember much about the match, but that pro did owe me a few dollars by the end.

Walking the course with Tommy, I discovered that the universe supported me. He told me, “Feel how the ground supports you as you walk, how gravity keeps you from floating into space.” He pointed out that all the green that I saw was breathing in what I was breathing out, and I was breathing in what they were breathing out. I had learned that in school somewhere, but until that moment, it didn’t click. Standing there on that golf course, surrounded by green, I felt connected to the universe for the first time in my life.

Soon after, I was introduced to the practice of Kundalini yoga, which taught me how to move energy throughout my body and gave me the high

I looked for in drugs and alcohol. I realized I didn’t need to look outside myself to find comfort in a substance. Soon, I was doing Kundalini yoga and meditation with 2000 people at a yoga retreat and finding inner peace. At that point, I knew I wanted to devote my life to understanding and sharing yoga, so I started my yoga teacher training, which continues through today.

Meanwhile, I started the process of the 12 steps with a teacher who took me on a year-long journey through the program. Thanks to this work, I had a spiritual awakening, as described in step 12. The first three steps built the foundation; steps four through nine helped me take a deep dive, and my spiritual maintenance was in steps ten and 11 and assisting others in step 12.

After I completed the 12 steps, I started to have intimate relationships, which brought me back to all the underlying causes and conditions of my addiction: co-dependence. Soon, I found a bottom I hadn’t experienced before, and it didn’t involve a substance but rather a deep grieving of all the losses and hurts I’d suffered and all the pain I caused in my life. It was so painful I wanted to end this life of despair and pain and move on to the next.

Because the urge to use drugs and alcohol was removed by the spiritual awakening, they were no longer an option for me. I spent many days and nights in a fetal position crying tears of grief and feeling immense pain within my body. A teacher suggested I take time to find out who Gene is all about. They told me to become my own soulmate, which I was looking for.

I worked on the 12 steps of co-dependence, which gave me a new understanding. I studied Richard Rohr’s, Breathing Under Water, which gave me hope. I read and meditated using Pema Chodron’s book When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times in order not to escape the pain and suffering.

After a year, I found myself at a retreat with Dr. Joe Dispenza, opening my heart in a way that is hard to describe. I continued to take my yoga teacher training courses, read books, listen to podcasts, and study the practices of the shamans. I discovered threads of truth running through all these teachings that linked them together as one.

Then, I discovered plant medicine and participated in ceremonies that helped me navigate emotional, sexual, and physical trauma from childhood.

The plant medicine brought light into the darkest and scariest parts of me to bring back those fragmented pieces and restore me to a sense of wholeness. This type of treatment is sometimes looked down upon in the recovery community, but I knew these ceremonies were necessary for my recovery.

For me, the most crucial experience in plant medicine was the revelation that the things that happened when I was very young were not my fault. I could now forgive those who hurt me and understand that they were spiritually sick, just like I was. I could forgive myself for all the physical, mental, emotional, sexual, and spiritual abuse I had brought upon myself.

This forgiveness gave me the understanding that what happened was for me and my evolution in order to learn how to let go of my story of myself as a victim. Life can happen to you, for you, or through you. I now choose to have life happen through me and to live with an open heart. I’m here to trust, gain wisdom, balance my energy, and achieve abundance and prosperity.

Tommy Rosen once told me, “The Universe has considered your story.” I now genuinely believe it has. These past years, I have embarked upon many paths as I discover who I am: a human being having a spiritual experience, using all of my senses.

Somewhere along the way, I was given the medicine name Gene Keeps the Way, and I fully embraced this new identity. I believe that there are many paths along the way in this journey called life.