How I Found Recovery! Part 2

I HAVE BEEN CLEAN FOR 14 YEARS, 11 MONTHS, and 13 DAYS!

A TOTAL OF 5462 DAYS!

I had been working at the hospital for 3 years and continuing to use my drug of choice. It was a week before Christmas and I was taking a vacation to go home to Pa for the holidays, however my dad who loved horse racing was taking my mother to see her sister in NJ so that he could go to the Meadowlands, but after a big win at the track what was suppose to be an overnight trip lasted 4 days. He decided he was going to take my mother to Atlantic City, my dad loved to shoot craps and my mother had her own slot machine that she played for endless hours. They finally arrived home two days before Christmas Eve. After what was truly one of the greatest nights spent as a family I met up with my high school friends who had been friends by that time for 16 years, we were making plans for the next night to all meet up at this local bar that we would frequent during our underage years. The next day I spent with my parents doing some last minute Christmas shopping for my niece who would be celebrating her first Christmas.

After a long day of shopping we got home, my mother went to play cards with her friends whom she had played with every Friday night since I was a child and my dad would be going to the St. Cataldo club which was an Italian club where they would play nothing but pinochle. As I was getting ready I heard sirens going by the house and just at that time the phone rings and it was one of the guys from the St. Cataldo club telling me they called an ambulance for my dad who was having chest pains, as I look out the window I can see the lights of the ambulance since we lived only 1/2 block away. I hung up the phone and ran to the club, when I arrived my father was sitting on a bench saying he didn't want to go to the hospital he was okay, but the paramedic told me his blood pressure was high and they believe he was having a heart attack, so after talking my father into going he walked into the ambulance. I went with him. After waiting for the doctor to check my dad out, the doctor comes out to talk to me, he asked if I had any other family, because if I did they needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible. I called my mother, and my brother had also been in town for the holidays staying at his mother-in-laws and I called him. When they arrived the doctor brought us into this room and told us that my dad had a massive heart attack and that they are putting him in intensive care, once he was settled in the ICU they made us say goodnight and told us we could come back the next morning.

The next day was Christmas Eve, since they would only let two of us in at the ICU, we decided that I would take the morning visit while my mom and brother went and did some last minute things for my grandmother for her big dinner that night. When I got to the hospital my dad was up, and to me he seemed to be doing okay, he had given me all his money that he had, and he wanted me to call his bookie and bet on the Redskins for him, so I felt comfortable that he was going to be okay. In ICU they only let you stay for 15 minutes so I kissed my dad and as I was leaving the doctor asked me if he could have a word with me. He told me that my father was not doing good at all, I respond by he looks okay, even as a nurse I didn't want to hear anything if it meant that he wasn't going to make it. My dad was only 55 years old and of course he is the strongest man I know. I left the hospital feeling so empty that all I could think about was getting high and trying to get rid of what I was feeling. When I got home, my mother and brother were having coffee and I told them what the doctor said, and my mom who always tried to make us feel better said my dad is strong and that he will be okay. The next visit was at 11:30am, so my mother and brother decided they would go to that visit and I would stay home to clean the house and get ready for all the company we would be getting tonight. No sooner did they leave the phone rings and it's a friend of mine who works in the ICU and she said that we needed to get there as soon as possible that my dad took a turn for the worse. I started to shake and before I could do anything I needed to calm myself down, so of course drugs were the answer for me. I leave for the hospital and when I get there my mother and brother had this surprised look on there face as if to say what the hell are you doing here. At this point they thought there was another emergency in the ICU and that's why they were not allowed in to see my dad, no one had told them yet that my father was the emergency and that he had taken a turn for the worse and I didn't have the heart to say anything. After about 1 hour the doctor and nurse come out to tell us that my dad had yet another heart attack and it wasn't looking to good. The nurse told us that we should call a priest to give him his last rites. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. My mom made me call his mom who lived in Buffalo and my aunts and uncles. My grandmother was going to catch the next plane that left for Scranton and so were my uncles and aunts who lived in Buffalo also. Through the course of the day it was just to much for me to handle seeing the look on my mom's face. I had never before in my life seen her look so scared. My brother was going to pick up my grandmother, aunts and uncles from the airport and I stayed at the hospital with my mom and other relatives.My mother and I went down into the chapel to light a candle and I could remember asking God to make my father okay and if he did I would stop using drugs. When my brother got back from the airport with my grandmother, my girlfriend who works in the ICU told me I could bring my grandmother into see my dad. When we got into the room, I saw a man that I didn't even recognize since this morning he looked perfectly fine. My grandmother went to one side and I went to the other and we held his hand and he looked over at me not being able to talk and he had a tear in his eye and I lost it. As my friend who was the nurse was trying to console me, my dad was in the mist of having another heart attack and they were calling a code blue. I froze in my footsteps I couldn't move, finally one of the nurses walks me and my grandmother back out into the waiting room and I could see my mom just out of control crying, and my brother who never really showed much emotion because Italian men never cry was just sobbing. It was about 1/2 hour later the doctor came out and told us that they did everything they could do and that he was sorry for our loss. None of us could move, we were in total shock, I couldn't believe what was happening, the man that held our family together is now gone, what are we going to do, what is my mother going to do, they did everything together. My poor grandmother, having to bury a child.

I knew there was going to be tough days ahead so I needed to be prepared, and the only thing that would help me get through those days was of course for me drugs, at this point it didn't matter what kind of drugs all I knew is that I needed to take away the pain I was feeling, and since God didn't answer my prayers I thought I would show him and do whatever drug I could get my hands on.

To be continued..........