Chris Gordon, a recovering addict, is proving that there is optimism and light in the darkness.
“I had to start all over again,” he said. “I was a pretty successful guy.” Gordon, 56, has lived a lifelong battle with an alcohol and, eventually, a gambling addiction. He grew up in a home where alcohol use was commonplace and received as a normal part of everyday life.
“A lot of people that I hung around with smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol,” Gordon said.
“I was introduced to marijuana and alcohol at about age 14,” he said. “For me, I was a very shy young man and it was the magic elixir, it gave me a sense of courage.”
But growing up in a household where alcohol was somewhat condoned, wasn’t enough for Gordon and he soon left home to have more freedom when it came to alcohol use. “I wasn’t able to drink and do drugs at the magnitude of what I wanted, so I left home at age 18,” he said.
From 14 to 26, Gordon would build a life for himself with a career and a family, all the while believing his drinking was not a problem. “In 1986, my then wife, announced that we were having a child and I kind of had an epiphany,” he explained. “I put myself in an outpatient program at night and worked during the day.”
Gordon worked through the three-month outpatient program with success. After he graduated from the program, the organization he went through encouraged him to get plugged into an Alcoholics Anonymous group, but Gordon felt willpower alone would help him stay on the path of sober living.
“I went to one meeting and was somewhat disenchanted,” he said. “I didn’t go back for five years.” Unfortunately, during the years that Gordon was sober, he began to feel the struggles of a hard-pressed life and addiction slowly crept back into his world.
“I was struggling in my marriage, I was losing all of my money, my business was failing, my house went into foreclosure,” he said. “All of these things were happening and I wasn’t drinking and it didn’t really make sense.”
He went to a casino where he had his first drink in 11 years. The next day he left his family and it was the start of an unmanageable drinking habit that would tear him apart and tear him down.
“That was the start of a horrific 6 ½ year relapse,” Gordon said. “I, unlike people I would talk to, stayed stopped on will power, which generally doesn’t work and ultimately, it didn’t work.”
Gordon worked a multitude of jobs to make child support payments and to make ends meet, but he also worked at jobs where he was able to drink.
“I went to AA every day and I couldn’t stop — I was drinking and gambling,”
he said. “Those of us wired for addiction look to change the way we feel. I was getting a charge from it, but needless to say I was lying to everybody and I was providing a life that was unmanageable and I eventually drank.” It wasn’t until he had a moment of clarity after that 6 1/2 years that he needed to help himself and face his demons. “These are good, solid habits I’ve created,” he said. I work in this environment and you’d think that this would be enough.”
Each day, when Gordon wakes up, he heads to the gym before he heads to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. He then begins his work day. He ends each day with another meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and every Thursday morning he also meets with his sponsor.
“I think I have a genetic propensity for alcoholism,” he said.
Today, as a lead admissions counselor for Solutions Recovery, Gordon sees the face of addiction has changed to a younger generation of addicts who face an even harder battle of opiates and heroin use. He notes that 7 out of 10 people walking through his door are barely in their twenties or younger and addicted to opiates.
“I’m not making any excuses for the actions we take, but this epidemic of opiates is a whole other animal,” he said.
He’s now a trained interventionist and a sober coach and surrounds himself with sober individuals who help support one another in the recovery community. “I will tell you if I didn’t do what I do every day in my personal recovery, I probably wouldn’t be able to stay sober even though I was blessed with a little bit of grace that night on November 29, 2003 and I haven’t had a drink since,” he said.
Ultimately, Gordon feels that battling addiction is a lifelong journey.
“I believe if you’re wired for addiction, then you better get your guard up for all of it,” he said.