Lewis was thirteen when his mother took on an extra job. She worked all the time, leaving him home with his two sisters. He knew his mom thought that the girls would keep him busy. Lord knew that only having a few friends didn’t occupy him.
And school was mediocre at best. He struggled to make middling grades and never had any afterschool practices or clubs to go to. Nope. Had to be home to babysit.
The best thing Lew had was listening to music and keeping up on the latest artists. He always hoped it would give him an edge to find some more friends, but he worried he would never fit in anyway. Not really anyway.
Finally, his friend Glen allowed him to tag along to a party one night when Lew’s mom didn’t have work.
At the party, there was a lot of booze. Glen kept telling Lew to go ahead and drink up, that he wouldn’t get into trouble.
Finally, Lew decided that he was willing to try anything to fit in. He started drinking that night.
And after that first night, feeling like he was the funniest guy in the room and that all his anxiety had melted away, Lew couldn’t wait to go drinking again.
Six months after the party, Lew was still drinking. More and more, he would hang out with certain crowds just because he knew they’d have beer or shots around.
The idea of being buzzed, drunk, wasted… it started to consume his thoughts. He couldn’t just forget about it and go back to who he was before. Who was that kid, anyway? Awkward, unsociable, always so uptight! Nah, with a brew in his hand, Lew could function.
Although, what he gained in friends, Lew started to lose from his family. He became withdrawn, skipping out on the few family meals his mother was home for.
Lew knew most of his family had turned to drugs and alcohol as a way of coping. Every adult in his life was drinking and partying, when they were not working. So, for him, this was a normal way to handle stress. It was a sign of someone of growing up.
And, since he had struggled with grades for most of his life, it was no surprise to see the D’s and F’s on his report card.
Lewis… fell through the cracks.
No one noticed that he was not acting like himself, because they were all dealing with many of the same things in their own lives. His teachers did not notice anything, because he has always been a bit of a class clown. His few friends did nothing, because they were using him as entertainment.
Then the trouble started. He was called into the principal’s office a few times, and held for detention a whole week.
His sister, Lisa, was always nervous around him. She could smell the alcohol on his breath—and he knew it. He could tell by the way she acted that, when he’d been drinking, she didn’t want to be around him.
Lewis started to wonder if there was a real problem, but he wasn’t sure how to stop.
He actually was not completely sure that he wanted to stop.
Lew would have hated to know the truth about how everyone thought of him…
Behind his back, they’d whisper about what an idiot he acted like all the time. But it didn’t stop them from providing him with more beer and more pot. They were getting a good laugh in, far as they saw. What was the harm?
By Lewis’s 16th birthday, he was already an alcoholic and moving into huffing and doing ecstasy.
He knew there was a problem even more.
When Lew tried to quit, he found that there was no just putting it down and walking away. What was going to happen to him? Could he ever get back to his old life?
His life needed a drastic change to be able to stop his battle with addiction. He decided that he had one option left: to join the Navy and continue the legacy started by his grandfather. He would become a Navy Seal, since his grandfather was a Seabee.
Plus, he hoped he could accomplish something great while he was at it. More than that, though, it could be the start of life getting better.
At the age of seventeen, only his uncle argued the idea of him joining the military. The rest of Lew’s family thought that the military wouldn’t be that bad. And, those that saw what Lewis was going through, hoped it would help him walk away from the drugs and alcohol that were destroying him.
When Lew went to see the Navy recruiter, the office was closed. Instead, the Army recruiter was open.
Lew took the ASVAB and medical tests that needed to join.
He failed the ASVAB.
Instead of the military being his way to find sobriety, depression gripped Lewis hard… and the bottle played a comforting friend.
Lew decided to move out of his mother’s home. He tried once to contact his father, but he was drunk when he called. His dad had been kept in the dark to Lewis’ habits, and refused to speak to him.
One by one, Lew’s family turned their backs on him.
Life only took one bad road after the other after that. He was arrested on multiple occasions, with more than one DUI. He was threatened to be tried as an adult when he fell asleep at the wheel and plowed into neighbor’s fence. With the need for more drink or drugs, he could not hold a job. He just missed too much work or showed up under the influence.
One day when he was walking home from a motorcycle repair course, Lew decided again to try to fight his addiction.
He knew it would either end well… or…
Lew called a buddy to get completely wrecked with. From there, they made a series of bad decisions that involved trespassing, tearing up copper pipes, and defacing a building. Someone called the police and both boys were arrested.
Lewis served time in jail and at a rehabilitation facility. He paid for the events of that night for the next three years. Had it not been for that prison term, there would have been no chance of him being able to quit drinking.
He finally understood the damage caused by his drinking. Lew started to put his life back together without the drugs and alcohol.
He wanted his story to be shared as a way of letting others know that teenage drinking can cause lifelong problems, whether those issues are legal, physical, or mental.
Now, Lewis has been sober for almost thirteen years. He still looks back and says that he was lucky for the poor decisions the night that landed him in jail…
The alternative was the hospital or morgue from worse decisions.
It took Lew years before he found a way to stop. It may have ended sooner if one of his friends had spoken up in the beginning. If one his teenage friends said something, Lew might never have wound up in legal trouble.
If you know of anyone who has problems with drugs or alcohol, make sure to let them know you want to help them. If they don’t want help, tell someone who can help them.
No one was able to help Lew… but he hopes that sharing this story will help even one teen like himself stay out of the vicious cycle of self-hatred that comes from alcohol addiction.