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Eric Snaer, Village Graduate & MHA Village Employee shares his journey of recovery.

 

My drug addiction started sometime in the 80s; the early 80s as a matter of fact.  I used to work for Mattel in their machine shop.  I started out on the bottom and worked my way through their ranks to the top.  I had a friend there that I hung out with a lot.  He was my best friend and he introduced me to “Primos” (which is cocaine and weed mixed).  I thought I could handle [doing drugs and having a life] but I guess I couldn’t; obviously I couldn’t.

I started losing my freedom for doing things like petty theft, carrying a concealed weapons, and lots of possession charges, some for possession with intent to sell.  I was selling here and there; it helped me feed my habit.  I was living on somebody’s couch or living room floor every night.  I couldn’t go back to my home, not because it wasn’t there, but because it was safer for my family if I stayed away.  Not that they wanted me there, but I stayed away because wherever I went, trouble seemed to follow. 

I had some periods of sobriety through the years.  I went to Weingart Detox Center in LA up on the 9th floor.  From there I went to an alcohol and drug rehab center called Warm Springs that was located up at Lake Cascade.  When I left there I settled down at the Beacon House in San Pedro.  From the outside everything was cool but on the inside everything was screwed up.  I did everything for the program but nothing for myself.  I went to the house manager and told him I needed to go to a Cocaine Anonymous (CA) meeting.  Narcotics Anonymous (NA) is cool but they don’t talk a lot about people on cocaine.  He took me to downtown Los Angeles  to CA central and got a starter kit and helped me get the meeting started along with four other members and we had a speaker participation meeting that got started, and that still happens today.

It was at that meeting that I met a girl who worked her way up from refreshments to treasurer.  One day she went missing and I went to go look for her because I was Superman and I could save the world.  When I found her it went from me telling her to get it together and come back to “you want to get loaded?” to “okay let’s.”  I went there with a pocket full of money and it was too easy to say no.  I beat myself up for that for a long time.

In 1998 I got a phone call telling me that my only son had died.  I wasn’t a good role model as a father then.  I ran the streets with a gang back then and when I heard about my son’s death my cocaine addiction really took off.  I was loaded on a daily basis and I didn’t care if I lived or died.  I blamed myself for many years for my son’s death.  It is still hard to deal with.  I handle it better now than I used to.  The anniversary of his death is coming up in a few days.  My newest son will turn 7 months old on that same date; it’s bittersweet.

So I was in and out of jail and finally prison.  I had lost everything I had accumulated over the years: my house, cars, bank accounts, friends, and family members; it all disappeared.  I was sober for a couple months here or there before but it wasn’t until I lost my freedom that I had any real sobriety time.  That last time I went in I wanted things to be different when I got out.  It was important that I did things different.  Someone came around asking if anyone was interested in getting their GED and I raised my hand.  I signed up on the spot, took the classes, studied for the test and passed.  It was a proud moment for me.  I had my certificate sent to my sister and I felt so good to have made the best of my time there.  I kept out of trouble in prison.  I kept to myself, sat in my bunk and read books.  Jail is the easiest place to do wrong because everyone there is upset about something.  I took the time to do something right.  I got a letter while I was in prison from my sister telling me about a program called the Village and telling me they could help me get my life together. 

When I first came to the Village I was 3 days out of prison and I still had major trust issues.  I didn’t trust anybody.  My experience was that you trust people and all of a sudden they stab you in the back.  When I came to the Village is when that was able to change.  I can trust people now.  I can talk to people now. And people really care about me and now I care about myself.

I got out of prison sober, and I was trying to stay sober.  I quickly relapsed and went on a three day run.  Two staff members from O&E came and found me and told me that it was okay that I messed up.  They said “let’s get back on track.”  For the first time someone else was taking the time to come find me.  I wanted to show my appreciation.  At the time the only way I could think of to do that was to stay sober.  While I was downstairs I worked in the clothing closet, and I knew from that I could work and work well.  The staff downstairs had encouraged me to work in the first place; they saw something in me that I couldn’t see in myself at the time.  They noticed that I was angry, very angry, but angry and willing to give things a try.
 

The first year of my sobriety was to say thank you.  My experience with the Village from that point on changed.  I felt comfortable and I was able to open up more.  I found that if I respected myself other people respected me too.  Throughout the building the Village has its policy of being on a first name basis which I thought was cool.  I stuck around because I was somewhere I felt I fit in.

I was officially enrolled, was put on team four, and Gary B was my PSC.  I later found out that he was new at that time too.  Being on team 4 was cool.  Going to ballgames and doing stuff for fun, like I hadn’t done since I was a kid, made me feel really good.  One of the first things I did was tell them that I wanted to work and I wanted an apartment.  Gary had something about him that I liked and I couldn’t figure it out at first.  I discovered that he had an inner peace that I was looking for.  His inner peace was from being spiritually connected and that was something I wanted. It wasn’t until he felt open enough to tell me about his involvement in 12 steps which told me about the inner peace.He would take me to meetings and I asked him to be my sponsor.  I kept a commitment to him for a year.  I was the coffee maker at the meeting for that year.

It was funny because I don’t drink coffee, but the guys were like, “you make great coffee man!”

I enjoyed going to the meetings.  Hearing that other people go through stuff makes my stuff seem not as bad.  “That person is going through something and is still sober. Wow.”  I like speaker meetings so I can hear all the stuff other people go through and think, “wow, they don’t get loaded.”  I’m mostly impressed by the female speakers.  They go through a lot and still stay sober.

I worked the steps with Gary and when I got to the 4th step, the personal inventory, I didn’t want to do it.  I had really avoided that but when I got into it I got a chance to see the part I played in my insanity and madness.  It was all a conscious decision and my choice today is not to use no matter what.  My best thinking got me in trouble.  I couldn’t rely on myself, I had to rely on my higher power. 

The team hooked me up with a job in the maintenance department right away.  But about the apartment, they had a suggestion.  They suggested that I live in a sober living home for 30 days to re-establish my relationship with the program.  They knew that had worked well for me in the past and they wanted me to be successful.  I want to be clear though, they made a suggestion but it was my choice.  I was nervous at first, when the suggestion was first presented all I could think of was the way I was treated in prison.  I chose to go with their recommendation and I moved into a sober living home because I knew I could trust them; I knew they had my best interest at heart.

60 days later I moved into my own place.  I had been successful at maintaining my sobriety in the house and I had connected with some other guys who were Village members there.  I was part of a support network, I had reconnected with the 12 step program and had a strong foundation and I was ready to go out on my own. 

One point I want my story to make is how important it was for me to reestablish my relationship with the 12 steps.  It was really necessary for me.  The Village promotes harm reduction. It works fine for some, but not for me.  For me, it’s an excuse for me to get loaded.  It took time for me to believe in it and the value of it at all.  It does work for some but for myself it is all about abstinence.  I would not be able to maintain a job or apartment. 

I have to stay sober in order to keep the things that make me the person I like being.

I have to stay sober in order to like the person I see in the mirror.

I saw that I had many opportunities ahead of me and I wanted to take advantage of them.  There were things I wanted to do in my life; I knew that I should have been doing other things.  I had screwed it all up with my drug addiction and I was trying to put my life back together. 

I was in that apartment for a long time and stayed connected to the meetings.  The person who was the housing coordinator at the time knew I was young in recovery at the time and I needed something that had no chaos.  This building she found was locked and secured. It was like she hand picked that building for me, the neighbors minded their own business and it was nice and quiet and was a cool building.

For a long time every time I came home from work on the maintenance crew I would just sit and look around and say, “damn, this is mine.”  For the first time I had my own place and I had done it myself. 

Gary and the rest of the team were with me through my major decisions; like girlfriends.  Most of them were hi and bye things and there were 1 or 2 girlfriends.  That got old quick because I was raised to be family oriented.  I used to go to Gary with a new girl and he would just shake his head.  He knew I was just looking for a fix, and since I was sober this was how I was getting that same need fulfilled.  Again, it got old real quick because it just wasn’t me.  I am an emotional person and I want an emotional attachment.  Trust and having someone to talk to is important to me.

I met Lynette through 12 step meetings on Fridays and every time I saw her I would get butterflies in my stomach.

Now I have a job working  as staff at the Village.  I am the worksite supervisor for the maintenance department and I get a chance to help and teach others and give them the same opportunities that were given to me.  There are younger people I work with and they think I don’t know things.  I can hear my parents in my head, “you think we don’t know… but we know,” and now I laugh.  Now I’m working with the TAY kids and I can pull them to the side and tell them what I see in them, and I get to point out what their strengths are and what type of trouble they might be headed for if they don’t change their path.  The only people telling me those things were my parents and I thought they just wanted me to be a nerd.  There weren’t other people who I could relate to.  So now I am trying to be that relatable person for others.

So now, they listen or they pretend.  Either way, I have learned to separate myself and not bring that stuff home.  Some of it is rough, depending on what they are going.  At home I have a good woman, we’ve gone through things and we are working through them.  We have a beautiful child that we are raising together and it makes everything I ever went through worthwhile.  I have had this job for 2 years last week.  We went to celebrate and we went to Cherry park and sat under a tree with cotton candy and we watched the squirrels.  It was a nice quiet, mellow celebration; anything but chaos.  I like the peaceful stuff.  I listen to jazz when I drive because it is mellow.  It’s hard to stay mellow at the Village, there are things that go on, but you have a choice about how much you allow that to come into your mind.

I look at things now with a professional eye.  I am a professional.  I have the best job.  I get to prove society wrong by training people that they say are not trainable. 

Anytime the Village asks me to do something I am always willing to do it because they gave me back my life.  The Village asked me to go to Sacramento once.  It was my first time on a plane.  Of course I was terrified and the people next to me were terrified.  I couldn’t stop looking out the window.  I went to speak as a representative of the Village on the merits of the AB2034 program.  After I spoke there was a standing ovation.  It was an amazing feeling, but it wasn’t about me.  It was about what the program stands for and that’s why I took that flight and did those things that were scary for me.  I got my opportunity and I did what I could.  Anytime I am asked I will give back.  Any opportunity, I will say yes to give back.  It doesn’t matter if I have to…  If I have to take a submarine to deliver the message I will.  I’ve gone through it, I’ve used it to the best of my ability and I have regained my life.  I feel like I have been chosen to show that it is not a waste of time or money.  This program works.  Not everyone will turn out like me, but if one does, it’s worth it.  I love it.

I have been sober since January 20, 2002.  At the time of this interview I am going on 61/2 years clean.