Beyond Addiction

By Rick Cottrell

Author Rick Cottrell characterizes his childhood and nothing less than dysfunctional. He experienced unhealthy living environments at an early age. His experimentation with alcohol and smoking at the age of nine.

In beyond addiction Cottrell shares his personal story of addiction and the journey into recovery which he has be clean and sober for over 20 years.

Through his recollections, Cottrell provides insight into the mindset of an addict and offers a look the world of addiction. He narrates how those who have a problem with addiction can be transformed through recovery. And those who have been affected by a person who is chemically dependent can find healing and freedom from dysfunctional living habits.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781491784471

Rick Cottrell

Rick Cottrell is a recovered alcoholic/addict who has been clean and sober for more than twenty years.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 Rick Cottrell.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-8445-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-8446-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-8447-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015919842

iUniverse rev. date: 01/18/2016

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3: Family

Chapter 4: The Role

Chapter 5: Unconditional Love

Overview

Family

Higher Power

The Transformation

PREFACE

Friends,

I hope you enjoy this book, whether it is you or a loved one looking for a way to conquer addictive behavior. I am not a psychologist or a therapist. I’m sharing my story only to encourage those suffering from hopelessness state to find the freedom and strength to pursue a new lifestyle that might have seemed impossible.

Be blessed,

Rick

CHAPTER 1

My childhood years were not normal compared to what most people experience growing up. I would consider my childhood nothing less than dysfunctional. My father and my mother were together for only one year after my birth. After that first year, I saw my father only occasionally through a thick plate-glass window while he was incarcerated for his ongoing problem with drug abuse. I remember touching that glass and wishing I could touch him instead. Unfortunately, that was something I was never able to do.

My mother and father were addicts, although I perceived their behavior as normal in the early stages of my life. In fact, I believe I had those addictive characteristics from birth, through the genes that I inherited from them.

After my parents separated, my mother raised me by herself. Growing up with my mother was exhausting, as we moved continuously when I was young. From the ages of one through nine, I never lived in a place called home; we lived in many different apartments and with various family members. The word home was not in my vocabulary.

Both of my parents’ families were drunks. My mother’s father was an alcoholic, and so was her grandfather; therefore my mother was a third-generation addict. Her mother was what we called a normy, someone who could take it or leave it when it came to alcohol. Dysfunctional behavior—arguments, yelling, and lots of drinking and drunkenness—was a part of my daily life as a child. At social gatherings, alcohol was always present. I remember being at my grandmother’s apartment when I was three years old, taking her glass of wine in my hands, and drinking it. I ended up crawling on the floor, too dizzy to walk.

It was a memorable experience, being drunk at such an early age. I can still feel the euphoria that resonated within me, and the destructive pain that alcohol caused within my family. Our daily lives were chaotic, as we were always going from place to place; we were never in one place for any significant length of time. From first through sixth grades I lived in Inglewood, California—that was the longest my family stayed in one place. This was in the early sixties and seventies, during the time of the Watts riots, and I was exposed to violence on a daily basis. I will never forget the arrests of picketers and the mandatory program through which kids were bused all over the city to create an integrated school system. This program was designed to ease racial tension, but as a result I always felt unsafe and like I didn’t belong—not only at home, but now also at school.

Every morning when kids got off the bus, there were picket lines in front of the school. Once we got into class, everything was okay. I did not have a clue about the prejudice driving the situation, but I did know that it was chaotic outside of school. We kids were all together, and I was thankful for the stability of being around my peers, but the turmoil that happened before school made me confused about who was right and who was wrong. I had to walk three or four blocks to school, and with everything going on, I was always afraid. My mother worked during those years, and so most of the time I was home alone after school. Confused by all the instability around me, I would lock the door behind me at 2:00 p.m. and wait for my mom to come home at six.

In Inglewood I lived in a poverty-stricken neighborhood full of criminal activity. People sold drugs right outside my apartment door. After regularly witnessing this activity, I became receptive to the idea of drugs and immune to the sight of them. I knew what most drugs were by the time I was eight. When I came home from school, I did not associate with any kids my own age; I hung out with