Editor’s Note: The many responses we’ve received to “Finding a Fix” have included some very personal accounts from former drug users, family members and others whose lives have been affected by substance abuse. We invite you to read their stories here from time to time, and to consider sharing your own. We may edit your submission for length and clarity.

I have been clean and sober for 18 years. Before that I spent 19 years using every kind of drug there was, as well as drinking to excess. Since you have opened this topic up for discussion, I wanted to share my thoughts and experiences with your readers.

First, let me say this. Every time I see one of these articles, I never see a discussion about why people get loaded in the first place. Why is it, in this great country of ours, with so much opportunity, do people of every class choose drugs and alcohol? What is so bad about our current reality that people would want to “escape from reality” in the first place? As a country, we’ve spent billions to cut off the supply of drugs and as much on law enforcement to crack down on people who violate our drug and alcohol laws, but we don’t try to figure out what motivates people to abuse drugs and alcohol. We spend comparatively little to treat people who are addicted. Maybe the experts you talk to could address these issues.

It seems to me that stories about the drug menace only appear in papers when it starts to affect the middle and upper classes. Trust me, drug abuse has been around for decades. I was using methamphetamine 20 years ago, and it was all over the club scene. It was big in the days of Haight Ashbury. I was introduced to cocaine, psychedelics, pot, etc. when I was in military school in the late 60s. I don’t understand why people think it is a scourge now, and that it wasn’t before.

Now, why do people do drugs in the first place? Because they feel like they don’t belong, and when they drink or use drugs, they usually find a group of people to do it with. Now they fit in with this group, the ones who are getting high. If you’re a teenager, especially, it’s very important to fit in. If you sit in AA meetings for any length of time and listen to the speakers, this is usually the underlying motivation for most people who eventually get addicted to alcohol and/or drugs.

Once you start drinking or getting high on drugs, people go through three basic phases. When I started getting “high,” I felt happy, invigorated. Everything I did seemed more fun. After a few years, in phase two, the terminology changed. Now I was getting “stoned.” When I took drugs or drank, I was mellow, lethargic. And I had to get stoned in order for the things I was doing to seem like fun. The times in between seemed like a drag. After a few years, in the third phase, the terminology changed again. Now I was getting “wasted.” Now the object was to use the right combination of drugs and alcohol to become incapacitated. I had people over just to get blitzed. Getting high was having fun.

I still thought I was having fun right up until the last year, when everything started to seem boring, and the drugs and alcohol weren’t helping, no matter how much I took. I was fortunate to find AA when I did.

The interesting thing for me is that, at the time, I was more concerned with my addiction to cigarettes than I was to using the amount of alcohol, narcotics and psychedelics I was putting into my body.

Here’s a piece of advice: if your kid is using drugs or drinking (or your spouse, for that matter), get yourself to Al-Anon and stick with it. You won’t get what you need by going to a few meetings. You will find ways to cope with the problem and you may discover that you are contributing to the situation, as well, and how to stop. Also, look to see what kind of example you are setting with the amount of alcohol you drink, cigarettes you smoke, prescriptions you take. Most of my friends’ parents got looped on legal things at the same time we started experimenting.

I hope this helps.

Tom McCarter, who recently vacationed in Maine and read the first “Finding a Fix” column, responded via e-mail from his home in San Jose, Calif. Send your comments about “Finding a Fix” by calling 990-8291 or e-mailing findingafix@bangordailynews.net.

From the heart

Excerpts from responses to last week’s column:

I’m 48 years old and the father of three children. I’ve been in the Maine State Prison for 29 months because I was addicted to methamphetamine. Now that I’m clean, I realize how much the drug devastated my life and the lives of the ones I love the most.

I worked since I was 15 years old. I had a beautiful wife and real nice house with horses and Rottweilers. My wife, my kids and I had snowmobiles and four-wheelers and nice cars and a good, fun life together. Because of drugs, I lost it all for all of us. My wife divorced me and I had to sell my house to pay the lawyer. The government confiscated a brand new Harley-Davidson and a real nice car. My kids’ snowmobiles and four-wheelers had to be sold and now I never get to see my kids.

Your so-called “friends” forsake you and very few of them understand your addiction and stand by you. Coming to prison is a hard way to find out who your real friends are.

In prison you lose your privacy altogether. You can’t shower or squat on the toilet without an audience. You can get strip-searched at any time. Your cell is searched and torn apart often. Your identity is lost. All you are is a number. Mine is 57171.

Prison is the loneliest and scariest place you’ve ever seen. There are people here that would rather beat you and stab you than give you the time of day. … Even if you’re sane and strong, you begin to contemplate suicide. Life seems not worth living here, but you’ve already done enough to hurt the ones who love you, so you tough it out for your family … I’m in a place where I never intended to be. Night and day this miserable existence exerts such guilt, agony and torment on me, and it’s all because I chose to use drugs. Don’t let this happen to you. Life is worth living when you’re clean and sober.

– Bill Leland, Maine State Prison, Warren