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Re: Jani Lane Dead, only 47
Alcohol poisoning killed Jani Lane: http://www.redeyechicago.com/news/ktla- … 8692.story
Re: Jani Lane Dead, only 47
Sometimes?
Everything I was ever told when I was studying psychology was that alcohol was by far the worst to "cleanse" from, had the worst abuse rate of any substance in the U.S., had the highest death rate of any substance in the U.S., and the worst relapse rate of any "drug".
And yet it's legal and we promote it to kids before they're even legal.
But somehow weed and junk are "dirty".
Re: Jani Lane Dead, only 47
It is in some cases. I've been through a program and basically was taught it all comes down to the person and their issues with addiction. I can stop smoking weed a second, I can also stop drinking in a second but if you put a a line of cocaine or a few vikes in front of me I will not be able to control my urges. Addiction is a very iffy subject and personally if you haven't delt with it or have someone close to you deal with it then you can never fully understand it.
Re: Jani Lane Dead, only 47
What I've learned in my years of sobriety is that you're either going to do it or you are not. It's that simple.
When I got sober in 97, I detached myself from all my "friends" at the time and moved to a different part of town. I went to AA meetings every day, sometimes twice a day, and had a person I could call at any time for help if I felt the urge to drink. I realize that my way created all my problems and that listening to somebody else and following their direction was the best choice I could make. If that person told me I had to stand on my head in the backyard for 30 minutes each day to keep sober, you bet your ass I would have done it.
Instead what I found was that by surrendering my ego, and letting go of self was necessary to grow and subsequently save my life. Also giving 100% of my life to getting sober. Everything else was second, if I couldn't stay sober nothing else would matter anyway.
It sure wasn't easy (sometimes I'd go just 15 minutes at a time), but taking the easy way had created a huge pile of shit for me to sit in for nearly a decade. Hospitals, jails, homelessness, loss of family, friends, jobs...you name it.
I begged my best friend to get sober with me back then too. Slowly as the months added up, I got a car, and would still visit with him. We weren't as close as we had been; I refused to hang out with people who were using. Of course we had a decade long history together of cocaine and alcohol fueled binges, so the notion of "hanging out" was absolutely dangerous to me and my new sobriety. I had a higher chance of going back out, then he had of cleaning up, if we hung out together. It was hard cutting people out of my life, but ultimately it was my life to save, and I could not risk fucking it up.
About 8 years ago I wrote him a final letter, ten pages, outlining how to get sober and change his life. He had recently been arrested for cocaine and battery charges and I knew he was either going to prison or going to die. I never got a reply to that letter and he died about two years ago from a cardiac arrest at age 38,two days after my birthday. I felt tremendously sad about that and guilty. But in the end I knew it was his choice to make, he chose not to try and get clean.
I will never forget that. Mostly because he played out the alternative to my life if I had not gotten sober, but also because he was my best friend.
