A LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

In May of 1983 I was an Ivy League graduate with a Registered Nurse license working as the Nursing Administrator of a prestigious Santa Monica Hospital. At the same time I was crawling on the floor of my one room apartment psychotic from four days of cocaine, alcohol and pills. I had blankets on the windows, towels under the doors, phone unplugged and had not bathed or eaten in days and was hearing or seeing things that were not there. The paranoia was intense. The craving was insatiable. Coming down I was depressed, hopeless and suicidal.

There was a knock on the door, fear gripped every cell in my body. I looked around the dirty apartment and saw empty bottles of booze, broken base pipes, clogged syringes and empty pill containers scattered about. It was a mess… and so was I. There was no way I was going to answer the door. My best friend however that I had know since kindergarten was at the door. He said “I know you’re in there and you are either dead or about to die so I’m going to the Sheriff.” Though filled with pain and not wanting the police to see this horrific scene I reluctantly let him in. The look in his eyes was horror incarnate. His reaction to my appearance actually scared the daylights out of me. I looked in the mirror and my denial and minimization told me I only needed a shower and shave. In truth though I was dying inside.

With only two weeks clean and sober he started talking about a group he was with and a program that works. He wanted to take me there that night. Of course my immediate response was that “I don’t need anyone’s help.” He was persistent though and strenuously insisted until I reluctantly complied. I met people that night that drank and used just like me. I had thought I was the worst addict on earth and was therefore beyond hope, only to find that many had visited the bottomless pit I had come to call home. Yet here they were clean and sober for months and years. They had hit my bottom and climbed out. I had hope for the first time in years.

Today I am in my twenty fourth year of recovery. It has taken a great deal of work with ongoing acceptance of my disease and continual usage of the tools I have learned. Sponsors, mentors, and spiritual advisors have guided me into becoming the happy, healthy and successful man I had always dreamed of in my youth. Yet to this day, I maintain a healthy respect for the power of my disease, and only through constant vigilance and persistent effort do I hold it at bay.

Since my recovery, under the mentoring and tutelage of Dr. David Murphy, I have been involved in starting four treatment centers from the ground up. I have been the Director of three other centers and have starting 3 additional outpatient programs as well. I have also started up over a dozen sober living homes. In all, we have an alumni of over 8,000 clean and sober people! Saved at deaths door I have been blessed with a wonderful fulfilling mission, to spread the recipe for recovery.
For anyone who wants it bad enough. For anyone who as they say is “Sick and tired of being sick and tired,” All we need is a little willingness. This is a treatable disease. There is help for it. Don’t let it win. You deserve to be happy, healthy and free.

Steve Chatoff
Clinical Director & Friend