As told to Jeannette Batz Cooperman
Photograph by Mark Gilliland
Scott Chadbourne (a pseudonym) went to a private Catholic high school and Saint Louis University and spent two years studying to become a priest. Then he changed his mind and went to work for a series of well-known St. Louis businesses—but meanwhile, his life was falling apart. It spiraled downward from drugs to crime to homelessness, until finally, 13 years later and with the help of St. Patrick’s Center, he began picking up the fragments of his life, reclaiming, as he puts it, “the literal core of my person.” Now Chadbourne is working full-time, reading philosophy and seeing life clearly—although “clearly,” he’s quick to add, “is a relative term.”
At 9, I was introduced to marijuana.
Pot was the perfect emotional analgesic—until I needed stronger drugs to block out the emotional turmoil I was feeling inside.
Acid takes you so far outside of yourself and gives you such an outrageously objective perspective that it can make existing in our society annoying. It’s as close to absolute objectivity (the mind of God?) that I have ever experienced. It’s the only drug I don’t regret taking.
Cocaine—the euphoria, the feeling of power, the illusion of control and the delusion that it was real—cost me a promising career at one of St. Louis’ best companies. But of all the things drugs cost me, the jobs were the least.
I went through treatment five times, completed every program.
When you ask for help in corporate America, you send up a flag—and pretty much mark yourself for termination. To admit to a problem within a competitive environment is just that much more chum for the sharks.
I went into treatment for all the wrong reasons. I just wanted my problems to go away. But no matter where you go, there you are.
It was like I had developed a concrete shell around my emotional self. Somebody takes a sledgehammer and it cracks, and slowly you start to get down to the core problem. I have had to work very hard at developing patience.
I found a job I loved, had five years of sobriety, and then the dot-com bubble burst. I was really angry—and the people who lived below me were meth cooks who needed financial backing for a bake. Bad things happened from that point forward.
I started snorting meth, then smoking it, and finally I started shooting it. My life fell apart. I picked up seven felony charges in nine months—and I didn’t get caught for half of what I did.
Oh, my mother knew—too much—and it broke her heart.
I had a few opportunities in jail to do dope—it’s there. But at one point, and I am not sure when, I made a decision to do things differently.
The paradoxical beauty of victory through surrender is not lost on me. If I fight against my addiction, I will lose, and within a day or two I will find myself in some fleabag hotel with two midgets, a Great Dane and the runner-up from the Miss Crack Whore pageant. Shortly thereafter, I will get arrested for doing something very stupid while attempting to get money for dope.
You have moments of clarity—“What in the fuck am I doing here?”—and then you do another shot of dope and it goes away.
It is beyond orgasmic pleasure, the pathology that goes with setting up the rig. I can’t see a needle to this day without shaking.
St. Pat’s is a humble gyroscope—street-level sobriety.
People say, “What are you recovering from?” I’m recovering from myself.
Every junkie I’ve ever met has either had bipolar disorder, ADD or some other psychiatric illness they’re trying to medicate. I’ve seen guys off dope a week who are emotional wrecks; they cannot hold a thought for five minutes.
Drugs made me feel confident. Actually, they made me feel like I was God—and I wound up chasing that illusion.
