True Stories of Addiction: Alcohol Was My Gateway to Illegal Drugs
Introduction
Brady grew up in a disconnected family shaped by hidden addiction and instability. He began drinking as a teenager, and over time alcohol became part of his daily routine before escalating into cocaine use, prescription pain pills, benzodiazepines, and eventually IV heroin. What started as drinking after work slowly turned into using different substances to control his moods, stay awake, sleep, and cope with feelings of hopelessness and depression. Even serious health complications, including pancreatitis and an overdose, were not enough to immediately break the cycle.
In this deeply personal interview, Brady reflects on the progression of addiction, the isolation that came with it, and the mindset that kept him trapped in substance use. He also speaks openly about relapse, treatment, recovery, and the importance of community support, describing how detox, residential treatment, and 12-step recovery helped him begin rebuilding a life he no longer wanted to escape from.
Read more about Brady's recovery journey through Detox to Rehab, which has shared more than 160 interviews in its True Stories of Addiction series featuring people reflecting on addiction, relapse, and recovery.
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Quotes
"I started drinking at the end of my shift and it became a more common thing. It started off a couple times a week and then it became four or five times a week … it became more and more frequent."
"The cocaine addiction escalated very quickly and that increased my drinking quite a bit. If I wanted to wake up, to sober up a bit and continue the party a little bit, I would do some cocaine. If I wanted to go to sleep, or I wanted to take it down a little bit, I would do some drinking, and so I kind of began to control my moods with drugs and alcohol."
"He [a doctor] said, everybody has so much they can drink in their entire life. You've already drank all yours, you're done. If you continue to drink, you're going to die. That was enough to get me to quit drinking, but it wasn't enough to keep me from everything else."
"There was no real plan of anything. It was just me doing what I had to do to be okay, to try to make things work and try to get by. Not a whole lot of extra thought other than, I need to make sure that I stay loaded because if I'm not loaded, I'm not going to be okay. I had lost hope at that point … I felt as though life was meant for suffering, life was a punishment, there was nothing good in life. So, I was really depressed and I thought about that all the time, about the idea that everybody would have been better off without me and my life is meaningless, my life is pointless."
"I fell into this circle of friends that I have today. We do so much stuff together, whatever free time I have I spend with those people. They actually care about me as a human being and I care about them."
"On that final relapse, from the minute I drank for the first time, there was no relief to be found. I didn't get that relief that you would think you get; it just never came. Just that old hopelessness of, what am I doing? What's the point? I fell back into that mindset as soon as I drank … I went back to the treatment center … I threw myself into it even though I didn't really feel like it."
"I get emotional and I have difficulties and there's certain things that I don't like but I always make my recovery number one, no matter what, even if I don't feel like it and it's been a life-changing experience."
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