David Stadel and Acacia Bernstein come from very different backgrounds, but both struggled with and overcame their addictions. Each former addict attributes their success to rediscovering themselves in Denver treatment.
In 2019, Colorado reported that 11.7% of residents deal with substance abuse disorder. Substance abuse disorder is a treatable mental health condition that causes people to lose control over their use of illicit drugs, alcohol or medications. Understanding that substance abuse disorder cannot be generalized can ultimately benefit those seeking recovery and can rid the false narrative of addiction.
Bernstein, 44, is a former addict who has overcome decades of struggle and hardship to get to her triumphant year and a half of sobriety.
“There’s a small percentage of us for whom it’s genetic [for] and you can’t help it, and that’s just how you were born,” Bernstein said. “But mostly addiction comes from a trauma in your life that you didn’t have the support [for] or didn’t know how to process, and you try to make up for those emotional shortcomings by sedating yourself.”
Bernstein, who grew up in Marin County, California, experienced trauma from a very young age.
“My life was filled with sexual assault and abuse from like birth until like seven or eight,” Bernstein said. “We were homeless; we didn’t have money for food. It was like one trauma after the other, yeah, until I, pretty much, like, 19.” Bernstein’s father was a heroin and meth addict and her mother was mentally ill, which left her feeling isolated.
She notes that drug use really took off in high school. “People were like, ‘Hey, come smoke weed with us. Come try meth.’ I was like, ‘Okay,’” Bernstein said. “I had everything at my fingertips, and I was not opposed. For a long time, I was working really hard to pay for my pill habit. I would take Adderall to go to work, and then I would take painkillers to go to sleep. So for a long time, I thought I was just like the high-functioning drug addict.”
She enjoyed the feeling of being high all the time because even when things went wrong, they never felt like her responsibility.
“When you’re on drugs, everything’s fine,” Bernstein said. “Your world is burning down around you, but this is fun, and it’s everybody else’s fault. It’s not mine. It’s a false sense of reality where you and whoever you surround yourself with think that this is fine, because misery loves company, so other people who are miserable want to be around you and make you feel like this is totally fine.”
Bernstein traveled around for a few years, visiting places like Lake Tahoe and working odd jobs at weed farms. She was frequently living out of her car and was content with this “transient lifestyle” until she got the call that her mother’s health was declining.
When she came back to Marin County, she put her mother in a retirement home, where she ultimately passed away a few months later. An injury got her hooked on prescription pain pills. During this time, Bernstein also became involved in an unhealthy, toxic relationship with her ex-partner, who smoked meth, leading to her starting to use the substance again.
“My boyfriend and I started having problems,” Bernstein said. “I moved out of there, and then it was just like, ‘I’m down for whatever.’ So I started using fentanyl, doing heroin and shooting meth. I overdosed on fentanyl three times; I was running out of money. I was in another toxic, abusive relationship, and I just was like, ‘I’m either going to die or there has to be some sort of change.’”
Bernstein realized that change was necessary for her to continue living and she came to Colorado to look for help. “With my tail between my legs, I went into Denver Cares, and I spent five days in detox and had crazy hallucinations,” Bernstein said. ”When I got out, I put myself in sober living, and I was in sober living for eight months.”
She credits 12-step recovery meetings and her therapist for helping her kick the drugs. Bernstein stated that staying in the rhythm of sobriety and finding community with others on the journey are the most important parts of staying sober.
“My shrink always said the opposite of addiction is connection,” Bernstein said. “The biggest part of getting clean is having people who understand you and a community to support you because that’s what’s going to keep you sober. Denver really has one of the most incredible sober communities. There are so many things. There’s like The Phoenix, it’s a gym, you just need 48 hours clean, and it’s free; they do all these programs like rock climbing [and] hiking, and it’s all about building that community and connection.”
David Stadel is another member of the sober community who has found help through connections in the Denver community. Though his upbringing is very different from Bernstein’s, he too has overcome a life of addiction. Stadel grew up in Massachusetts with two older brothers and one younger sister, and though he didn’t come from a background of addiction, he began smoking marijuana at a very young age.
“I have two older brothers; both of them are pot smokers, so it was around,” Stadel said. “I could sneak it and steal it from them. I was getting high from marijuana definitely in seventh and eighth grade, and in ninth grade, my older brother was a senior; I got high every day on the way to school.”
Stadel was a good student in high school. He was on sports teams and practicing for the SAT, but once his extracurriculars were over, he was looking to get high.
“For whatever reason, I had this need to get fucked up, you know?” Stadel said. “At that point in my life, it wasn’t to hide from anything, to numb from pain. I didn’t have any pain yet; I was a middle-class kid [and] kind of had whatever I wanted, so I don’t know why I chased that buzz as hard as I did back then.”
In college at Penn State, he began binge drinking, using drugs like acid and LSD. For him, college was about having a good time. Once he started working, he used cocaine every day. “I knew I needed help when I was spending money that I didn’t have [and] racked up huge amounts of debt I couldn’t pay back,” Stadel said.
He knew he wanted to get help but did not know how, so he began to write on index cards. The cards included statements like “I use cocaine weekly” and “I owe hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
At first, Stadel did not share them with anyone. He added to this stack of cards over the course of months, piling on things he did not like about his life and struggles with substances. However, when the credit card companies started calling about his debt, his wife caught on.
“She didn’t know that I was cash advancing from the ATM every day to go fucking buy another eight ball,” Stadel said. “But what happened was my wife said, ‘Hey, credit card companies called; we need to talk.’ I was like, ‘This is it.’ I bust out those index cards. I came into our living room and I sat in a chair with one of my cards, and to my wife’s credit, she was quiet. She gave me the space to say whatever I needed to say. She didn’t come at me angry. She had every right to.”
Stadel went back home to Massachusetts and did a 30-day inpatient recovery, then 60 days of outpatient therapy. He went to 12-step meetings almost every day during the early months of his sobriety and credits that as well as a therapist for the greater part of a year for helping him on his journey.
“Telling somebody that I’m a fucking drug addict, man, I’m a drunk, and they control me in ways that I wish they didn’t, so I can’t have any,” Stadel said. There is power in that.”
Even though he and his wife separated, Stadel had been open with his kids about his struggle with addiction.
“They would ask, ‘Why can’t you read me another story? Why do you have to go to your meeting?’’’ Stadel said. “I can tell them, ’You know how some of your friends can’t have peanuts, or they get sick? I can’t have alcohol or it makes me sick, and going to these meetings is like medicine’.”
Stadel knew that the 12-step program he attended was necessary for his sober journey. Feeling like he was not alone in the process was a big part of why he continued to attend meetings.
“There were a lot of speaker meetings,” Stadel said. “People telling the stories. I was like, ‘Hey, it’s just like me.’ There were judges, and there were all manner of people that were in AA, and it just kind of connected with me better, even though drugs were the bigger part of my story and downfall. AA as a solution connected better.”
For Bernstein and Stadel, seeking professional help was essential in sober living. Though they come from vastly different backgrounds, both have been able to find peace in their sobriety through substance abuse therapy.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reports that 68% of those who seek professional treatment such as a drug or alcohol detox program are likely to be successful in their recovery. If you, or a loved one, is struggling with addiction and substance abuse disorder, know that recovery can be achieved. To find a 12-step program near you, check out the Alcoholics Anonymous website for resources.