I wrote this story for the "Chicken Soup For The Recovering Soul" series. This really happened to my best friend who has now passed on to the big meeting in the sky.
Daniel Tuck Walker was truly a wonderful human being. He was one of the kindest, gentlest people I ever met.
Tucker I love you!

When I was in High School there was a brand new recovery center working with families in our community. They were really good at what they did and they had a lot of parents going to them for education. Part of the education program was the intervention process. With that program parents and other people were all taught how to intervene on a person.

In my group of friends we started to watch our "using" friends begin to drop like fly's caught in a cold snap. We'd all gather for our weekend using party's and one less friend would be around. We'd all sit around, drink our beer, smoke our marijuana use some drugs and talk about our buddies and wonder what the heck was going on. About Christmas time one of them came back and told us all about this great place he'd been to. "I'm officially on the wagon!" He told us. "I just got out of a half-way house."

"What's that mean?" We asked. Our friend told us that his family had done an intervention on him. "I came down to eat breakfast and everyone was there waiting for me. They sent me to a treatment center and then on to a half-way house after that." He had found a way not to drink or even touch drugs anymore!

"Bummer for him." Is what I thought. "But good for me," was my next thought. That guy was a loser. He never bought any dope anyway. Getting rid of him meant more for me. He stood there and talked about how great he felt. He told us that we were all "Chemically Dependent" and that we should look into going to some meetings with him.

"I knew it!" I yelled at him. "You're a Jesus freak now. You got God and now you want us to be like you!" I tossed a beer can at him. The others also yelled at him to get lost and come back when he was normal again.

He left and we passed around a bong pipe. We all talked about the good old days with our friend and how much of a jerk he was now. "Poor Jerk. He has no idea how bad off he is." I pointed to the sunset that was happening. "Let's smoke another bowl and make this thing better!"

We fired up another bowl, passed it around and the sunset did look better. Another month passed and two more friends came home. The same thing had happened with them. They came to us and tried to convert us into that weird group they were all now going to. Something that had to do with 12 steps and some kinda thing where they didn't drink or use drugs anymore.

I started trying to figure out what was happening to them. I went to where the parents were going, sat in the back and listened to the junk they were talking about. At that meeting I learned about something called an intervention. After the meeting was over I stuck around for a few minutes and listened to the parents talking among themselves. I shrugged my shoulders and left that room. Then I went to those so called old friends and they told me what happened to them when they were intervened on.

I was at home by myself and I was in my bedroom. I started smoking some marijuana and I had some PCP. It wasn't a good trip. I got really scared. Something bad must've happened because when I woke up I was in the hospital. My mom and dad were there and so were my brother's and sister. I had no memory of what had happened to put me in the hospital, and the looks on my family's faces wasn't good. My whole family told me how scared they were for me. I really lied great that night. I told them everything they must have wanted to hear because they left me alone. I got out of the hospital the next day.

When I got to my bedroom it was clean! My drugs were gone. My pipes and rolling papers were gone. Even my favorite coke mirror was gone. I sat down on my bed and started thinking. I looked up at my walls and my posters were gone! "Oh crap." I thought. "This isn't good."

I spent a restless night thinking about everything I was doing. I knew deep down what I was doing wrong. It just wasn't right. I was going against everything I used to believe. I was going against everything my family believed. I thought about my two brothers, my sister and how they looked at me laying on that hospital bed.

It was a long night, a night full of fear and troubling thoughts. Finally, with only a couple of hours left until morning, I fell asleep. I woke up to voices coming to me from the kitchen. Everything fell into place for me. I was caught in a trap. I was in my room downstairs and there was no way out. I had to go upstairs to even leave the house. I couldn't sneak out through a window or even out the back door with out anyone knowing.

Funny I wasn't even angry. I put on some clothes and followed the voices up the stairs. There were voices of people I didn't even know. That fit with what I knew was about to happen. I opened the door and walked into the kitchen. At the table were my parents and two other people.

Before anyone could say anything I started spilling my guts to them. I raced on as fast as I could telling them everything about my problems and just how bad it was. I told them all the drugs I was using and how often I was using them. My parents looked at me stunned. The other couple looked at me stunned. I slowed caught my breath and my dad stood up.
"Son?"

"Yes."

"This is a meeting with some people about Amway.

I did end up going to treatment and a half-way house and I did get into recovery. I have achieved my hearts desire. Every time I share my story I get to tell about the time I spilled my guts to two complete strangers so I could get here.