00:00He took me to this rehab, and this is where the shift happened.
00:03I had to relearn who I was, because my whole life I was wearing a mask.
00:08And the way I was able to do that was through community,
00:12something I was desperately seeking my whole life.
00:14I was surrounded by other addicts.
00:16I was doing work on myself every day.
00:19I was going to meetings every single night.
00:21I had stopped using.
00:23I got my first proper job in recovery two years into my addiction recovery,
00:29every three years into my addiction recovery.
00:31I was put in a wheelchair and put in an institution for my eating disorder.
00:35One day I was out.
00:37I got a phone call, and I said,
00:38you have to come to the hospital.
00:39Your dad's in hospital.
00:41And the doctor looked at my dad, and he said,
00:45Alan, it's stage four pancreatic cancer.
00:47You have nine months left.
00:49He was going through recovery while I was going through recovery.
00:52And he said to me,
00:53Tony, please don't die before me.
00:58Fight for your recovery from your eating disorder.
01:01And that's when I made a promise to my father,
01:03and I was going to get better.
01:06My father passed away,
01:07and he didn't live to see me recover from my final recovery.
01:13Now, 13 years into my addiction recovery,
01:17I have been in recovery from my eating disorder since then
01:19because I can feel like I can finally breathe again.
01:24You just keep fighting because you are so worth it.
01:28I don't want it.
01:28I don't want it.
Comments