Daryl Pass on Sobri­ety and Recov­ery: ​“This is My Story”

September 09, 2021

Daryl Pass, KYC Recov­ery Sup­port Ser­vices Man­ag­er, shares his recov­ery jour­ney in his own words, pub­lished in the Opi­oid Men­tal Health Aware­ness pub­li­ca­tion from Shaw Media. KYC is hon­ored to share his sto­ry, proud to cel­e­brate him as an extra­or­di­nary mem­ber of our team, and grate­ful for his work, espe­cial­ly as we con­tin­ue to rec­og­nize Recov­ery Month this September.

By Daryl Pass

I am a per­son that has nine years of sobri­ety and rel­ish­es in recov­ery, and the two are very dif­fer­ent, in my opin­ion. For me, sobri­ety is that I am not putting any mind-alter­ing sub­stances in my being, but recov­ery is a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent com­po­nent. Recov­ery is about trans­for­ma­tive think­ing and behav­ioral change. Nine years ago, I did­n’t have that under­stand­ing as I was bare­ly hold­ing on to life and was immersed in sub­stances and addic­tive behavior.

I was exist­ing and not living.

For 30-plus years, sub­stances were an every­day occur­rence for me, and that ranged from mar­i­jua­na to alco­hol and even­tu­al­ly grav­i­tat­ing to crack cocaine, and the last 23 years of my sub­stance use was hero­in every day.

In addi­tion to that, I was addict­ed to street behav­ior — gangs, vio­lence, gam­bling and the like. All were a part of my chron­ic dys­func­tion. I was using sub­stances and behav­iors to fill a mas­sive void — a void that was rid­dled with abuse, anger, resent­ment, grief and fear. All of these things were the pre­req­ui­site for me to self-med­icate and try to solve my why with­out help.

Abuse comes in many forms. For me, there was sex­u­al abuse at 8 years of age — I nev­er told any­one until I was over 40 years old. That in and of itself caused me not to trust, and in many cas­es not to believe and to embrace fear. There was also grief in that where I had lost sev­er­al peo­ple — fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends that I cared deeply about. Some were to sick­ness and some to street violence.

I nev­er knew how to process that sad­ness, so I held on to it.

Hav­ing those things as part of my inter­nal char­ac­ter caused me to embrace sub­stances and those behav­iors even more. It tru­ly pre­vent­ed me from lov­ing and allow­ing myself to be loved. I made two attempts at inpa­tient treat­ment and sev­er­al detox­es. I had mul­ti­ple arrests and jail time and a stint in prison that did­n’t stop me, and I just came back and picked up where I left off. It was­n’t until I was in so much pain and could no longer bear to look at myself in the mir­ror that I decid­ed to tap out and by any means nec­es­sary to get better.

I under­stand today that I tru­ly was uni­formed and not ready for change, but once the pain got so unbear­able, there was noth­ing left but death.

I DID­N’T WANT TO DIE!

I made a deci­sion to use the same verac­i­ty to kill myself, to live instead. On June 18, 2012, I went into inpa­tient treat­ment for the third time and last time.

Today, I under­stand my dis­or­der, and it is a dis­or­der. Left untreat­ed, it is pro­gres­sive and dead­ly. Treat­ed, through com­mit­ment, edu­ca­tion and for sure ser­vice to oth­ers is a recipe for success.

Today my wound is a blessing.

I am an advo­cate for reduc­ing stig­ma and increas­ing knowl­edge sur­round­ing sub­stance use dis­or­der. In doing so, today I rel­ish in recov­ery and am liv­ing my best life.

Present­ly I am a man­ag­er for recov­ery sup­port at the Ken­neth Young Cen­ter; I own two sober homes and a non­prof­it — New Begin­nings Recov­ery Mission.

I am so glad the Lord allowed me to choose life, and with his help I am able to help oth­ers nav­i­gate the mine­field of addiction.

Nev­er give up hope.

KYC is hon­ored to cel­e­brate Daryl as an extra­or­di­nary mem­ber of our team. If you’re look­ing for a career oppor­tu­ni­ty to sup­port folks in recov­ery or to sup­port KYC’s mis­sion, view our open positions.

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