It had happened before in the previous eight years: waking up in a strange place after a bender with no recollection as to how I got there. But this time, the bed was in a hospital, and I was handcuffed to it. The police told me they brought me there the night before, after I’d shown up at a friend’s home drunk and suicidal. Just a week before, I had spent my last $70 on a Greyhound ticket from Chicago to California with one clear goal: to kill myself. I began drinking shortly after I got out of college. Professionally, I was doing well in corporate human resources and surrounding myself with the external signs of success: car, clothes, fancy watches and more. Internally, though, feelings of inadequacy consumed me, and I quickly learned that alcohol—and later, cocaine—helped to extinguish them, at least temporarily. I pushed away anyone who tried to get too close to me, including my parents.They hadn’t heard from me for three years. I woke up cuffed to that hospital bed with no car, no home, an empty savings account and maxed-out credit cards. Although I had nothing, I date my recovery to that moment. I spent the next few months in homeless shelters and scavenging for food. But losing all my “stuff ” was the beginning of my awakening. My choice was finally clear: continue drinking and die, or… quit and live. There was no in-between. Last spring, I was one of more than 2,300 people biking 545 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles as part of AIDS/ LifeCycle. On a downhill just past the halfway point—immediately after the two formidable hills riders call “the Evil Twins”—I started to bawl. Much of my
My choice was finally clear: continue drinking and die, or… quit & live. There was no in-between.” Jacob Ittycheria
AIDS/LifeCycle participant
sobriety work has been to learn to love and forgive myself and allow myself to be worthy of greatness. Here was proof of my progress. Five years before, living on the streets, I couldn’t have imagined coasting downhill through sweet-smelling chaparral with a view of the Pacific. Coasting simply wasn’t a possibility for me. I decided to ride in AIDS/LifeCycle because when I was lost in darkness, people were there to lead me out. Raising $7,000 for the Jeffrey Goodman Special Care Clinic and riding hundreds of miles proved to me that I’m not only strong enough to care for myself, I’m also strong enough to give back. In a sense, I’m grateful for the darkest days of my addiction, because they made me appreciate the light, and I hope to serve as a light to
others who are also struggling. I finally called my parents on Thanksgiving Day 2009, three months after I came to in the hospital. It took me that long to work up the courage to dial their number, and I broke down and sobbed. My mother told me that she had hoped for two years that every ring of the phone would be me. By the third year, she gave up looking and hoping. She calls me every weekend now, just to reassure herself I’m still here. I don’t mind; I want to be certain that neither she nor I—nor anyone else—ever has to lose hope. Jacob Ittycheria celebrated his fifth year of sobriety in August. Fall 2014 15