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Recovery in the News
Former Drug Addict Turns Life Around
Tim Elliot
NBC 15 News
February 22, 2011
After a long battle with drug and alcohol addiction, Harold Stafford overcomes a new challenge: cancer. He shares his amazing story of addiction, relapse, and recovery only with NBC 15.
Millions of Americans struggle with drug addiction everyday. The National Institute on Drug Abuse defines drug addiction as a complex, often chronic brain disease. And a local man has an incredible story of abuse, relapse, and recovery.
Harold Stafford has been through a lot in his life. He abused drugs and alcohol for years and considers himself lucky to be alive. He wants his story to serve as an example that no matter how hopeless life may seem, there's always hope.
“The first time I tried drugs I was in sixth grade,”
From an early age, Harold Stafford was using drugs and alcohol.
“My first alcohol ingestion, I had to be six-years-old,”
A destructive pattern developed and continued into adulthood.
“During my high school years, I did experience, mushrooms, acid, cocaine. It was just an every night occurrence or near every night,”
Drugs became an outlet.
“They provided immediate relief, I somehow felt different or better,”
At 19, Stafford moved to California after he was kicked out of college.
“About the age of 23 is when things started to turn on me and there was an acute dependence on the alcohol and especially at that time, the cocaine,”
Stafford was an addict. His addiction drove him deeper into the dark world of illegal drugs.
“I started selling it and trafficking it,”
So in 1986, his family staged an intervention.
“The gig was up they all knew what i was up to, there was not more denying it, I was exposed and I was guilty,”
After a 30-day stint in a Minneapolis rehab center, Stafford got his act together. Over the next ten years, he earned a college degree, volunteered helping fellow addicts and at risk kids, and even enrolled in law school. But just as Stafford got his life together, FBI agents came knocking at his door.
“They had been working me until I went to treatment,”
The federal government knew about Stafford's days of drug dealing.
“We talked for several hours and I knew I'd be facing 10 years under the federal law,”
But in his last year studying law, things got worse.
“In the fall semester, I was diagnosed with an ependymoma. it's a tumor on the fourth ventricle of my brain stem. And at that time it wasn't real clear if I was going to live or die. I had three brain surgeries and radiation all while completing my last year,”
In his fight to beat cancer, Stafford's addiction grabbed hold once again.
“I was sober from 1986 to 1996 and when I had that second surgery that addiction that lie dormant woke up,”
“They couldn't feed me the pain pills fast enough and when the doctor couldn't prescribe them I went from the doctor to the street and I started using drugs and alcohol all over again,”
But Stafford refuses to blame cancer for his relapse.
“Make no mistake about it: I relapsed because I'm an addict, because I'm chemically dependent,”
In 2005, he returned to treatment and got his life together for a second time. Today he's clean and cancer-free and works as a successful lawyer in Madison.
“This thing called chemical dependency is cunning, baffling, powerful and I've also heard it said that it's patient,”
He says his rise from the depths of despair was slow and difficult but he still struggles with his addiction everyday.
“But it doesn't mean that I'm cured and it doesn't mean that it wont come back,”
In 1996, just as he began his battle against cancer, the federal government handed Stafford's drug case over to the state of Wisconsin. The state convicted Stafford on drug charges.
Because of his volunteer work commitment to turning his life around, then-Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson granted him a pardon; forgiving him for his crime and any penalty along with it.
If you or someone you know is battling addiction and needs help, visit http://www.tellurian.org/ for a list of resources.