My First Addiction

            I think I was about five years old, and I was playing by myself in my best friend’s room. He was downstairs for some reason, and I suddenly realized that I could steal his special toy car…and he’d never know it.  So I did, and nobody ever found out.

            The first got caught shoplifting, I was six and in kindergarten.  By that time, was basically stealing every day, any time I wanted to.  It was mostly candy, and small toys, but it was always something.  The man who caught me showed me the mirrors in the ceiling of the store where he had watched me steal the candy bar.  He called my mom, and she drove me past the police station pointing out where I would wind up if I continued my errant ways. 

What I learned from that experience was:

• Keep an eye out for the mirrors in the stores.
• Don’t get caught again.
• And…learn all the ways that they try to catch you.

            I never got caught again at any store, but I continued to shoplift till I was thirteen or fourteen years old.  I took anything I wanted, period.  The second time I got caught, I had stolen a pair of walkie-talkies.  I totally got away with it until about two weeks later when my mom nailed me with them, and I couldn’t lie my way out of it.  She made me take them back to the store I had stolen them from, and she grounded me for the first time in my life…but it didn’t stop me.

The whole process was seductive.  Wandering around the store, casing the joint, deciding what I wanted to take, that moment when I actually slipped it into my pants (usually in the crotch, not in my pocket), choosing something small to pay for, and that moment of walking out the door—what a rush.  Then, afterwards, enjoying the fruit of my labor…it was delicious. 

The first time I prayed for help to stop with anything, I prayed for help to stop stealing every day.  I must have meant it, because that prayer worked, and I eventually stopped when I was about fourteen.  After working the steps, I realized that this was my first addiction, because along with the toys and candy…I got everything else that addiction brings with it.

• I got all kinds of good stuff.  Basically anything I wanted, I could have.  That part was incredibly seductive.
• I proved that “your rules just don’t apply to me.” 
• I got to be above all that honesty crap.
• I got the rush of being better than and smarter than everyone else…especially “the man”, or anyone who worked at the stores, or even anyone who was “straight.”  I literally thought I could make a career of being a consultant for retail stores by teaching them how kids shoplift, because I knew it all.
• Also, the actual rush of adrenalin when I was walking out of the store was the best thing I’d ever felt.  Adrenalin is one of the best “highs” available.

Unfortunately, all of the other parts of addiction also came along with this activity:

• I had to lie to everyone, every day, either about where I got the stuff or simply by hiding what I had stolen.
• I was putting myself into dangerous situations all the time.
• I had to make up new lies whenever someone caught me with my ‘loot’.  Sometimes, my dad would give me the change out of his pocket, so that became my usual lie, “Dad gave me some pocket change the other day…”  My mom usually bought it.
• I became completely isolated. My “front”, or my outward personality, was that of being smart, friendly, funny, gregarious, and a great kid.  I was the good sheep of my family.  Teachers loved me, other parents loved me, my parents loved me—because I was easy…That’s how I got along in life.  However I knew the truth, and the whole thing would burn to ashes if anyone ever found out who the real person that I was. 
• I hated the person that I was.  I hated lying all the time (and I was proud of how well I could lie).  I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I could never tell anyone else the truth.  The only way to keep things ‘status quo’ is to keep myself a secret—period.
• I said the words, “If you only knew the real me,” to myself so many times.  Especially whenever anyone complimented me, which actually happened a lot of the time.
• And…I knew that I couldn’t stop.  I tried, for years to stop.  But I just kept right on stealing.  I didn’t know the words back then, but I was certainly powerless over my addiction.