Being life of the party led to addictive lifestyle
Drug and alcohol abuse consumed Scott Humphries’ life for almost a decade
Scott Humphries was well known among his peers to be the life of the party.
He loved the attention, which filled him with the security of belonging to a group.
Invitations to parties kept coming. Humphries did not have the difficulty that most teens fear and dread — being left out or labelled as social outcasts.
It was at these parties that Humphries discovered alcohol and, later, drugs.
It started with a few drinks and soft drugs, which then snowballed into binge drinking and hard drugs.
“I was addicted not to a particular substance,” Humphries said, “but more to the life of the party. I was addicted to being addicted.”
The addiction started at a young age for Humphries, when he was 15 or 16, and it gripped his life for nine years.
“It seemed like a lot of fun, underage drinking. I drank six Max Ice (beer with high alcohol content) in 12 minutes. When I got it, it felt like fun,” Humphries said.
His peers noticed Humphries took his drinking to another level, and on multiple occasions told him to tone it down.
Humphries refused to listen. Drugs were added to this cocktail of substance addiction as he positioned himself to become a professional wrestler.
“Wrestling opened up doors to painkillers, drinking, drugs and harder stuff,” Humphries said.
“I was also in a band, a wrestler and a cook. I am screwed from the get-go with addictions.”
Humphries realized later that “it is not the business that creates addicts, it’s the performers. It’s people. We all have a choice and we knew right from wrong.”
However, drug overdoses and passing out from binge drinking were recurrent themes in Humphries’ life for many years. After each episode, he vowed to quit this destructive lifestyle, only to remain clean for short intervals.
He would call his dad to tell him that he was going to quit for good after each overdose, but many empty promises were made over the years.
After an incident of being severely overdosed on meth pills, Humphries got very ill and came close to losing his life.
“I was going to sleep and started saying my goodbyes. I actually think this is the one. I remember closing my eyes, there was a big flash and it tripped me out. I got this jolt, and it said, ‘go to the hospital,’” Humphries said.
After recovery, “I said, ‘If I continue, I’ll be in jail or I’ll be dead.’ I told my dad I
didn’t want to die, and he believed me. He was super calm.”
Humphries remembers the day clearly.
“It was Oct. 24, 2015 when I stopped.” His life is getting back on track and he is slowly rebuilding the trail of destruction he left as an addict.
“My sister and I were not really close, and I completely understand why,” he said. “She saw me drunk a few times and I wasn’t the best drunk. It was hard for her and we did not text a lot. We did not talk a lot.
“But this Christmas, she wrote me and said, ‘I was wondering if I could stay at your house just for a couple of days?’ Since I’ve known her, she has never asked me to stay at my house. That message kind of summed up everything.”
Humphries’ family and friends walked alongside him through his trials and temptations.
“I have the best support system in the world. I tried to do this all myself and I almost died. I had the love and support from everyone. But you have to have a willingness. You’ve got to be willing to change. You have to stop for yourself,” Humphries said.
“It literally comes down to whether you don’t want to die. Doing drugs may be fun at first, but as you keep piling it on, your two options are jail and death. It is that simple.
“You want to live or you want to die?
“I have parents that love me and did everything for me and gave me life, and if I went out (that way), it would be disrespectful to them. I can’t do that to them.”