Mom and Dad were excited about my future in the financial world. I had a terrific stock-trading coach whose pupils never failed to pass the Series 7 test. In fact, he was 18 for 18 up to this point. After passing the test, I was promised an office in a high-rise building off Poydras Street in downtown New Orleans as a stockbroker.
During the final section of the exam, I had an attack of nerves and decided to snort some Oxys in the bathroom during the last break. This should calm me down, I told myself. It seemed like a great idea at the time. At least nerves made a good excuse to get high. My wrong answers spiraled, and I failed the test by two points.
My parents were throwing me a party to congratulate me. There were refreshments, ice cream, cake, streamers, banners, and friends—and I had to walk in and say, “I’m sorry. It’s not happening. I failed.” I remember thinking, How many times do I have to say that? It was the story of my life.
And of course, for me, that badge of shame was a brand-new excuse to double down on getting high. Everything was an excuse in those days.
In 2001, I finally ran out of money. It’s an inevitable moment for every abuser—the outgo is always greater than the income, and you can’t do much about it.
Users begin taking everything they own to pawn shops, and ultimately there’s nothing left to sell but the one thing in your new world: the drug itself. And that’s a struggle, because the temptation to use rather than sell your stash is too powerful. So life becomes a vicious cycle that’s smaller and tighter every time it comes around—until it resembles a noose.
To keep from strangling, I began stealing from my parents.
As someone who owned his own business, Dad had a credit card he used. He might put thousands of dollars’ worth of car parts on it in a single day, so there were pages of charges each month, and I knew he didn’t check them too closely. He also entrusted the card, its number, and its expiration date to me during the time I was working for him. I helped him make purchases, ran things while he was out of town, and, most of all, I was his son. He trusted me.
When I began needing money desperately, I realized the power of that credit card number. I could order something over the phone, then turn the brand-new item into cash as soon as it arrived.
I told myself it was a stopgap; I wouldn’t do this forever. (I was correct on that count.) All that money was running through the business, and Dad wasn’t going to notice. And most important of all, I needed another high. And I needed it now.
“Little” sins never stay that way. They grow up. Guilt begins to dissolve like a fine mist, and you become reckless.
I started out using my dad’s credit card for my insatiable physical need. But in time, I found it easy to use the card for something I simply wanted: a Fender Stratocaster guitar, along with a pedal and an amp. If there was a tiny whisper in my ear, coming from my conscience, I ignored it. That whisper would have said, “One day, maybe you could say, ‘Hey, Dad, it was my body crying out for the drug. I had no choice.’ But you can’t say that about a guitar. This is simply stone-cold theft, and from the parents who love you.”
That’s why it was significant it was that guitar—not something I bought and pawned for drugs—that got me caught. It was the most revealing, most shameful example of a pattern of sin that caught me.
I ordered the Fender over the phone, and someone from the company called my dad’s office to say, “Mr. Gallaty, your guitar is on back order.” My dad’s assistant handed him the phone.
“We didn’t order any guitar.”
The girl on the line confirmed the name on the card. When Dad got off the phone, he called my mom about the mystery—was it identity theft?—and soon they were checking the monthly statement. It wasn’t only the guitar they found there, but a number of other strange purchases—nice stuff, expensive stuff. Quickly they pulled out previous bills, and they added up at least $15,000 in bogus charges.
They knew about my interest in guitars, and they also knew I had access to that card number. An “ordinary” identity theft wouldn’t have gone on so long—the thief uses information quickly and moves on. Only one person could have stolen from them like this.
I can’t imagine how deeply ill, how personally wounded they felt, when the hard truth became clear. Our son, our pride and joy, is robbing us blind.
The conversation that followed between my mother and me is terrible to remember—how she told me I was no longer welcome in their home, how hurt my father was. And then the way I snapped back in anger. All of it replayed over and over in my mind like a horror film. We were done, my parents and me.
What followed would be the worst seventy-five days of my life—two and a half months, beginning with a cold February that now seemed far colder. Even while high, I felt the rift between my parents and me, and besides—I was still jobless, out of money, living in an apartment where I couldn’t pay the bills. I pushed drugs here and there, but for addicts, money is fleeting. It slips through the fingers like sand.
There was some place in my soul that realized I was completely out of control, this couldn’t go on. Something had to give, either my life or my habit. The two couldn’t coexist forever.
There weren’t many alternatives, really. I could come clean and ask for help. I could move
