Chad Benson: “I am getting all sorts of texts as we are talking about this guy. This is what the show is all about, real people. Politics is interesting but it is not real life … it does not get more real than this.”
Listen to the full interview here
Drugs. Alcohol. Addiction. September is National Recovery Month. In this gritty and honest interview, talk show host Chad Benson asks Charles Hanna tough questions about addiction
And Hanna unflinchingly describes the path that led him from business success into severe cocaine addiction.
“At that time we had no idea that it was as dangerous as it is,” admits Hanna. “This was when cocaine first appeared in North America. And I did not expect it to be harmful in any way. But I’ll tell you, my addiction probably started the very first time I did it. I just loved it that much.”
Benson asks Hanna to ‘take us down the path of when you started to realize that you needed cocaine every day, and that this was becoming an issue’.
“First of all, I didn’t start doing cocaine because I felt lousy,” says Hanna. “It just made me feel much better. But as I continued to use it, my addiction to cocaine started to take hold fairly quickly. And it got to the point where I had big events for my company. And I couldn’t stop. I thought stress was the cause. So I tried several things; Like, I asked people to help me. Or I would take time off. And then I started to blame it on this and that. I couldn’t stop it. It just got worse and worse and my relationships deteriorated, my marriage was falling apart, I started to have these incredible resentments. And I could not get out of it. The more I tried – it was like quicksand – I got deeper and deeper into it.”
Everybody knows somebody who is dealing with addiction
Or perhaps they have battled it themselves. And they know what addiction can do to lives. It tears apart relationships, it tears apart work lives, personal lives, financial security. How did Hanna’s addiction take over his life?
“We would do several grams a day,” says Hanna. “And we would do that several days in a row. So the last time I did cocaine, I almost died. I did it for five days straight without sleeping, and hardly eating; I was 6′-1″ and I my weight was 127 pounds.”
What was the underlying cause of his addiction? “The irony of it is, it started to happen when I was at the height of my success. And I had everything I’d ever dreamed of: money, success, popularity, admiration – I was well-recognized in the industry, I was very happily married, I had a beautiful child, I had everything to look forward to. But when I look back, these things didn’t really make me happy, which I thought they would. And that confused me, because those dreams are what had been driving me up until then. So finally, when I had all those things – and found that they didn’t give me any pleasure – I was lost.”
Listen to the rest of the interview as Hanna describes the miracle of perception that allowed him to start his recovery.
Have you experienced addiction? How has it affected your journey?