You Are Not Alone

Let me introduce myself to those that may not know me: My name is Wendy. I’m 42 years old, married, with three girls. I had a very normal childhood. I had a stay-at-home mom and a police officer for parents, so they were pretty strict raising me. But we had a loving, nurturing home and always had the feeling my parents loved us. There was honestly only one time I saw my dad drunk as a teen, and it did nothing but annoy me because he was not able to walk into the house. I just remember my mother yelling out to me, “just leave him there!”

I had my first drink with my high school boyfriend (who became my first husband) when I was 16. I remember drinking it through a straw because I had heard it messed you up faster. That it did.

My first night drinking was also my first “blackout.” Even now, I don’t remember what happened that night except in flashes.

I hate not having control, so this has eaten at me over the years. Still, I did this binge drinking pretty much every other weekend until we finally broke up for six months.

I always thought my parents were too strict, not yet realizing what they knew about what happens when you let your kids go. So I got a job and moved out as soon as I turned 18 and graduated. I moved out of my first roommate’s house and in with my soon-to-be husband. From age 18 to 20, I drank A LOT and smoked A LOT of pot, but so did my ex, so I didn’t think much of it. If people came over to hang out, I drank to get the nerve up to have conversations (because I’m painfully shy), and I smoked pot to go to sleep at night.

Then I graduated when I had my first C-section at 22. In recovery and for the next three months they had me on opiates. I enjoyed them too much. They seemed to give me the energy I needed as a new mother to take care of my sick child but when I ran out I ran out, no big deal.

I got pregnant again when my daughter was five months old, and I had to have another emergency C-section. Once again I was given Percocet for the next three months, and once again it helped. Around the time my second daughter was three months old and I was running out of my opiates, I ended up with pneumonia and started having problems with my tonsils. The doctors gave me both liquid and pill form of opiates to help with the pain and coughing. This is when I started to spiral out of control, taking a hypnotic mixed with the opiates, several different sleeping pills, stronger opiates, benzos, etc. Then I got my tonsils removed and it became harder to get the prescriptions.

That’s when I went to a psychiatrist and was diagnosed with ADD and manic depressive disorder/bipolar. I started taking meds for it. I was fine for a while, and then I left my ex-husband. At the time, he was schizophrenic and would not get treated. His behaviors were getting worse and worse, and I could not let him around our kids any longer, as it wasn’t safe for them. Right before I left my ex, I lost my job that provided my medical insurance. I no longer was able to afford to see my psychiatrist, so I started dabbling in pills again. I broke my wrist, and the doctor prescribed muscle relaxers with opiates. That started it all back up. It was pills mostly, but then one night someone introduced me to the powder form of cocaine. I was in over my head instantly. I loved it at first. I know it was all fake now, but at the time I was so depressed, and it seemed to give me a passion for life I had been missing. That passion quickly turned into an obsession with the drug, not life.

That addiction lasted for about six months. It just so happened the day I ran out, a hurricane came through and we lost power. The storm stayed for three days. There was NO driving anywhere. I had to take care of my family, so I ended up detoxing and didn’t touch it again for years! Then I started seeing a psychiatrist through ACT/Stewart Marchman. I started feeling a lot better, feeling somewhat normal, but I still didn’t have any energy, and I still craved something to make me wanna make it through the day without having to take a nap. Because no matter how much I had to do during the day, I couldn’t stop thinking about when I was gonna next be able to lay down on my pillow.

Shortly after this, I got back in touch with an old friend, who eventually ended up being my current husband. Our first date was at a bar, and because of the way the alcohol mixed with my meds in that smoky room, I ended up vomiting all over him and his car on the way home. I ran up to my house and got cleaned up. A few minutes later he knocked on the door. He had changed his clothes and cleaned up the mess, and he proceeded to rub my back for a couple hours and talk me into going on a “real date” with him. We were inseparable in the beginning. He is totally drug-free, and when he drinks, he only drinks one drink, if he even finishes it.

So shortly after things started going so well, I began having him buy me bottles of stuff I’d never tried. I would get plastered, and he’d take care of me. It seemed like a win-win, right? Well, no. I could tell something was changing in him. He wasn’t looking at me the same. I was hurting him, and he was the one person I didn’t want to suffer for knowing me. I wanted him to love me as much as I loved him. But he started wanting to know why I felt the need to be drunk all the time around him.

So just like that, I stopped EVERYTHING for a few years. We became a family and got married. He loved my previous two children as much as any father could, and shortly after we had a baby together. Then a couple years later, my grandmother started getting sick. I was really close with her, and I was having/ wanting to take care of her, but I needed energy to stay awake. So I started taking strong opiates. They helped at first, but when my grandmother passed I added benzos to deal with the grieving that was out of control. Then I got the bright idea to detox off of those by going to a methadone treatment center, so I wouldn’t get sick. For the most part, it worked wonders — but then I was hooked on methadone!

I don’t know which is worse, pills or methadone. Finally, after three years, I weaned myself off of methadone, and two months later my youngest sister called me up, all proud of me for being off of methadone, and she said she had a surprise for me. The surprise was crack cocaine. She described it as a “more clean/pure form of a high.” When I found out that’s what we were doing, I was like, “Wait! I heard about this on the news.” Shortly after, I had a new addiction. It helped me stay awake throughout the day, so I loved it! That’s when I started coming up with all kinds of excuses to be gone all of the time. “this person needs a ride here” or “So and so can’t be alone, they need a friend,” etc. I’m sure if you know an addict or have been an addict you’ve heard silly excuses and thought, Why does them driving this person mean more to them than their families? Well they don’t. It was my excuse to be bringing dope to others, so I could pay for mine. Luckily, it never got to the point where I was stealing for it or prostituting myself. but still, it did get bad in my eyes.

Within two months, my husband kicked me out, and I was essentially homeless. He then turned off my phone, disabled my car and took my tag, so I was stuck. I was so far away from being “myself” at this point that it’s as if I’m talking about someone else. That night, I took a bottle of pills, trying to not wake up again because I felt my life was over and wanted it done with. I couldn’t take the way he was looking at me. I woke up to an intervention with my parents, husband and brother standing over me. From there, I voluntarily went to detox at Deland hospital, they started me on Abilify, & Effexor XR. Then I went straight from there to rehab for five months. While in rehab, I had to take my psych pills everyday
at the same time, and I started feeling the effects of them working. It turned out that Abilify is what I’ve needed all these years to feel normal and “awake” all day. I don’t feel high, I just feel “normal,” like other people feel.

Rehab was a pain in the ass, but it really helped me! I admire the people that work there and are able to take care of these girls. Even though most of the girls there end up relapsing and some die from it, they still go to work every day and give these girls the tools to get through it! That’s exactly what it did for me without me realizing it. I wasn’t ready to be clean even though I thought I was, I promised my family I was, and at the time felt I was. In rehab I took in everything around me, the meetings, the structure, the rules (even though they seemed silly when I first got there, there was a reason for every one of them). The main thing I realized was that it wasn’t killing me to be abstinent. I actually started to feel pretty good. So I graduated, and since leaving rehab I have relapsed a few times. One of those times led me to get arrested for paraphernalia, which in turn got me ordered to another drug program where I got random urinalysis, which helped me keep clean. I was making it to meetings 5 to 7 times a week. Then I stopped — not only because of a relapse, but because I feel alienated at the meetings. it’s probably me. but it doesn’t help. I hate that feeling like I’m in high school and the mean girls are bothering me. Especially since I never had that problem in school, there are some things I won’t tolerate anymore, and anything that makes me feel down on myself can make me want to use, so I avoid them.

The only downside is my weight. the longer I’m off of drugs, the more and more weight I gain, it seems. But I wouldn’t trade my way of life for anything right now.

April 2, 2014 is the last time I relapsed and my new clean date. Luckily, I had this Facebook page to turn to for support, and when I did, I was stunned with the amount of support I got. Everyone was telling me to stop being hard on myself and to stop hating myself, that it was a mistake, and to learn from my mistakes. All I know is like they say, every time I’ve gone out, it’s gotten worse and worse. More and more money, more and more dangerous, more and more legal consequences. I’m glad, at least for now, that it’s over. but at this point I know my “I nevers” aren’t far away. There is a lot that I’ve never done, but I also realize I’m only one relapse away from that happening. I’ve got to keep working on it to stay clean, though, because the minute I stop, I’ll be right back out there!

On April 2, 2014 I had an NA sponsor named Tammi. She is a great person, and she suggested the day of my last relapse that maybe I get a sponsor, that it would help. She’s really turned out to be a good sponsor, too. She never would turn her back on me, but since she lives in Massachusetts and I live in Florida most of our work is over Skype. I’ve also made some other pretty good recovery friends on Hope & Recovery that I love with all my heart. So things happen for a reason. I’m in no way saying that relapsing is good thing, but without my relapse I wouldn’t have my sponsor and the knowledge I’ve gotten from my last mess up. Basically, my life probably wouldn’t be as “sunshine and rainbows” as it is right now. Since June of 2016 I have a new sponsor, Dora, who is also a wonderful woman. I love her to death and will listen and work with her also, so I can work to get what she has to offer. Most days now I don’t even think about using. By the way, even when I wasn’t attending meetings, I was attending them online. They do help with the support, if you find the right meetings.

Some of the things that have changed since I first shared my story in January 2014 are that I went back to college and have almost finished my degree in digital graphics. When I was in rehab, I decided it was the one thing I always wanted to do. I also stopped smoking cigarettes cold turkey in May of 2014! One month after relapsing, I figured I might as well. Then my family got foreclosed on in August 2014, and my youngest sister, Stacy, passed away from an overdose in September 2014. I tried to get the word of recovery to her, and she actually started a Facebook recovery group with me named Hope & Recovery… Hold On Pain Ends. The group is a success, and everyone that belongs to it receives a ton of support. My sister just wasn’t ready herself for recovery. It’s devastating to me that some people’s bottoms are death, but it’s true.

If anything makes me want to live each day to my fullest, it’s knowing this: I have a lot of regrets about the way things were towards the end of that relationship, but none of those regrets would be made any better by me relapsing or using again. Plus, I realize I had to distance myself from her or else I chanced relapsing, and If I don’t protect myself, who else will? Like they say, “You gotta change your people, places and things” if you want to stay clean. So due to the foreclosure, right after my sister passed away from an overdose we moved to a new town.

My family got really close after the death of one of our own. My other sister, Kelly, had suffered from addiction from the time she was 18, and her answer was to leave the state to get clean. For the most part it worked. Until we started experiencing side effects of drug abuse from my nephew, Kelly’s son. So we ended up calling her down here to take care of her son who was spiraling out of control. She came down in December 2015. On February 10, 2016, she passed away from pneumonia. She was only 38. The years of abusing drugs I’m sure didn’t help things, but she wasn’t high at the time of her death. For that I’m proud of her. One good thing that happened before her death is I got to tell her she was being a good mom, which made her cry because she said she had never been told that before from us. I’m glad I did.

So I will carry on and try to do what she intended to do with her son. We’ve opened a new chapter since he lost his mom, and I’m trying to make her proud, at the same time taking some of the stress off of my parents. She had spent her whole life screwing up, then a month before she died she came back to take care of her son who was becoming a deviant. That’s when she dies … from pneumonia? When she was trying to be a good mom? It just drives me insane! I know that there’s a reason for everything (I try to convince myself of this), but when her 16-year-old son asked me the reason for this, all I could say to him was, “to make you a stronger person.” That’s all I could come up with.

I believe in a god … I’m just a little annoyed with him at the moment. I’ll get over it because I have to, but right now just can’t. My ex-husband ended up a schizophrenic addict living off of an elderly war veteran and hasn’t even attempted to see his children since I left him in 2001. He calls about every two years. But that was his choice. The judge gave him stuff to do to be able to see them. He never even attempted one of them. So I feel I made the right choice there, and it scares me when I even attempt to picture the way our life would have went with him.

It still amazes me to this day how the drugs, once taken, lure you into feeling safe, as if there’s been something missing all along in your life. Shortly after that feeling comes the obsession over it. Then soon you don’t remember “normal life” or “normal days” and start making stupid choices to do things for it that aren’t normally in your character, whether it be missing your daughter’s awards ceremony or buying/using/selling with your child with you. Everyone’s lows are different, and those are making these “strange” decisions with explanations that don’t make any sense whatsoever. It is usually too late by then. The drug has them, and it will continue to lie to them, so they won’t let it go! If by chance you think you may need help, you probably do. If you have the chance to get it, please take it. People are out there dying for that spot that you lucked out and got, by the grace of god. My youngest sister tried going to detox at least five times and was turned away for one reason or another. I remember her telling me, “maybe I’m not as bad as you and I think I am?” A couple months later, she ended up dying alone in her sleep of an overdose. Thank you for taking the time to read this story. I hope this makes people reach out for help or feel more comfortable sharing their story. I also hope it makes you feel as if you aren’t alone. Take care.

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