- Drugs
- Friends & Family
Submitted by: Marta Mrotek
Heroes in Recovery lead advocate Marta Mrotek met Mercedes at the 2016 Heroes 6K in Arizona. This is Mercedes’ journey.
I heard about the Heroes in Recovery 6K in Arizona through my friend John. He’s my support; he’s helped me in my recovery. He’s everything to me. We used to run a lot of races together. This one came up and it was perfect. I am a recovering addict and he races. If I didn’t have a leg injury, I’d be in the race right now, too.
When I was addicted, my drug of choice was meth. I guess I thought I was a functioning meth addict. I even had a job in mental health care. I was one of those hypocrites– I told everybody that drugs are bad and there I was, smoking bowls behind everyone’s back.
I got into it because my weight had always been a big thing for me. I wanted to have that perfect Barbie doll image, so I got into methamphetamines, thinking that they would help me control my weight. I was trying to do so much at the same time: school, work, all kinds of extracurricular stuff, and trying to get an art business off the ground. I was pulling myself in a lot of different directions and there just weren’t enough hours in the day for everything that I wanted to do. Meth seemed like a solution; I thought I was functioning.
Eventually, everything that comes along with doing meth happened, too. All my things got stolen two or three times—and I mean all of it, everything in my entire house. I experienced every kind of chaos, and all the drama that comes with that was happening. Yet, somehow, I still thought that I was functioning.
Then, I got pulled over for making an improper right hand turn. They searched me and didn’t find anything, but still put me in the back of a cop car and took me down to the station. I didn’t tell them that I had a bowl and a pretty good amount of meth in my pocket. I got into the station and the cop says, “hand it over.” So I’m like, “no problem,” and gave it to her. Then she said that I was attempting to promote prison contraband. So I went to prison. I got 1.5 years.
I got out on the SAGE program, which is a great program that the state puts on. It really is wonderful. The people that run it are amazing. The bill that I was released on was actually written so that people would get out and work on their recovery. I was let out in November before Thanksgiving and I am still in that program. My sobriety date is January 10, 2016.
When I first got arrested (before my sentencing and prison time), I bailed myself out. I had still been doing meth up until the day I went into prison. But once I got in prison, I realized that I didn’t want to get high in prison. I thought I wanted to get out and get high at home.
My moment came when I got out of prison. Once I was released and I found out what was really going on in my life, I knew everything had to change. The person that I had left to take care of all my stuff was my dealer, so all my stuff was gone and of course all my plants were dead and all my animals were gone and the house was trashed.
It was my moment of change. It really hit me that this wasn’t what I wanted. I realize that I didn’t want to go back to prison. If I do it again, I know I’m going back for nine years. It’s funny, it really was getting out that made me decide I wanted to stay clean. I missed all of this freedom. I missed being able to eat what I want and go to races like this one, and be the one who decides what I want to do.
My life is so much better now. I’m putting my life back together. I even enjoy little things like being able to cook with my own pots and pans and being able to watch television if I want to. I can call my mother anytime I want to, I can listen to music, and I can go down to the store and get what I need anytime.
I have a lot of freedom now and I missed all of it so much. Actually I’m still getting used to all of this; I’m still adjusting. But I’m just so glad that I am adjusting, that I’m here and doing all of this. While I was in prison, I realized that my parents aren’t invincible, they aren’t immortal and they’re not going to live forever. I thought I was invincible, but that’s not true. I missed that time with them and I have a lot of making up to do.
I’m still recovering. I know that a year from now I’ll still be recovering. I know that I have a long way to go to catch up, making up lost time to my family and to myself. I’m working on it and I love having this chance to work on it.
My advice is this: If you think that you’re fooling everybody, just know that you’re not. If you could take a snapshot of yourself and look back at it a year after you’re clean, you would regret so many missed opportunities. You might think that you’re in the middle of all this excitement or that this is really how you want to live but really, you’re missing out. You’re missing out on the full picture. There is no such thing as a functioning addict.