- Drugs
Like most addicts my intention in life wasn’t to become a drug addict. I never thought I would have it in me to ruin the lives of other people around me with my chaos, steal from people I love or lose all of my self-respect and morals for drugs and alcohol.
At first my using was for fun and a way to escape feelings of discomfort. Soon the fun and relief turned into needing drugs and alcohol to live and handle situations in life. I grew up in a good home and had a loving family. I was taught respect and discipline by my parents and Catholic school. I always hung out with the same group of friends and stayed out of trouble. I struggled in school and never really could find many things I was good at.
I knew about drugs from a young age. I would hear people talk about drugs and see people high on the corner. When I was thirteen, I was introduced to ecstasy. It did everything for me that I wanted it to; it made me feel happy and confident, and I could talk to boys. The next day I lied to all my friends and said that I drank instead of taking the pills out of fear of being labeled a junkie like the ones on the corner. A couple months later, my two friends started to mess around with opiates and benzos. One night they called me to hang out, and I knew they were high. One friend was so high that she fell asleep on the phone with me. I hung up the phone thinking how appealing that sounded and that I wanted to feel like that. The next morning I got a phone call that she had died, and what I thought was snoring was her overdosing on the phone with me. My other friend Kay was in a coma in the hospital. I felt a lot of guilt because I was the last one to talk to them. I felt like I should have done more. My friend’s death was a huge loss for the whole neighborhood.
After that high school was pretty hard for me. I would go to the hospital to visit Kay almost every day. After the guilt, anger and grief, I really stopped caring about everything and started to act out. I began to drink heavily. It was the one thing that brought relief from guilt, anger and grief. I started to do pills but swore that I would never touch OxyContin (OC) because of what it did to me and my friends. I was lucky to graduate high school, and I tried college, but I partied too hard.
I went to hairdressing school. I finally found something I was interested in enough to calm down my drinking and pay attention. I was paying my way through school, so I worked a lot and really focused on school. During that time I began to hang out with the wrong crowd. I wasn’t doing hard drugs but was always attracted to the people that were. I met a drug-dealing heroin addict who I thought was my Prince Charming. When he robbed a bank and went to prison, I put a lot of the blame on myself. This time the feelings of guilt were too strong for alcohol to handle, and I began using OC. Within one week I was a daily OC user. At first I was very functional and OC was my cure-all. I was happy, energetic, social and a good hairdresser. I got a really awesome job and worked at a Boston nightclub. My life was perfect, and drugs made it even better: what a delusion.
I had a two well-paying jobs, and it still wasn’t enough to satisfy my habit. I picked up a needle and heroin, and my perfect world started to crumble and fast. I did heroin all day long at the salon and coke all night at the club. I was surviving on a few hours a sleep a night if I was lucky. Everyone started to notice. My body, mind, lies and emotions were all exhausted. I went to my first detox. I didn’t admit that I was an addict. I just needed a break. I still had a job and a life. I though people didn’t know, and I could still hide my addiction.
I kept trying to control my use and stop on my own, and I would always fail. I had the attitude of, “I’ll just fix it tomorrow,” and tomorrow never came. I became so embarrassed and ashamed of who I had become. I would lie and try to hide from others. I had become that junkie that I had never wanted to be, and this led me to use and isolate more. I became desperate for drugs, and I manipulated, lied to, stole from and cheated people I loved. I would get quick flashes of the reality that I was ruining my life, and those moments of clarity just made me run.
I needed help, and I was too embarrassed and full of fear to admit it. I went to treatment out of desperation. I hated who I had become, and I just wanted to die. Getting sober was the most uncomfortable thing for me. I felt feelings that usually would drive me to drink or do drugs. For the first time, I listened and learned how to sit through uncomfortable feelings. I began to believe people in meetings when they said they were sober and happy in recovery. Before I always thought they were lying because I didn’t understand how anyone could be sober and happy. After listening to people’s suggestions and actually putting work in and following through with their suggestions, I’ve found happiness in recovery.
Today I can live in the moment and be grateful for all my painful experiences. I don’t have to be embarrassed about the stigma of being an addict. My recovery program has given me a full, happy and spiritual life, and I have learned so much about myself. Since I have worked my program, it has given me my family’s trust back. I went back to school, but most importantly I finally feel like the woman I was supposed to be.