- Drugs
It all started December 22, 1989, when I was born in Coral Springs, Florida. I was your normal kid who played outside until the street lights came on. My mom was working full-time and my father was struggling to find jobs. Everything was okay, so I thought, until I moved to Georgia. Then my whole life changed– and not for the better. We moved up here in 2000. I remember because it was the new millennium. My dad made my mom quit her job, and he started working a lot. It wasn’t long before the first time I got completely wasted. I was eleven years old the first time I got alcohol poisoning. After that time, I didn’t drink as much for a while. My mother became a horrible alcoholic and my father was never really around anymore. I have two older brothers too. The reason I mention this is because my older brother (not the oldest) is an active addict, still to this day. He has been a big influence on my life. I remember I was thirteen years old the first time I ever smoked marijuana. I was in love with it. Using marijuana was so much easier than getting drunk and it was just so much better. My life started really going downhill then. I was fifteen when I met the kid to whom I lost my virginity. We were together for two years. During that two years, I was introduced to painkillers, which is where the real love came in. Needless to say, I started heavily using pain pills and Xanax. It became very bad. My boyfriend at the time dumped me (his name was Jordan). But Jordan and I remained close friends. By then, I turned sixteen years old. I became a heavy pot smoker and opiate addict. But that was the first time that I tried OxyContin. It was game over after that. How could such a little pill make me feel so good? I was arrested my first time when I was sixteen, for being an unruly child. I was always at parties, and one party got busted. I was the only one who got arrested. Things were really going downhill for me at that point. I had been dealing with my father cheating on my mother, my mother trying to commit suicide, and I was always wasted. My brother was always either incarcerated or trying to kill himself. I once had to cut him down, he was unconscious and hung himself from the weeping willow in our front yard. That was really hard. My brother and I have always been so close. So, when I was taking these OxyContin, I was able to deal with the pain of my broken family. It made me feel numb, and I loved it. When I was eighteen, I was arrested with a possession of marijuana charge. I did a little bit of probation, and finished it just fine. Once I hit age twenty, things were really on a downward spiral. I was now using the OxyContin intravenously. I got arrested after running away to Florida and I got five misdemeanors. I did a little over a week in Panama City Jail. The day I got out of Florida jail, I drove back up to Georgia, and I got arrested again. This time, it was because I was selling marijuana, and I had gotten robbed by my current boyfriend at the time. I ended up catching five more misdemeanors and a felony. By then I had ten misdemeanors and a felony, in two different states, at twenty years old. I was completely out of control. Right around my twenty first birthday I told my parents about my addiction to intravenous OxyContin use, and I checked myself into a rehab. That didn’t last very long to say the least. I got in trouble because I told them I would never stop smoking weed. Granted, I was staying clean in rehab from opiates, but I smoked crack and weed. So, I left rehab and went back to using opiates. I couldn’t afford my addiction, so I became a stripper to afford my addiction, and by that time, I was heavily using heroin. I was coming up on my twenty first birthday. When I was twenty one, I tried to commit suicide by trying to overdose off of a mixture of prescription pills. The ambulance came; the paramedics found me and saved my life. I got taken to a psych ward. Once I got out of that, my apartment that I had at the time was completely robbed, my dog was at my parents, my parents sold my car, and my parents had a restraining order against me. They were done with my “bullcrap”. Might I add, I had no power, water, food or phone. So back to the strip club I went. March of the following year, my dad had the cops raid my house. They found a little residue of cocaine, and scales for marijuana. I caught my first intent to distribute charge for cocaine. I sat in jail for about a month before my friends were able to bond me out. I was on probation, passing all of my drug tests because I knew when they were. I was doing alright, at least with probation. In October 2012, Jordan, my first love and dear friend, died. He fell from 18 stories in Atlanta. That killed me. I fell off hard again. Well it was April 8th, 2013. I was really sick, and going to meet the dope man. I had a lot of drugs on me, but I just wanted my heroin. Well after meeting with my dope man, I got surrounded by the narcotics squad. I violated my felony probation, and caught new charges: four new felonies, and a misdemeanor. I had five needles on me, an eight ball of heroin, over fifty roxys, twelve Xanax, and thirteen hydrocodone pills on me. I didn’t get to touch my drugs before they were all taken from me. I was then booked into the Cobb County Detention Center. Since I had violated, I did not have a bond. My first offer that the judge offered me was a 15 to 25 years in prison for my new charges, and also an additional 24 months for my violation of probation. That meant that I would do at least nine years minimum in prison before I saw a parole date. I begged for them to put me in drug court. To those who do not know what drug court is, it is a super strict accountability program that is a substitute for prison. I told myself I would never relapse. Since being in that program, I have been going to meetings, class, found an amazing sponsor, and made some real friends — friends that don’t need incentives to hang out with me. Now I can honestly go to sleep with no drugs, and feel great when I wake up. I just hit my year mark on April 8th, 2014. I have not even touched Tylenol, much less any kind of drug. It is still hard every day, and I have to work every day to keep my sobriety. But life is so much better today. I am no longer dancing, and I actually work for my dad at his finance company. We get along great now. And my mother and I get along great too. She is actually almost two years sober from alcohol herself. My brother is still actively using heroin, he actually overdosed just twice last week. But I can no longer help anyone that doesn’t want to be helped. I can pass the message, but that’s the best I can do. Now I have tools to teach me how to live, how to cope, how to grieve, and most importantly, how to love. I am twenty-four years old, and I hope my story helps those still suffering. “Every thunderstorm is followed by a rainbow. Just remember that when you are going through hard times.”