- Alcohol
- Drugs
I had leukemia as a baby but I beat all odds and was in remission at age two. When I was a freshman in high school, I was diagnosed with hepatitis C, which I got from blood transfusions when I had leukemia. I tried treatment for that in 2001, but it failed. Although I was already drinking and smoking weed at that point, after that was when I started using other drugs. It would take too long to name them all. I was a human garbage can up until I got pregnant with my oldest daughter. If it was available, I tried it. Some drugs I only did once or twice. Others I repeated over and over again. My biggest hitch was morphine pills, which I ended up kicking cold turkey later on.
When I had my daughter, I was given pain pills in the hospital because I’d had a cesarean section and had a horrible time when I quit cold turkey. I went through withdrawals, just like I had after quitting morphine. But I got through it. I drank occasionally but not frequently until I met my husband, who is also father to my youngest daughter. He could drink a 12-pack a day, so I started drinking really heavily with him, especially after I found out my oldest child’s father had died of a drug overdose. I was no longer using to self-medicate. I was using out of anger, sadness and a way to forget.
I drank until I had my youngest daughter, then the same thing happened with pills from the hospital. I continued to drink after I had her for about six months. Then I had a dry period for about a year and then I went back to drinking and smoking weed. Up until July of 2011, I had never used a needle to get high. I ended up shooting up with heroine because I didn’t want to go to the hospital and I knew someone who would give me a shot. I told him to just give me one, then never again. As soon as I actually did it, of course, it was all over with. Within two weeks, I had two abscesses on my legs from muscling it, I nearly got my children taken from me, I went into an outpatient treatment program and I started going to mandated 12-step meetings. Three months later, I ironically got hit by a drunk driver, which caused me a lot of pain. I used it as an excuse to use heroine again so I went back out. I left the area I was living in to start over, once again kicking it cold turkey. I got a job right away and ended up going out nightly to the bar with my coworkers and boss, as well as smoking weed with one of them. When I moved away from there, I unknowingly moved half a mile from a dealer who I stumbled upon by pure chance. I went back out on heroine for a few weeks, cleaned back up, went back out again for a week and finally cleaned up again.
I now have been clean and sober, free of all drugs for the past seven months. I am once again taking care of my medical needs instead of ignoring them, denying them and inevitably making them worse by using. I take non-narcotic painkillers for my recent diagnosis of fibromyalgia. I am a mother 100% now. I’m not just a person who has children who she does love but can’t take care of them because she can’t even take care of herself. I am not rich by any means but I have the best things in life: my children, my family, my friends and a support network that otherwise never would have existed. I am proud to say that I am a clean and sober person and I am done dealing with the everyday problems of using and abusing my mind, heart, body and soul. I love life these days. Though I may now feel physical pain which was hiding under my drug use, I am functional enough to deal with it properly. I am more stable mentally and emotionally. I feel free and I’m loving life to its fullest.
What can I suggest? Take everything in your life one day at a time and, if that fails, take it one little breath at a time. Walk away from all that is weighing you down. Let go of your guilt and the issues you’re hiding underneath your drug use. Nothing is a permanent fix, neither using nor being clean. But it is so much better to deal with daily life and the big, hard, painful stuff if you can think and feel emotions clearly and honestly. I hope and pray that all the people who are struggling today find the peace they need to get through their lives as clean, sober, productive, happy and loving individuals. There’s no need to hide in the shadows of anything. Life wasn’t meant to be perfect, and people are not meant to be perfect. But moments can be perfect, and days can be beautiful if you let it happen.