- Drugs
- Friends & Family
Submitted by: Susanne Johnson
Smoking cigarettes, smoking pot and drinking on weekends got me started in my substance use problems as early as I was 14. I was born into a family with an alcoholic father and an addict mother. Everyone at home smoked, took pills and drank at times. Not only that, I saw it all around me growing up. I was already born with addiction syndrome.
My mother got sober when I was still young and I grew up visiting the different 12-step meetings with her, spending some time of my childhood in the rooms of a 12-step fellowship. My father left us when I was little, my mom got sober, but all of our extended family kept using drugs. I got my first drugs in school from friends while growing up in Marshall County, Kentucky. I have two older sisters who were always drinking and using drugs.
Growing up in the rooms of a 12-step fellowship didn’t prevent me from trying and getting hooked myself. At age 15, I was taking harder drugs. I started to be rebellious and my mom, who was now sober, had a hard time controlling me and keeping me in line. She sent me to live with my uncle, who was a former Navy Seal, and I moved to Livingston County. Just two days after she sent me to my uncle, she relapsed on benzodiazepines and was killed in a car accident on Purchase Parkway, Kentucky, under the influence.
Once I changed schools I found Lortab and Xanax, and they became my new best friends and family. In the meantime, people in the family were fighting over who would get custody of me, because I came with a monthly check. Most didn’t want me; they wanted the money.
I stayed with my uncle and learned a lot from him. My life got really bad when my uncle got deployed again. I was going hard on the drugs, missing his guidance and support. He made me go to work and together with the monthly money that I got through my mom’s death, I soon had enough to finance my addiction.
I started selling and got in trouble with the law shortly after. I was charged multiple times with possession, trafficking and aggravated assault from a fist fight under the influence. I got in a fight over a girl with others at a mall, which brought law enforcement to the scene. When they searched my car, suspicious about me being high, they found drugs. I was just 18 years old, a month out of high school and I already had three felony charges on my record.
Jail time was followed by probation. I took off running from probation and when I was caught, it landed me in prison for two years. I learned all the things I did not already know about drugs while in prison. I went into the prison with an associates degree in marijuana, and as I left the pen, I had a doctorate in methamphetamines and motorcycle gangs.
My life got ten times worse. I started to hang out with motorcycle gangs and sold methamphetamine. My days consisted of drinking between half a gallon and a gallon of brandy each day, taking drugs, and selling drugs. I spent my time engaged in violence followed by blackouts, waking up in random places. I was told that I was, at times, in a drug induced paranoid schizophrenia and I still suffer today from being bipolar.
Although I never used a needle, I took over an eight ball a day in addition to my heavy drinking. I justified my entire behavior and lifestyle with “I’m the dealer. I have the power. You need me.”. All this money and power made me feel invincible and bullet proof. I was driven by this power and still struggle with it today. Sometimes I think that is because I grew up in poverty, sleeping on the couch at my mother’s for six years. I never wanted to go back living this way and always wanted more and more.
I had two children by this time. I lost my family because I was paying more attention to my drugs, my drinking and my destructive lifestyle than to the mothers of my children. One was my high school sweetheart. At times she was drinking heavily alongside with me, but it was my life that took us apart. My children are now six and seven years old and I’m happy they were too young to witness my drug downfall.
I got one big charge over selling methamphetamines. By that time the state of Kentucky saw that sending people like me to prison or jail was doing absolutely no good whatsoever. I felt so lonely on the inside and wanted recovery and sobriety very bad. I was lucky and I’m grateful that this arrest took me to a treatment center for men in Paducah, KY.
By that time, I was in jail, not knowing where my life was heading when a guy came in who had relapsed and been arrested. He told me that his relapse was a tragic incident and told me about the treatment center that had helped him so much in his past and that he wanted to go back to sobriety. He asked me if I had done anything in my life constructive and that had benefited me. I thought for three days and couldn’t figure it out. I had not been clean and sober since I was 14 years of age. I was always under the influence of something. I asked for help and went to the treatment center.
I finished my six month recovery treatment a short while ago and started to work there as a peer mentor for those needing help today. I’m far away from having what I want to have, but I have dreams and goals today on how I will rebuild my life. I don’t have the houses, the cars, or the motorcycles I once had, but I have found inner peace and freedom from drugs, which is priceless. I once was scared of responsibilities and scared of life in general– today I look forward to the things that are yet to come.
Today, in July 2016, I have ten months of continuous sobriety. I graduated from high school with a good GPA, but never went to college. I have worked in restaurants, in construction businesses, in roofing and some other places where my drug use was accepted and I didn’t have to pass any drug tests. I always had lots of money before, but was so lonely on the inside. I had run everyone off.
Today, I have a good relationship to the mothers of my children and see them regularly. I have a girlfriend today and we have a healthy, sober relationship. For a while, I will spend my time as a peer mentor at the facility until I have a very stable sobriety myself. Maybe I can find work on the river after this or I might go back to school and get a welding diploma.
I own nothing today; I have to start from the beginning. All I ever had was either seized by the police, sold or I gave it away. I gave everything to my addiction, still thinking “I’m the dealer. You need me,” but I was no better than anybody else who loses all to drugs and alcohol. I facilitate classes today for others that need help, give morning meditation classes and go to at least one meeting every day. I also enjoy my workout and being around friends. I don’t have any hobbies– right now recovery is my only hobby and I give all my focus and attention to it.
I lost my driver’s license for two years a while back, but will get it back at the end of this year. This will open up new opportunities for me to get back to school or work. I lost my license when I bought a brand new truck and took it from my granddad’s car lot without insurance. I wrecked it seven hours later without coverage. I totaled it, passing out behind the wheel without any insurance. I didn’t tell my granddad that I was going to take it from the lot, I just took it and drove away after I paid for it.
“Get a sponsor in a 12-step program,” is what I like to tell people who are new to recovery. It made all the difference for me. By staying open-minded and working the steps, I turned my life around for the better. I can’t tell anyone to make it stop, but I can tell a newcomer, “Come back and feel welcome.” By now, I have a healthy fear of relapse and going back out. I know which way my path should go, for today I do what it takes to follow this path.