- Alcohol
- Drugs
Growing up, I never really thought about my drinking or drug use. It was just something I did. I started drinking and using drugs because my friends were doing it, and it became something that I absolutely loved. I continued doing drugs because I loved it and I couldn’t stop doing drugs because I loved it. Once I realized I wanted to stop, I didn’t know how.
I started drinking around age 13, and it was fun at first. It didn’t have a huge impact on my life. I drank on the weekends with my friends. I didn’t get in trouble, I didn’t drink alone and I didn’t need to drink. Over the next few years, drinking became more important to me. I didn’t drink more often than I used to. I was still just drinking on the weekends with my friends. But drinking became something I looked forward to, something I couldn’t wait for. I didn’t like to do anything if alcohol wasn’t included. I loved drinking because it made me feel good. But more than anything, I loved it because it allowed me to feel comfortable with myself. I wasn’t shy and insecure when I was drunk. I didn’t care about anything. Getting high was the same. I was more confident and happier when I was high. I liked myself better when I was high.
Drugs and alcohol also allowed me to forget everything bad that was going on in my life. I hated being at home, and finding a way to emotionally escape from that was something I needed. My mom and my step-dad fought constantly, and my mom was very depressed. It feels like she was either fighting with him or she was in bed crying herself to sleep. She did her best but she wasn’t able to take care of my brother and me the way she should have. The yelling was constant, and the silence and tension after the yelling were just as bad. I was able to escape this place through drugs and alcohol. I couldn’t have said this at the time. I just thought that I liked drinking, getting high and partying with my friends.
Throughout high school, I started drinking and getting high more regularly, but it still wasn’t having a huge impact on my life. I got in trouble a few times, but it was nothing major. I had a party while my parents were away and I got in trouble for showing up to a school dance drunk. But the consequences were minimal and my parents assumed it was just me being a teenager. It wasn’t until after I graduated from high school that I turned to drugs and alcohol as a way to intentionally free myself from the pain I felt.
When I was 17 years old, I had a relationship with a teacher at my high school. It started out as something I thought I wanted. But it continued because I was afraid to say no and I didn’t know how to get myself out of the situation I was in. I met him when I was 14, and he was someone I really trusted and cared about, which was something he took advantage of. Eventually, I told a counselor at school, and the teacher retired and left school immediately. News traveled very quickly in the small private school, and within days everyone knew why he had left. Every time I walked down the hall, people stared at me or talked about me. Most of the time, they didn’t care enough to stop talking when I was around. It didn’t matter to them if I heard or not. They thought that I seduced my teacher and then I got him fired. Everything that happened was my fault. The head of the school made no effort to keep the situation quiet, and people made no effort to actually speak to the teacher. They let him retire, and he is now working at another school.
I graduated a couple months later and I was so happy to never have to go back to that school again and to be able to get away. After everyone found out what happened, including my parents, that was the first time I remember drinking and getting high so I wouldn’t have to feel what I was feeling. I was embarrassed and ashamed of everything that had happened and I just didn’t want to feel that way anymore. I spent the first few weeks of summer drinking and getting high and I just couldn’t wait to go to college. A few weeks after I graduated from high school, I was at a party and was raped by four or five guys. I didn’t know how to tell anyone so I didn’t. I assumed it was my fault because I was drinking and I didn’t really have anyone I trusted enough to talk to. After this happened, there was nothing left that I cared about other than getting high and drinking. I was about to go to college on a lacrosse scholarship and I just didn’t care. I wanted to get away and was glad college was approaching. But I didn’t care about anything other than forgetting and getting away from everyone and everything around me. I thought that was the solution to everything.
I spent the rest of the summer drinking and getting high, hating myself and hating everyone around me. I went off to school in the fall. I thought things were better now that I was away but I only got better at ignoring my feelings. I was drinking every day and getting high every day. I started using Adderall and cocaine just about every day too, which meant I had to drink a lot each night to be able to sleep. I did pretty well on my lacrosse team and I got decent grades, so no one really cared or noticed how much I was drinking or how often I was getting high. My parents saw how I was playing and they saw that I was doing okay in my classes so they didn’t have much to worry about.
When I came home for the summer after my first year of college, I was incredibly unhappy. I hated being home and just continued to drink and get high. A few weeks after I got home, I met Sam, who is now my husband. We started dating, and I thought finding someone like him was the answer to all of my problems. I stopped drinking and getting high so much. We went to the movies and spent time with my family, and things felt like they were getting better. Within a few weeks, I was back to drinking and using drugs more often than before. I was drinking every day and getting high every day. I drank all night, woke up and drank and got high until Sam got home from work. Then I drank some more. This is what I did just about every day all summer. I went back to school and continued to do more of the same. At this point, I wasn’t able to pretend so well anymore. I was drinking every day and I wasn’t doing well in my classes. I was drinking in class and I had dropped a few classes so that I wasn’t even taking a full course load. I was losing weight quickly from doing drugs. Within a few months, I had lost almost 30 pounds, and it was very obvious that I wasn’t doing well.
I got home from school for winter break and decided I didn’t want to go back. I had applied to a different school closer to where I live so I decided to move in with Sam and go to a new school. I thought I would be happy here and that things would get better, but they didn’t. I didn’t have any friends at my new school and I didn’t know anyone. I drank, got high, fought with Sam and cheated on him. That was basically all I did. I did surprisingly well in my classes, but that was about the only thing in my life that I held together. I became a completely different person when I was high or drunk. I didn’t care about anyone, including myself. I didn’t care about Sam or my family and I didn’t care what happened to me. Every night was full of drinking and screaming at Sam. We were both miserable.
For whatever reason, I decided to get a job that spring and began working at a gym a few hours each week. I met some people there who were also very into drugs and I started taking painkillers and doing heroin. Sam didn’t know I was using drugs and I spent pretty much all of my energy getting drugs and hiding the fact that I was using. He knew I drank so he figured that was why I was so erratic and angry. Sam knew I was cheating on him too because I had told him about it. I didn’t want to and I felt horrible about it. But it didn’t feel easy to stop. At this point, the guy I was cheating on Sam with was also the guy I got drugs from, so these two behaviors were inextricably linked. Eventually, I stopped lying to Sam. I told him I was going out with this guy and that I would be home when I felt like coming home. I told him he could wait if he wanted to but that I didn’t really care. And that was the truth. I didn’t care about anything else more than I cared about getting drugs. This went on for a few months until Sam and I got arrested over the summer. We were both drunk and we were arguing because I was out with another guy. We ended up leaving the bar and screaming at each other in the middle of the street. Someone who lived on the street called the cops, and we were arrested and charged with public drunkenness and disorderly conduct.
After that happened, we both decided that we needed to stop drinking. We both thought that things between us would get a lot better if we weren’t drinking. And things were better in some ways. I was able to control my emotions better when I wasn’t drinking but I was still getting high. I was still sneaking around buying drugs and spending more money than I could account for. I was attending an outpatient treatment center for alcohol and drug abuse and telling everyone I was sober. After four months or so, I just got tired. I couldn’t take the lying and sneaking around anymore. I spent all of my time just waiting for Sam to find out because I knew that he would at some point. We lived together, and it was going to be difficult to hide my drug use for much longer. So I told him I was still getting high. He called my counselor at the treatment center, and we went to see her and decided I would go to rehab. Sam, my dad and I drove to rehab the next day. I was there for about eight hours before I called my mom and Sam, crying and begging them to come pick me up. I was scared and homesick and I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to get clean but I just felt like I couldn’t stay there. Eventually, I convinced Sam to come pick me up.
I started going to a full day outpatient program for about two and a half weeks. I stayed clean and sober but ended up drinking the day after my outpatient program ended. I got in a fight with Sam and I just didn’t know how else to deal with what was going on. The only way I knew how to cope with anything was to drink or get high. So I drank. I didn’t tell anyone and basically just pretended that it never happened. For the next nine months or so, I stayed clean and sober. I started going to group recovery meetings, and things were getting better. I went back to school and was doing really well. Things with Sam were still hard but they were getting better. My relationship with my family was getting better too. I never stopped wanting to get high, though. I knew I could never drink again. I knew I was mean when I drank and that I couldn’t control it. I didn’t like who I became when I drank but I thought I could still get high and it wouldn’t be a problem.
About eight months into my sobriety, I had to get my wisdom teeth out. The moment the dentist told me this news, I couldn’t wait. I knew that I would be able to take painkillers and I literally couldn’t wait until I could do that. That alone should have told me that it was probably a bad idea to take them. My mom told me before the surgery that I shouldn’t take the painkillers under any circumstances. I assured her that I would be fine and that Sam would hold onto the painkillers and just give them to me when I was supposed to take them.
The second I got my prescription filled, I took three painkillers. I was supposed to take one and give the rest to Sam but I didn’t even think about it. It was like an automatic response. I gave the rest to Sam and didn’t tell him that I took more than I was supposed to. He gave them to me as needed, and after a week or two we threw the rest of them out. I couldn’t stop thinking about getting high. All I could think about was how amazing it felt to take painkillers and how I didn’t care about being sober anymore. It took about two weeks before I went and bought coke and Klonopin. I spent the next six days getting high and running around meeting strangers to buy drugs from. I lost 11 pounds and spent pretty much all of the money that Sam and I had in our bank account.
Sam obviously started to realize what was going on, so I told him I was still getting high. He again called one of my counselors from my outpatient treatment center. We were going to meet with her the next morning, so I spent the night getting high. Sam told me he was leaving if I didn’t give him the drugs I had left. I told him to leave. I cared more about getting high than if he stayed with me or not. In the moment, I really meant it. I couldn’t have cared less if he stayed or left, as long as I could get high. I guess he left for a while but at some point he came back.
The next day, Sam drove me to rehab. When I was doing my intake, they said insurance wouldn’t cover me. I guess I hadn’t been using long enough or I wasn’t bad enough. I don’t know what I told them because I don’t really remember. There’s a lot of that week that I can’t remember. Sam tells me that once we got home from the intake session, I told him that I lied about what I was using and how much. Had I told them I was shooting coke and about everything else I was taking, maybe insurance would have covered me. I’m not sure. By the time we got home, I was tired from not eating or sleeping much over the course of the week and I fell asleep. The next morning, I woke up and did most of the coke I had left. Then I called someone so I could go buy more coke. For whatever reason, I called Sam and told him to come home. I don’t remember doing this and I don’t really know why I did it. He came home as I was about to go buy the coke and obviously he wouldn’t let me get in the car and drive to go do that.
I started walking to go buy the coke, but Sam wouldn’t stop following me. We walked for a mile at least by the time Sam took my phone from me. I remember running around on the grass chasing him, trying to get my phone back. At the moment, everything made sense. I was going to buy more drugs and I was going to chase Sam until I got my phone back so I could reach the person I was buying from. Looking back, everything that happened over those few days was so insane. My mom and dad showed up and told me, if I didn’t get in the car and go back to rehab, they would call the cops. At that point, I just couldn’t do it anymore. I was tired and knew I couldn’t keep using. The energy it took to try to hide the fact that I was getting high was more than I could deal with. Trying to get drugs and make sure I never ran out was just too exhausting.
We drove back to rehab, and they finally admitted me. My insurance covered treatment for 28 days. The first day I was there, I remember being checked in. The next thing I remember is being in the hospital. I got up to have my vitals checked and that was the last thing I remember. I passed out, and my blood pressure was at fatal levels. I stopped breathing and had to be rushed to the hospital. Later that evening, I went back to rehab and basically slept for the next five days. I didn’t go to groups or do anything at all really.
When I finally got up and wasn’t feeling so sick, I spent a long time calling my parents and Sam begging them to pick me up. They had never seen me behave the way I had that week, and there was no way they were going to pick me up. At some point, I realized this and just decided to try to make the most of my time there. I went to my groups and tried to actually participate in my own treatment this time. I believed 100% that I was a drug addict and an alcoholic. I finally realized that I absolutely couldn’t drink or use drugs and I was okay with that. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy but I knew that it was going to be easier than dealing with the life I was living. I didn’t have a life before I got clean. I didn’t care if I lived or died.
After rehab, things were different. I was willing to do whatever I needed to do to stay clean and sober. I went to outpatient treatment for months and I went to as many group meetings as I could. In the beginning, meetings are what really kept me sober. Life was difficult, but I knew I didn’t have any other choice. I could either try to fix everything I had destroyed or go back to getting high and end up with nothing.
August 12, 2010 is my sobriety date, and I hope that’s something that never changes. Since that day, I have created a life that I actually care about. I am closer with my family than I have ever been. I have a husband who I love more than anything, and he loves me. Sam has stood by me despite every horrible thing I did to him. I don’t know why he did this but I am grateful that he has. He pushed me to get sober, and one of the only reasons I stayed in rehab was so I could be with him. I knew that if I couldn’t stay clean and sober, there was no possible way we could stay together. I stay clean and sober today because I know what the other option is. That’s not something I want. There are still things I struggle with everyday. I still want to get high sometimes, but it’s just not an option. I can’t go back to the way things used to be. I just can’t, and that’s really all there is to it for me.
Since I got out of rehab, I have rebuilt the relationships that I destroyed. Sam trusts me, and my family trusts me. They can all count on me. They don’t have to worry about me every time I leave the house. When I say I’m going somewhere, they don’t think I’m lying or that I’m going to buy drugs. This took a very long time and a lot of effort on all of our parts. I graduated from college, which was something that I started to doubt would ever happen. I studied for the LSAT. I applied to law school and was accepted to all of the schools I applied to and will be attending one on a full scholarship. I have friends and family today and I actually care about them. I have more material things than I ever did because I’m not spending all of my money on drugs and alcohol. The material things don’t matter as much, but it’s more about what the things symbolize. I am responsible enough today to afford a car and to afford insurance. I’m responsible enough to be able to save money and I’m able to appreciate what I have and what I am able to buy. These are things that I never could have said before I got clean and sober.
None of this happened overnight. It was a very long time until I could really appreciate what had happened and where I ended up. I have a lot of regrets, probably more than I could ever put onto paper. But I deal with them today. I feel guilt, shame and sadness for things I have done but I also know that they have brought me to a better place. I had no direction in my life before I got sober. I didn’t know what I wanted or what I cared about. If I hadn’t gone through the things that I did, I don’t know if I ever would have figured out how to live any sort of productive life and actually enjoy it.