- Drugs
Elyse: My song is about hope. I wrote this song in 1996 to try to reach my twin sister who became addicted to drugs. I’m not a professional songwriter or musician, but something inside of me told me to write this to try to help my sister. I recently hired a wonderful group of people to help me produce this song on a professional level. I also gathered some photos from our past that was indicative of the time that this occurred. I wanted to show people through pictures and music how we lived and survived. Now I want to share my story of hope and success in the hope that it inspires even one person to reach out and help someone they love. Sometimes it just takes that extra effort to make them see. I hope you can share our story.
We had a typical middle class upbringing. We weren’t rich or poor. We had a stay-at-home mom and a 9 to 5 dad. We were terribly shy when we were growing up, and for that we were taunted by mean-spirited girls and boys. We were always scared of recess which was sad for two little girls that loved to be outside. We had a group of friends we would hang out with, but they weren’t always there during recesses or after school. Sometimes we would run home from elementary school, because the bullies lived around us and would follow us yelling nastiness. They thought we were stuck up, but we were just extremely shy. I think this torture gave us both a confidence problem that manifested in different ways. We avoided those girls as much as we could. Our connection from that point on was close and interwoven above and beyond our twin connection.
Liz: At that time in our lives we wanted to be noticed. We had big dreams but didn’t know how to attain them. We never felt good enough, pretty enough or popular enough. As we hit junior high, we started dabbling in drugs. We started with marijuana, cigarettes, alcohol and black beauties and then graduated to cocaine and crank. We hung out with older guys. The drugs helped Liz and me out of our shyness. I personally felt more confident. The drugs made me feel strong and empowered. If I was angry, I had the confidence to be angry. If I was happy, I had the confidence to be happy outwardly. Drugs helped me be the person I wanted to be instead of the shy, ugly little girl I thought I was. That was the beginning of the addiction.
I left the father of my child when my son was two. I was living with a friend, and this is when I found out that I could do drugs and go to work. It made me feel confident and empowered. It helped me forget about the dreams I never accomplished and the fear that had always inhibited me. I liked the feeling. I wrote in my diary at the time, “Oh no, I think I’m in trouble.” I started abusing drugs. I would use them to wake up for work and to find the strength to keep going at night. I was in a vicious cycle that I could not even fathom getting out of. I hooked up with an old friend that I had known for years. He was on drugs too, so we felt comfortable with each other. I was really out of control then. I did drugs to stay awake all week, and I would sleep all weekend. I turned into somebody I didn’t know. I lost Liz, and I became the out of control personality I named “Linda.” I got pregnant with my second child. I was on drugs, so I didn’t even know I was pregnant until after four months. I was worried about having another child, because I was on drugs during conception and after. I decided at the last moment that I needed to keep my child. I already loved him. During a time when I made the worst possible decisions, that was my one good decision. I am truly grateful. I continued to do drugs, after I had my second son. I was a functioning drug addict. I went to work, I fed my kids and I kept a roof over our heads. I thought I had it all under control. I thought I was using in moderation. I thought I could handle it.
Elyse: One weekend I went to visit my sister. I made the Los Angeles to Sacramento drive every month. We were up late into the wee hours, and she flipped out on me. She threw me out and told me off, and I knew that was the end. I knew our ability to be close was gone and that she would be out there alone with the drug sharks she called friends. I ended up driving back to Los Angeles at two in the morning.
I didn’t talk to her for a long time. She wouldn’t answer my calls, and I was so scared. She had alienated herself from my family, my sister and our good friends. My heart hurt knowing this wonderful person, my blood, my twin sister, my best friend, was so lost, and her two little boys were living through this with her. Our connection was severed, and I felt numb and half dead.
I met a musician, who I became fast friends with. One night I wrote how I felt in a poem, and I begged my friend with tears in my eyes to help me write music to it. I told her my story and that I needed to try to save my sister, and the only way I can get her to listen is through music. Although I had only known this friend a month, she helped me write this song, and she recorded it on a four-track in her bedroom. She sang it, played guitar and added drum tracks, and it was beautiful. I sent it to Liz with a neatly typed note asking her to listen.
Liz: When I got Elyse’s letter, I thought, “Oh no, here we go again, another lecture.” I read the letter and was touched that she actually had a song for me to listen to. I was intrigued. I popped it into my tape player and read the lyrics while it played. I cried. I listened to it over and over again, and my kids listened too and heard their names in it. Although they didn’t quite understand the content, they were excited about it. While seeing their excitement and listening to my sister’s words, it finally hit me. I knew I had to change everything. Over the course of the next year I moved away from my druggie friends, and I would listen to the song and pray to find the strength to stop doing it at all.
Elyse: There are wonderful reality shows that help people. The folks that are lucky to have that avenue are blessed, but there are also a lot of people who don’t have access to that kind of help and recovery. There are a lot people who only have the people that love them to “intervene,” and most times these people give up on them or are too afraid to help. I performed my own intervention using music and the love between two sisters born together. With the help of an amazing friend I was able to reach my sister, before it was too late, before her kids were taken away and before anyone died. I wanted this song to be redone, and I wanted to inspire other home interventions. I want to tell our story and let people know that all an addict needs is someone that loves them. All they need is someone to believe in them enough to invest. Your belief in them can help instill belief in themselves. I believed, and I saved my sister and nephews’ lives.