- Alcohol
- Drugs
I am an addict. That is what I am and honestly, I am glad to be one. Hopefully by the end of my story you will understand and perhaps even find that you are as proud as I am of this condition which we compare to cancer.
The thing is: I am an addict with a house, a car, a career and two amazing children who live with me and love me. It wasn’t always so. I am a low-bottom, indigent kind of addict who lived in hotels and spent countless nights curled up in the back seat of my car, because when you live in a hotel that is what happens every 28 days. You get locked out of your room and unless you have enough money to rent a room somewhere else for the night you sleep in your car. I never had enough money. There was never enough for rent, for gas, even for cigarettes. Everything went to getting high or drunk; every last penny. But that was in the end.
I never drank like other people and I had a few blackouts early on that probably point to an alcoholic diagnosis. I enjoyed drinking and getting high. I was different from other people and drinking made me like them. After one beer, I could joke with the older kids and relate to my peers. After the first hit, I could philosophize about the meaning of the universe and forget that I have a real life, with real problems.
I would wake up the morning after a party with dirt on my hands, branches in my hair and scrapes along the sides of my legs. I thought that’s what happened when people drank, I thought that was normal. Not once did I ever realize that I was the only one being carried out of the party, that I was the first one passed out on the carpet, or that I should be able to remember who I made out with the night before.
I mixed my alcohol with men, or at the time, boys. Well, a few men, too. But booze and boys, that was my poison. As I got a bit older, I started choosing men who drank like I did, or worse. Eventually I had the excuse that I wouldn’t drink as much as I did if not for “him.”
Through high school I was a stoner chick and I spent the next few years wearing that title. I hung out at coffee shops writing tragic poetry about things I had never experienced, but already knew too much about. My life was finally on a course I understood and I charged full force down that road.
I decided experiencing life was more important than going to college. I enrolled in the school of life and guess what, I failed. I guess I didn’t notice that the party was over.
Within the first year of graduating high school I lost most of my friends, I was failing community college and I was just plain crazy. I remember sliding down the side of a stucco wall on my face because I was dehydrated from partying too much and had fainted. That may have been a sign to everyone around me, but I saw no serious problems with my behavior. I thought I was an individual and I never stopped to look at what I was becoming. I was on a fast track to the total destruction of anything resembling a successful or even remotely normal life.
At some point, my on-and-off boyfriend of two years asked if I wanted to move to Chicago with him, and that seemed like the idea of the century. So off I went, everything I owned packed in my little two door hatchback, burning bridges as fast as I crossed state lines.
I quit smoking pot at the age of 20 because I had used it too many times to come down from LSD and was starting to have paranoid hallucinations from one hit. But I always had the booze. At the ripe young age of 21, I was a rum and coke drinker. Every night was a two drink minimum and drugs were always on tap.
While living in Chicago, I met my one true love; cocaine.
I thought I loved my family and I thought I loved the man I lived with. But I would have given my life to be with Cocaine and I almost did, three times.
I began using the drug when I was 20, but two years later I took the relationship to the next level. I began to use a needle. I had met a recovering heroin addict and our second date was a trip to the coke dealer. It wasn’t long before I decided to let him shoot me up. I fell in love all over again. Cocaine was a beautiful sunset, but when I shot it up I discovered that Cocaine was more than that. She was a beautiful helicopter ride, during sunset over a glistening red-tide ocean.
Up until that point I could still function in society. I was able to hide my dark secret. I was a manager at a little cigarette store; I had one child, one abortion and had another of each on the way. Occasional drug use and drinking to excess is not uncommon in my family. I could almost say that it was expected. But intravenous drug use was not something I could admit to even the sickest of my siblings and I headed once again down the long and lonely path of my addiction. Only, I didn’t think it was so lonely because I had a tall, blond musician as my companion who was exciting and spontaneous. Never mind that he beat me senseless when he got going on a good one.
This man, I’ll call him Number Two because he was the second of three unhealthy, long-term relationships that I committed myself to for the sake of committing. I think I felt that I deserved unhealthy because my childhood was so confusing and I couldn’t see through the booze and drugs anyhow.
Mistake Number Two was a turning point in my life, unfortunately not a turning point toward sobriety, but a turning point in my disease, for worse. This is the sick road that led to homelessness, hospital trips and overdoses. This is also the beginning of the road that led to the loss of my children.
It amazes me that I lived in homeless shelters and motels for three years and never even came close to losing my first born child. It amazes me that I was able to inject hundreds of dollars’ worth of drugs in one night, come down with alcohol (which I also shot up), wakeup in the morning and go to work. When I got off work, mistake Number Two and I would head over to the dealer, hook up and do it all over again. There was always plenty of booze on ice at home. That, we made sure of.
There are days, even weeks at a time where I cannot place my son in my memories. I know he was there because there is nowhere else he could have been, but I cannot imagine what he was doing while I was railing out a line or staring out the window, gaping at hallucinations in the clouds. My son has seen me shoot up; we told him I was diabetic. He has seen me forced into sex and he has seen me beaten into a corner. My son has driven with me while I was high and while I was drunk. My son is living proof of my mistakes and I thank my higher power every day that a child’s love for their parent is so strong.
I left mistake Number Two four months after the birth of our daughter, my second child and his seventh. We were using more than ever and having a crying baby in the house was cause of many wasted highs. We talked about quitting, several times really, but when it came down to it we were addicted in a bad way. One thing I can say is that his violence and my victimization kept the focus far away from any thought that the real problem might just be substance abuse. As the stress in the house increased, so did his violent tendencies.
I had gone to my parents in a panic, more than a few times. But on one occasion I broke down and asked for a place to stay because he beat me. They took one look at my 110 pound frame, the dark circles under my eyes and the way I was practically foaming at the mouth from my last hit and denied that they could do anything for me. They had the audacity to suggest a treatment program. At the slightest hint of sobriety, I turned tail and drove back to my fate, in the arms of a very angry man.
At one point I realized that I feared for my daughter and for the first time in the five years of abuse, I called the police and pressed charges. I was free. He was the problem and now he was gone. My life could start to get back on track.
Only, he wasn’t the problem. I was. He was just an excuse and in the next two years I found that out the hard way.
Soon after the police took number Two away I checked into a domestic violence shelter, but not before a few trips to the dealer with the neighbors. I had to celebrate my freedom, right? Mandatory drug testing as I arrived at the shelter revealed that I had methamphetamines in my system. I played it off as a onetime party thing. I was experimenting, I had only tried it. Still, I was asked to attend one 12 Step meeting a week while I was at the shelter. I went twice, ate their doughnuts, wrote about how it made me feel and talked about it with my counselor. I was showing so much progress in the rest of the program that the matter of meetings quickly dropped.
While in the shelter I learned a lot about myself and my codependency issues. I learned to take responsibilities for my choices and I learned that I was a worthwhile person. At least that’s what I thought I was learning. My time at the shelter was invaluable and I highly recommend that victims of violence take advantage of these shelters. The women and men who donate their time are exceptional and the experience is invaluable. But I was an untreated addict and everything I learned there had to wait until I found a treatment for my disease.
After graduating their 30-day program, I was allowed to leave the premise during the day and I was right back where I started, minus the abusive boyfriend. I don’t really remember how I picked up again. It was easy and I remember taking drugs back to the shelter with me. I remember the craziness start to set in. I was once again haunted by the invisible people and the emotional instability slowly started to return. It really does amaze me how easy it was to acquire needles, even with Number Two gone. For the first year of my IV drug use, I couldn’t get high unless he shot me up. With him gone, I had a lot to learn and it was far too easy.
Within a month of graduating from the domestic violence program I was in a new relationship, he lived at the drug house and it was love at first sight. Eric: I call him mistake Number Three, not because he ever did anything wrong, but because I had no business getting into a relationship that soon after the five year trauma I had just escaped from. But my addiction was in complete control and there was no one around to tell me otherwise, not that I would have listened.
Eric rescued me and my two children from the streets when I was asked to leave the shelter because they caught me trying to climb over the fence at 7 a.m. I was trying to sneak back in after having spent all night out on a bender. Eric offered his home, drug den that it was and I moved in with two children, ages 7 years and 6 months. By the time I met and moved in with this one, I had no family connections to speak of. My children and I were floating in a world of strangers and drug deals.
My time with Eric is hard to write about. It was both the best and the worst time of my adult life. I lived with a man who was gentle, independent and shared my drug habit. At this time I had switched to methamphetamines for economic reasons. He smoked his and shot mine. I reached levels of high I thought I could never reach – levels of insanity I had only seen in movies.
Through all of this I continued my search for that thing people call God. I had been searching since my parents’ divorce and I called myself an atheist just so I wouldn’t have to admit that there was a God out there who could watch this much agony and do nothing about it. I was convinced I was a good person and could never understand why I couldn’t seem to get life right. But I wasn’t ready to see the truth yet. I possibly never would have if my son hadn’t run away and been brought home by the police.
At the time I was staying in a hotel because Eric had finally reached a point where he couldn’t cope with my disease and had asked me to leave. I had enough money for one week. As probably one of the smartest decisions I could have made in a drug induced haze of stupidity and confusion, I called my mother to ask if she would take the kids for six months to a year. I explained that I was still recovering from Mistake Number Two and I needed a few months to get back on my feet. She couldn’t take the kids, but she would call some family members and ask if they could. She never got back to me. Later that week, my son ran away. One of these days, I will thank him for that night.
When the police officer brought him to the hotel room, my daughter and I were asleep. The room was a mess; I was not one of those meth heads who would get high and clean. I got high and made a mess of things, including my life. The police officer took one look around the room and at my tweaker physique and asked me when the last time I had hooked was. Now, I had done many an unsavory things in my disease, but that wasn’t one of them and I looked at him in utter confusion.
I know now that there is a Higher Power and I know that it was at work in my life on that night. I broke down and told the officer that I was considering putting my children up for adoption. I was going to be on-the-streets homeless in just a few days and I didn’t know what to do with them. He took a deep breath, said he thought I was doing the right thing and called for a car seat. Before I knew it, I was walking my children out to his police car and waving goodbye. I wish I could say that this was the turning point in my sobriety; I wish my story was done. I wish I had walked into the doors of AA the very next day and began the road to recovery and my children. But it wasn’t, I still didn’t know that my addiction was the problem. I knew I had a problem, but I sure didn’t know what it was and I knew less how to solve it.
The next morning hit hard. I spent the next week tracking them down and meeting social workers who didn’t buy my bipolar story. My children were at Orangewood, a group foster home for children. The sad thing is they loved it. They weren’t those crying, frantic children who you see in the movies, they were on vacation and having the time of their life. My son still talks of that place fondly. But Orangewood was not a permanent solution and soon the round of foster parents began. The second foster home was the worst. My daughter started biting the natural born children and my son threatened to kill himself. He was 8 years old.
My uncle and his wife returned from vacation, submitted their fingerprints, had their home inspected and went through foster classes to rescue my children. I can never say enough about this aunt of mine, who I love beyond words and I owe my life to. There are still some amends to be made there, because as she was going through all of this, I was still going through a bag of meth a day. I was testing and knew I had to quit, but I still had no idea how. I tried several times and couldn’t get past day two. My addiction was so strong that without a hit, or ten, I couldn’t get out the door to go to my court appointments, parenting classes, or counseling appointments required by the county to get my children back. I was trapped in a cycle of dependence and I just couldn’t see a way out. At this point in my life, AA was the punch line in some sorry joke.
This was the first time in 13 years of drug and alcohol abuse that I needed to quit and I couldn’t. I never even noticed when I rounded that bend between “I got this” and “it got me.” Tragically, I had the wakeup call of a lifetime. My thirteen year old niece committed suicide. Her parents’ story is not mine to tell, but she was in an unhealthy home, much like the one I had raised my son in. In a flash of clarity I again cannot take credit for, I realized that this could very well be one of my own children; suicide could be my children’s future.
With a newfound resolution I tried again to quit, again it was to no avail. My boyfriend tried to hide his dope bags from me, but I would get angry at him for getting high without me. I tried to avoid my dealer, but she was my best friend and I didn’t want to hurt her. I had surrounded myself with my habit and I was locked in a cage. That’s when I prayed to a God I didn’t believe in. I asked that God to get me sober, I didn’t care how much I kicked and screamed, but I needed to get my kids back. Those were my exact words. I cried myself to sleep that night and most likely used the next day, and probably the day after that. Actually I know I did because five days later, when I checked into a 7-day detox center I admitted that I used right before I got on the bus to get there. I smoked my last bowl of speed with my boyfriend and said goodbye. I knew I could never go back. What I didn’t know is that the very next day would become a day that I celebrate with enthusiasm every year: my sobriety date, 9-18-2008.
The detox center was my world for the next 7 days. Upon entry they cleared my bag of all reading material and told me that the only thing I would be reading there was 12-step approved literature. I was so high, I didn’t care. I picked up the smaller of the two books and read it cover to cover in two days. By the time I reached step nine I started crying and I didn’t stop crying for the next three days. I tried to go to the panels where people would point fingers and tell me I was an alcoholic, that I was messed up and I needed God, but every time someone looked at me I started crying and would run to my room. I had reached my bottom.
I have heard many things about bottoms. The thing that stands out the most is that a bottom is not an event. It is a feeling. I had reached the end of my fight. I had no hope left and a person with no hope is a desperate person. That desperation saved my life.
I found a dump of a recovery house that took me in and shoved the program down my throat for the next four months. It sounds painful and unpleasant, and it was. But it was exactly what I needed. I was told that if I didn’t call my sponsor at the exact time I was told to call that I was going to drink; not five minutes before and not five minutes after. I was told that if I didn’t read the big book and work my steps I would drink again. If I didn’t go to 90 meetings in 90 days, I would drink. I was also told that if I drank again, I would die.
Little did they know, but I had made a deal with myself and it went right along those lines. I didn’t get sober for my children, at some level I figured they were better off without me. What sent me to detox, what got me to pray to God, was the realization that I was not better off without my children. I couldn’t imagine what I would do if I didn’t get them back. Except that I did know what I would do, I would kill myself. And that realization got me sober, quick.
So they were right, the 12-step fanatics and the big book thumpers that told me that I would die if I didn’t do everything my sponsor told me to do. I would drink, and then I would use, and then I would die. I had a fire under me that no one could have seen. Failure was not an option– the fear of death made sure of that.
I worked those steps, I went to meetings and I got a sponsor who had what I wanted. She had a smile that radiated across the room. She laughed at her mistakes and she shared openly. She took me through the steps and never batted an eye at anything I told her. She taught me about living amends and about living one day at a time. She taught me that sometimes I had to live one minute at a time. She humored my insanity and loved me for it. She was everything I imagine a sponsor to be.
I was making progress in my program and working towards reunification with my children. I was testing twice a week, going to meetings and working. I did all of this with no car. Visiting my children was the highlight of my week. I had one four-hour, supervised visit a week. I lived in Orange County and they lived in San Diego. On visit days I would catch my first bus at six in the morning and get to the train station in time for the 10 o’clock to Oceanside. At noon I took another train to Escondido and from there I would take a bus to Valley Center, all of this with my bicycle in tow. From the bus stop I rode my bike to my aunt’s house, had my four hour visit where I would help my son with his homework and paint my daughter’s finger nails. Then I would turn around and make the reverse trip home: bike, bus, commuter train, train, bus and home. At 11 p.m. I would crawl in my bed and dream about my next visit.
At six months of sobriety, I called my mother and asked her to help me return to school. Another decision that I choose to believe was from my higher power. I moved from Orange County to San Diego and enrolled in school, got a job and eventually got my children back. By the time I celebrated one year of sobriety, the promises were coming true. I was starting to understand situations that used to baffle me.
I am now two and a half years sober and my children and I are finally finding our rhythm. I am learning how to be a mother, a woman and a friend. I never learned any of that while I was in my disease. I am still an addict, but I am an addict who is learning to find my place in the world. There are a lot of us out here and I have found an immense support group. I have come to terms with my concept of a higher power and I have seen it at work in my life.
Sobriety is not easy and life is even harder, but I have discovered that I now have the tools to meet life on life’s terms. I hope again and I have laughter. It wasn’t too long ago that I had neither. Therefore, this addict is going to continue to trudge the road to her happy destiny, one day at a time, one hour at a time and sometimes, one minute at a time.