- Drugs
- Friends & Family
Submitted by: Susanne Johnson
My name is Marni and I’m in recovery from addiction. I will have 19 years of continuous sobriety this year in December. Crack was my drug of choice; that was my goal. I would smoke pot or cocaine, but I was always on the hunt to find crack. It was my real downfall.
If people around me would drink, I would drink too, because I’m an addict, I take anything except needles– I never did those. I was afraid of needles. You don’t really die on crack, but once you cross the line to needles, it’s a totally new story.
My first exposure to drugs was when I was about 1fifteen years old. I smoked pot and called it the “good days”. That was when I still had a good time and fun using. This changed quickly for the worse.
I got pregnant while I was using. I was getting high and sleeping around. I had a daughter that I gave to my mom and I kept using. Not long after this, I felt really tired of walking the streets– I felt empty; I wanted change. I was beat up plenty of times and raped in the streets. I wanted my daughter and a different life.
I was exhausted and a walking shell of a person, so I went to treatment. My treatment took a year. I came from Miami and went to Fort Lauderdale to receive help. Once I finished my treatment and found a different life, I decided not to go back to Miami. Back in Miami, I had no friends, I just had using people. In Fort Lauderdale, I started to have real friends. Miami was full of my problem. Fort Lauderdale was full of my solution. I found life there, I found my tribe.
My wife and I are both in recovery. We both live up to it. Some meetings we do together, but we also have our own groups to go. I love recovery and I’m so grateful. My daughter is 23 old today; she has a daughter as well, which my wife and I raise.
Sadly, my daughter followed my path into addiction. I got my own daughter back when she was five years old and I didn’t know what I was doing or how to be a mom at first. Today we have a very good relationship and I take my grandchild for a visit to her mother (my daughter) every Sunday and we spend some time together.
The father of my daughter was my best friend. We both were in the speed roller skating team for the state of Florida when we met and both got into drugs. He went to prison (when my daughter was three) for an unarmed robbery. I didn’t have a relationship with him anymore by that point, but once a month, I drove my daughter to the prison to see him for sixteen whole years, so she would not lose touch with her father.
He was finally released from jail three years ago and he and my daughter finally started to spend some time together until he did the same thing again– unarmed robbery– and now he is gone again. My daughter was devastated and now does not want to see him anymore. This did a lot of damage to her, but if she ever feels the wish to see him, I will take her there again for visits.
While I had trouble raising my daughter, she spent a great deal with both her grandmothers. Both of them died when she was only eight years old, she has been through a lot of loss and grief. Right now she only smokes pot, but I told her not to do it when I’m around.
Back in those days of using I was stupid and high; today I’m more scared. I don’t like to walk in neighborhoods that make me feel uncomfortable. There are certain areas where you might even trip over people and if anyone walks behind me now, I get really nervous. I don’t belong in those places anymore. I’m clean today, and I’m scared of those places.