My addiction began at an early age. In a way, I think I was born an addict. I started stealing the occasional cigarette from the time I was old enough to work a lighter. Around age 8, a babysitter of mine let me take a few hits of weed when I complained of a headache. I remember liking that floating, euphoric feeling it gave me.
Once I hit middle school, I started hanging out with some kids from the high school next to my school. They used to cut class and climb the fence onto our school property during my gym period, where, unsupervised, I would slip out of the field and into the woods surrounding my school. We would smoke cigarettes and pot, and one time I tried cocaine. One of these so-called friends, a sixteen year old boy (I had just turned 12), asked me out. I said yes. We would hang out a bit after our other friends had left, just the two of us. One time we were alone and high, and he started to try to get me to have sex with him. I pushed him away, and he got angry. He eventually ended up pulling a knife on me, and raping me.
After that, I fell into an eating disorder that lasted nine years. During that time I started smoking cigarettes more often, and sneaking alcohol on occasion. Both my parents drank, so it was easy to get. I began huffing freon with my brother and a friend of ours. We also would take turns passing each other out, to get that "high" feeling.
When I was 15, I had a jaw surgery, and experienced Morphine for the first time. I was sent home with Lortab and Codeine. They gave me much more than I needed for pain relief from the surgery. When I returned to school, I took the Codeine with me, and drank it like it was diet coke for the next few days. I would pop a few Lortab every few hours. I had pharmaceutical dyslexia-- the pill bottle said take 2 every 4 hours, I took 4 every 2 hours. I went on like that until the end of my freshman year, when I started drinking more heavily. At the beginning of Sophomore year, I had my first "really drunk" experience. I poured a water bottle half full of rum and half of orange soda, took a cab downtown to a local hang out, drank, moshed, made out with a guy I didn't know, threw up in the gutter, and caught a ride home from some bible thumpers who happened to be preaching on that street.
I began drinking at school, in class even, adding my mother's rum to bottles of soda, and hanging out with friends who drank. I drank to have fun, I drank when I was stressed, I drank when I was bored, and I also continued to use pain killers all through high school. After I graduated, I got back to smoking pot, and constantly got drunk at work, since I worked graveyard shift alone at a convenience store. I stole money to buy drugs. I sold alcohol and cigarettes to minors as young as 15. After about 4 months, I lost my job because I was always sick due to my drug use and eating disorder, and I believe my boss at least suspected theft, although she didn't bring it up.
Shortly after losing this job, I met my husband. We met in August, married in December. My husband was in the Army, and used DXM, a legal dissociative drug available over the counter in cough medicines, which does not show up on drug tests. We began doing this drug together on occasion. At some point I decided to do this alone, and that I would take as much as I could tolerate. I went from 8 pills the first time I tried it, to as many as 40 pills doing it alone. My husband soon found I was doing it alone, and was very upset by this. I was high our first valentine's day together. Often I was too sick and high to take care of myself. I laid on the couch watching TV and throwing up on the floor. My dog would run through it, roll in it, and eat it. Very glamorous. My husband was left having to clean up the mess.
I found out I was pregnant in Spring of 06. I cleaned up, and had an amazing pregnancy. I was so excited to be a mom, nothing could bring me down. I researched and talked to other moms, and had my first taste of a normal, sober, adult life.
In November 2006, my daughter was stillborn. I was distraught, over-medicated, and suffered from depression, insomnia, and PTSD. Within months I was back to using. My eating disorder became infinitely worse, and I was hospitalized for it in April, weighing only 89 pounds. Shortly after I got out of the hospital, I overdosed on DXM and was brought to the hospital to have my stomach pumped, and placed back in the hospital I was in for my eating disorder. About a week after I got out, I used again, only this time was different. The DXM was metabolized incorrectly due to another medication I was taking, and it sent me into horrible withdrawals. I was shaking and sweating and kicking. I called the crisis line, and they called 911. They took me to the hospital, where I fell into a catatonic state. I was shot with Ativan, which instantly brought me out, and I fell asleep. After this ordeal, I was brought to the hospital for a third stay. I went to visit some family so they could help me stay clean. I did not.
I stayed at a party house and drank and smoked pot, and got some other friends of mine to try DXM. I found out I was pregnant (my husband was in Iraq, but had come home on emergency leave after I was hospitalized for my eating disorder) I didn't find out until I was nearly 7 weeks, because I was underweight enough that I still wasn't having a period. I stopped drinking, but I continued smoking pot, and was living in an unhealthy, smoke-filled environment. I miscarried that pregnancy at 10 weeks.
I returned home and started taking DXM again, as well as drinking and taking painkillers and benzos, which I stole from friends. At this point I had developed a stutter and a twitch, as well as other symptoms of my drug use. By the time my husband returned home, I was extremely unhealthy, and still underweight.
Only about 2 months after he returned, I found out I was pregnant with my son. I quit all drugs, afraid to lose this pregnancy too. We moved from Hawaii to Arizona, where I found a midwife who would help me stay healthy throughout my pregnancy. In August 2008, I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, my first live baby out of three pregnancies. I was so happy, I thought life was perfect now and I would never have to go back to using.
Life had other plans, however, and I began drinking and using when he was only a few months old, even breastfeeding while drunk and high. I used off and on for several months. When he was about 18 months, I began using daily. I was always high, even drove with my son in the car high. When my husband found out I was using, he tried to help me get clean. But time and time again I went back to using, each time taking more than before. I became paranoid and delusional. One time I was at the PX and I thought I was Lady Gaga. I tried to cover my face so people wouldn't recognize me.
My husband told me we had to do something more about my using. I looked into outpatient programs, but none in my area took our insurance, so I began going to meetings of Narcotics Anonymous. They were warm and friendly, and, I thought, crazy. They told me I never had to use again, and said they were a program for complete abstinence from all drugs, including alcohol. All they did, it seemed, was talk about drugs. It made me want to do drugs! So I told my husband I wasn't going anymore. I said I wasn't going to do drugs, but I figured it was okay if I drank. I wasn't an alcoholic, after all.
Later that week, I told my husband we should have rum and cokes. He bought a bottle of rum and a 2 liter coke. I had 4 rum and cokes that evening, and finished off the rum the next morning. Not an alcoholic alright. If that weren't enough, I took 2 bottles of Wal-Tussin (DXM) and followed it with the rest of my Klonopin. My husband took me to the hospital, and I went to rehab in Scottsdale the next day. I spent nearly a month there, and I learned so much about drug addiction and recovery. Finally, what I had been told at NA made sense. I knew I had to stay away from all mind-altering substances, not just my drug of choice, if I wanted to stay clean.
I am now out of rehab and going to daily Narcotics Anonymous meetings. I have a sponsor, and I am working the steps. I am enjoying sobriety and being a healthy role model for my son.
My mother set the kitchen on fire when I was a kid, because she answered the phone, started talking, and forgot about what she was cooking.
That's where someone stops drinking but uses weed instead, rationalizing that it's not alcohol, and not addicting.
