Drugs

I was powerless over drinking and using...

Imagine a cold, unheated apartment in the middle of Hollywood. A bachelor sized apartment. No pictures hanging on the wall, a mattress in the middle of the floor, a hard back folding chair sitting in the middle of the room, a few kitchen utensils and some old pots and pans laid on and around the kitchen stove with no place to go. You could hear the traffic zooming by on Franklin Avenue. When you opened the door with your key, you could see cockroaches running about on the walls and the floors. It felt was cold and smelled awful. The first time I was visited by my then boyfriend, I watched him shoot cocaine, and kept a careful eye on where all the cockroaches were headed. It wasn't long before I allowed him to shoot me up also. It happened in that apartment, the place two sick, suffering addicts, my boyfriend and I, called home. This is the place I remember when I think about taking another drink again. By God's grace, I will never have to go back there again. Thirteen years later, I am still so grateful for my sobriety and abstinence from all mind-altering drugs. I'd like to tell a bit of my story and a bit of my recovery. The feeling I got after cocaine went through my veins, into my brain was like nothing I'd ever felt before. It was sure ecstasy. My body convulsed as the drug took its effect. Time was no longer a part of my world. Who knows how long we spent in that awful apartment. I hallucinated and felt things touch me that weren't real clear to the naked eye. I was truly in another world, an evil, dark world. He always provided the drugs and alcohol. When the drug would start to wear off, panic would set in. I remember wishing I had a gun to kill myself. The pain that set in when my body began to crave more was again like no other feeling I've ever experienced, or want to experience again. I couldn't sleep, I felt extremely hopeless, my body couldn't sit still and my mind would not stop racing. It was absolute hell. Thank God there wasn't a loaded gun around. This is what it was like. I was prey to misery and depression, did not have any real friends, and most of all I hated myself. I knew I could not take any more cocaine. If I did, I wouldn't be writing to you today. However, this is a disease that affects the body, mind and spirit. My mind was gone. If I was offered cocaine, I could not turn it down. I mi...

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... me if I ever injected into my neck veins. I thought-I'll stop before it gets that bad. Later on in my addiction I collapsed veins in both sides of my neck. I said I would NEVER sell my body, but Sept. of 1997 I started doing just that.

While in my current program, I made the difficult decision to have the family that adopted my first child adopt Amanda as well. I know it was the right choice. I have held the same job at a dog grooming shop for a year, and will graduate this program this year. I am saving my money to get a car. I have found some self esteem and forgiveness of myself. I like myself for the first time since early childhood. Next Fall I plan to go to college to get certification to be a Substance Abuse Counselor, or go to school to learn computer animation or computer graphics. I haven't decided yet. I just know that I want to help other addicts. I attend 12-Step meetings, and spend most weekends with my parents or birth mother. I have learned a sense of responsibility and have learned to take care of myself.

I still have hard times, but they are a luxury compared to my problems I faced while on drugs. Just having a nice safe clean bed at night makes me grateful!