I was adopted into a pretty good family. I have a brother who is my parents' biological kid. I grew up in California riding motorcycles and being a little tomboy. I played soccer a lot, but
school was always a struggle for me, because I have dyslexia. At 10, I saw my brother and his friends smoking pot in the backyard, and told him if he did not give me some, I would tell Mom. I took a couple of hits, and.I felt cool. I used on weekends and hid stolen bottles of alcohol in my closet. At 13, I started smoking pot a lot more. I was developing and looked older. I hung out with my brothers' friends and got high and drank. It made me feel good -- I wasn't being picked on.
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I first tried meth when I was 13. It was given to me by a friend who modeled. I was muscular from playing sports, and she said, “Here, try this, you'll lose weight, and maybe you and I can do a lot more things together.” On meth I had the energy to run around and have fun. I felt like I was invincible. If I had a soccer game, nothing could hurt me on the field.
My freshman year, I really started getting into drugs. I went to a Christian school, and as a punk rock girl, I was kind of popular because I dressed differently than everyone else. Kids approached me about trying pot. I got a pipe, and we would smoke pot after school at the railroad tracks. |
Midway freshman year, I developed a steady connection for meth. I liked it so much better than pot -- pot slowed me down. Meth made me feel alive and alert, but also laid back and cool. I was snorting it, and occasionally smoking it. In the mean time I was working at a pizza place, playing varsity soccer, had my allowance and my grades were still okay.
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Three weeks into sophomore year, the principal found my pipe in my locker and I got expelled. I got a misdemeanor for paraphernalia. I was lucky they didn't search my person, because I had a bag of meth on me. My parents offered me a backpacking trip in Idaho for a month. It was a wilderness camp for troubled adolescents. |
This big cowboy with a bald head and ripped muscles met the plane. I freaked and started running, but he grabbed me by my backpack. We were in the middle of nowhere. Out of 8 kids, I was the only female. I was pissed off for the first week. We learned how to roll our packs, learned search-and-rescue, and did 3-day isolation camping trips. It turned out to be a great experience and I loved it.
But as soon as I got home, I started drinking and doing meth again. I really liked the way I felt on drugs. I liked blocking out the lectures, "This is what we expect from you…." I went to public school and every weekend I got drunk until I passed out. With certain friends, I only drank because they did not approve of my meth use. I started doing meth every single day. I lost a lot of weight and stayed up all night, tweaked out in my room. I started stealing cash from my parents, from my job. I tried mushrooms, LSD, and cocaine. I dropped everything: school, soccer. I was out having fun and I really didn't care.
When I was 16, I went to a rave and afterwards wound up to some random guy's house to do dope. I wound up getting raped and beaten up outside his place. I didn't remember how it happened. I reported it, and nothing was done. Other times when I drank until I blacked out, when I woke up, my pants would be down or off or I woke up next to some guy. I wouldn’t remember who he was or what had happened. I would get into fights, or get hit by boyfriends. I had such low self-esteem and I thought it was normal and okay to accept the occasional smack or punch. After a boyfriend stabbed me in the hip, I finally realized that it wasn’t okay.
I was 17 when I finally got busted stealing money. My mom grabbed my backpack and found my pipe in there. She told me I needed to get help. I was tired of lying and stealing and nobody trusting me. Even my fellow users didn't want to touch me. They said I was gross because I was so skinny – they said it felt like they were hugging themselves. I wasn't employable. I was lowering my standards to do anything to get dope. I didn't like myself -- I felt like a monster.
I went to a couple of NA meetings, but got loaded in the bathroom and kept skipping school. I got into an outpatient program, and went to meetings, but could not get more than two days put together. At 18, I ran away to one of my dope dealers and stayed a couple of days. I did every drug under the sun, all the while thinking, “I have to get to my outpatient program on Monday.” I was so tired.
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My counselor told me: You're 18. Only you can help yourself. You need to ask for help, or you need to get up and get out of my office. I decided I was going to leave. What came out of my mouth was, "Please help me." She was on the phone calling a treatment center right away. I did 30 days inpatient, another 30 days at a halfway house, in a sober living environment. The treatment started working for me. My clean date is June 26, 1996.
Being clean and sober isn't always easy. |
What means the most to me is my family's support, going to meetings, talking and sharing my story, never forgetting where I came from, how I looked and how many people I really hurt.
We learn to forgive and let go, but we don't forget. I have a relationship today with my family -- my mom's not grabbing her purse and locking it upstairs. It means so much to have friends trust me with their house keys, because I’m not going to rip them off. To have permission to drive friends’ cars, because they know I’m not drunk and going to crash them. It's nice to be trusted.
Today I'm a drug and alcohol counselor in Scotts Valley, CA. You hear the horror stories, of drug users getting raped, being beaten, getting kicked out and being homeless. If you're using and it hasn't happened to you, it's a YET. It's the next six ‘I really don't care’s away. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. We are not invincible and we are not any different from the people who die every day.
I OD’d many times and almost died. It wasn’t until I faced my life and owned up to the things I did, that my life got better. Life shows up, life’s not easy, but that’s part of growing up. As kids/teens we will always have our issues: I’m not pretty, smart, or thin enough. Maybe your parents aren’t together anymore, or you feel left out. Drugs are a temporary solution to a temporary problem. Doing drugs just makes life even harder. My life is better today thanks to the people who helped me, love me and support me. Your life can be like that, too. Help is out there. All you have to do is ask.