Being an Addict is F****** Hard

Addiction is a fucking whirlwind.

Like I have said before, I don’t even know when I went from a recreational drug user to an addict. The change happened so quickly that I didn’t even recognize it was happening, until I was almost dead staring at myself in a mirror in a little trailer in California.

My recovery story is such a mess that it used to be embarrassing to admit how many times I had tried and failed before finally finding my way. I used to not even admit that I am in recovery, there are many times where I have mentioned my recovery and people have said “wow, you don’t look like someone who would be an addict” as If addicts look a certain way, as if we are all the same. It always sets me off in a way I can’t explain, I immediately get defensive and start the argument with “really, because I’ve used drugs with some of the richest lawyers, businessmen and women, and overall successful people you could imagine, and I’m sure they don’t look like addicts either. But hey there we were, smoking heroin together.” Such a crazy world we live in where people still think addicts “look” like addicts.

I may not fit what society says is the standard “look” for an addict but damn my lifestyle sure the hell did.

So, let’s talk about it.

When the universe told me it was time for me to get clean the first time, I didn’t listen. I had moved to Massachusetts to get clean and ended up chasing Jade all around Florida trying to save her when I should have been saving myself.

What I didn’t include in my previous blog, is what my life truly looked like during that time.

Moving to Massachusetts should have been a good change, right? Getting away from the people I was surrounding myself with, getting away from my dealers, changing my environment, all of which should have created healthier habits. Unfortunately, an addict will find addicts & drugs wherever they go, unless they choose not to. So, I went from using in Florida with my addict friends there, to using in Massachusetts with my addict friends here. I spent the winter partying, hanging out in the woods with my friends, being reckless and just “having fun”. But my grandmother was pushing me to go to college, I needed to get my shit together and figure my life out. I needed to get clean, and I knew that, but I just didn’t want to. So, I enrolled in school in 2009. My first semester of college I got a job in the financial aid office, thankfully my grandmother had a great relationship with everyone at the school, which in turn helped me to build great relationships. I was still using and trying my hardest to make it in college knowing damn well I couldn’t be a student and a “junkie” all at the same time. I slept outside the school in my car most nights to make it to class or to work, because I would be up partying until 4 in the morning, I wasn’t technically homeless, but it was the way I chose to live because I didn’t want my grandparents to see me the way that I was. Sometimes I slept outside of the gas station in town because there was an outlet to charge my phone out back and the girl who worked the overnight shift would always give me the food, they were throwing out that day.

During all of this is when I would take my weekend trips to Florida to try and find Jade. I’d leave Thursday after work and either jump on a plane or drive there… even had my friends drive me there a few times. After the semester was over, I took one of these normal trips and ended up connecting with a friend I went to high school with, I decided while I was there, I was going to stay there, I was moving back to Florida. If I couldn’t get Jade to come to me, then I was going to come to her. My plan didn’t work, I think I only seen her a total of 5 times, and we just ended up using together, hooking up and then running away from each other because neither of us could handle saying goodbye again.

I had decided to go back to dancing at the club. I worked a couple nights before the feelings of wanting to scrub my skin off came back full force. I knew that what I was doing was triggering, I knew I hated every bit of it, but the money… the money was so good. I was never going to be able to get a job that paid all my bills and for my out-of-control habit in just one night. I was as addicted to the money and I was to the drugs, all while hating every minute of being there. I was so high all the time, I didn’t realize that the reason I was so triggered was because my customers were mostly male, the very sex that I did not trust, the very sex that made me assume every one of them were bad, the same sex that had destroyed my childhood, the same sex that led to me getting addicted to the drugs that put me on that stage to begin with.

One night, I was walking the beach after working my shift and was attacked by a man who’s face, I never even seen, he had come up from behind me, wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me to the ground with him. I felt like I was screaming but I’m not sure if any sound even left my body, I don’t remember much other than trying to squirm my tiny 80-pound body out from under his concrete weight. He had his hand up my dress and tight grip on the underwear I was wearing, finally I had gotten enough of my upper body lose from under him that I managed to use whatever muscle I had left to yank my leg up as quickly as I could kneeing him in the face, his body naturally leaned to one side. I slid my legs out of my underwear that were still in his grasp, and I ran as fast as I could. I really had no where I could go, no safe destination in mind so I just kept running. I felt like it had been an eternity by the time I finally felt safe enough to stop. I called a friend of mine who lived in the area. He was a bouncer at the club I went to, he told me I couldn’t crash at his place, but his friend lived 3 doors down and I could crash there for the night if I needed too. I really didn’t care where I was sleeping that night as long as I wasn’t out on the beach where this guy could find me. I walked to his place, and he brought me to his friends’ apartment.

His friend was very nice, got me a t-shirt and shorts I could wear to bed, made me something to eat and let me shower. He was having a small get together, there was maybe 5 people there, but he kept leaving them to check on me. I remember thinking how sweet I thought that was. After smoking some weed with him and his friends, I had felt like I was finally calmed down enough from the events that took place to get some sleep. So, I headed into his guest room and passed out.

I’m not sure how long I was asleep before I woke up to two of his friends climbing in my bed, telling me that they were there to show me a good time. My initial thought was, “I must be dreaming, this can’t be happening to me twice in once night, this cannot be real” my body frozen in place unable to move just trying to process what was happening.  But when one of those men put his ginormous tan hand on the inside of my thigh and gripped it tight, a switch went off in my brain that told me this was in fact happening, and I needed to run. I jumped up screaming at them to “not fucking touch me, and to stay the fuck away from me”, I remember one of them saying something like “sorry ma, we thought you’d be into this relax” I grabbed my handful of things and took off. I ran the three doors down to the bouncer’s house and started slamming on the door screaming for him to let me in.

When he opened the door I fell to my knees, crying, begging for him to let me in. He helped me up, pleading with me to tell him what happened, I just held on to him whimpering, shaking, asking over and over in my head what I did to deserve this happening to me repeatedly. I slept on his couch that night. He sat beside me holding my hand while I told him what happened and cried myself to sleep. I woke up with him asleep beside me.

I remember waking up that morning with a sense of motivation and determination I hadn’t had in a long time. I woke him up and asked him for a ride to someone’s house who I knew I would be safe with for the night.

When we got there, I hugged him, I thanked him for keeping me safe. He gave me the speech I was so used to hearing that it really didn’t mean anything anymore “you need to get your shit together, get yourself clean, and figure this shit out.” I told him I would, and he left.

I spent that day planning, building the courage for the steps I knew I was going to take the next few days. The persons house I was at was hopelessly in love with me, and me being a piece of shit used that to my advantage. I told him everything he wanted to hear in order to stay at his house for those next two nights knowing I would be safe and wouldn’t have to walk anywhere. That night he took me to get a bag from the trap house Jade was staying at. He never went inside when I did my thing, but he never left me there either. I’ll always be thankful for that. I ran in, did what I needed to do, said my goodbyes to Jade and promised her that once I was better, I’d be back for her.  On the way home, he took me shopping, all I had were the clothes on my back (which was the shirt and shorts from the guys 3 doors down) and a few outfits I danced in, so he bought me some new clothes and took me back to his place. I showered, I relaxed, we watched a movie and around 11 o’clock I asked him to drive me to the club so I could make some money.  He didn’t want to, I could see it all over his face, but he knew if he told me no, I’d just leave and that’s the last thing he wanted so he brought me and stayed in the parking lot until 2 am to take me back.

The next morning, I went to the bank, deposited the money I had made that night, booked a plane ticket for California for that afternoon, all without saying a work. And when he went to work, I called a cab and took off to the airport. I never said a word to him about me leaving. I waited almost a week to even tell him I was alive. I had my mind set on flying to California where I knew no one. Because how would I get high if I knew absolutely nothing about the place I was traveling to? I couldn’t find drugs, right? I wouldn’t have any friends to use with. This was it; this was me starting over. When I landed in Cali, I took a train to some town in the middle of nowhere. I figured I would either find a safe place in the street to crash or maybe a cheap motel. Instead, I met Corey.

My mom always told me not to trust strangers. But I had survived this long with strangers being all I had. So, when he pulled over and asked me if I needed a ride, I jumped in without hesitation. It was hot, I had no food and nothing to drink, I had no idea what places were safe and what wasn’t, if I was going to learn I needed to make a friend. Just so happened that the friend that I made was one of the biggest drug dealers and gang members in that little town and now, I just signed up to be his “friend”.

Within two weeks, I had gone from wanting to get clean to not even remembering the last time I thought about getting clean. I was scared, I felt like I was being held hostage, I felt like he kept me so high that I didn’t have the ability to think anymore. I had been talking to a friend from high school that was also living in California, I planned a way for her to come to me and get me out of there. She did, and I went out and stayed with her for about a month, still using, still miserable, and now… more scared than ever.

I’m not sure if all addicts get to this point when they decide they want to get clean.

But, when I looked in the mirror that morning and seen my face covered in scabs, my skin as grey as it could be, and my lip fat and bleeding from smashing my face after my nod the night before. I knew it was time or I was going to die. Calling my mom was the hardest thing I think I had ever had to do up until that point.

 Calling her meant I was admitting that I had failed yet again.

 Calling her meant that again I needed help.

 But I called, and I admitted I failed, and she helped.

She got me on a plane that very day.  

It wasn’t until I was throwing up on myself, pissing my bed, crying from the fucking cramps in my legs, clawing at my crawling skin and literally wishing I would die before I had to detox another moment that I realized how badly I really did want to be clean. I never wanted to detox again, I never wanted to be sick again, I never wanted to see the look on my mom’s face while she changed my sheets with me still in the bed because I was too weak to stand up again. I just wanted my fucking life back. I just wanted to feel like myself again, even though I didn’t know what that was anymore.

Many times, throughout that process I thought I was going to die and many of those times I truly honestly wished I would.

I am so thankful today for being alive, so thankful for the journey I took to get here, so thankful that although I failed a million times, my million and one I finally succeeded before it was too late.

I’ve lost so many people I love to addiction.

So many of my friends who were genuinely good people who just never made it to their million and one.

Addiction is fucking hard.

Being an addict is fucking hard.

Having will power is fucking hard.

And getting clean is the fucking hardest of it all.

I am so sorry if you are currently fighting addiction, I am so sorry that one decision has led you down this path of always feeling like you are fighting to survive. I am so sorry if you feel like you need to give up on the road to recovery., because you don’t! eventually you will get your million and one. Keep trying!

And to those who have made it to your million and one.

Be so fucking proud of you!

Be so fucking thankful you made it!

Be so fucking loud in your triumph that you give others the hope to reach their million and one too.