this is just a test

the past week was fuct on so many levels, and i don’t have time to get into it right now. the part that i feel is most important is that i didn’t get high over any of it. i was pissed and hurt and so emotionally drained…that familiar feeling of being totally alone was apon me again. but go figure, i stayed calm and i took it really slow…one tiny step at a time in my poor sick head, and i survived. all those times i thought the end of the world was apon me, and i survived. this time was no different, except i didn’t allow myself to indulge the panic.  and i survive.

so the shit comes and it goes, but i don’t have to let any of it own me. this was just a test, and i passed.

family ties

i have a cousin who is five years younger than me. in the height of my last run, i started selling him diesel. i’m not proud of it now, and i’ll elaborate on all this when i have more time.

the point today is, he sent me an email, and he says he’s not doing so good. he wanted to know if i was still sober, and what i was up to. i wrote back telling him all is well, and i would like him to keep in touch. i hope someday he’ll come to me and ask me how i got sober, and if i can help.

i feel like i was there when he got bad, and i want to be there when he choses to get better.

since i got sober, i have come to realise how much i really love my family. i exsisted for so long feeling nothing, i really thought i was indifferent about most people. but when i read my cousin’s email, my heart filled up and i had to bite my lip to keep from crying. i’ve been so isolated for so long, i forgot what it was like to hold someone in your heart.

powerless

i was never a social party girl. not even close. i look back and i read my journals from high school, and i have been a habitual offender since my first drink….from junior high until two months ago i was in the grips of active addiction. and i didn’t even know what that meant. 

what astonishes me now is how normal it all seemed. when other kids my age were just starting to experiment with drinking, i had already had my first blackout (which consisted of getting stabbed in the face, giving my mom a black eye, and almost asperating on my own vomit.) i was an addict since day one. when other kids were experimenting with acid, i getting dosed with thorazine in the e.r. after the first of two hallucinigen induced psychotic episodes. .  when other kids were trying e at prom, i had taken out a 3000 dollar cash advance on my first credit card to keep the roll going….when other kids were out in the woods @ keggers, i was hold up in a dark  bedroom, locked in the grips of my first physical addiction, crystal meth. i was 18. other kids were staying up all night drinking, i stayed up for eight days tweaking. this was the first time drugs put me in the hospital. but it was all in good fun to me. it was normal in my reality, nothing else exsisted.

i look back on it now, and i realize the illusion of control kept me using. i had all the justifications and rationalizations any good addict has. “well, i have a job and i pay my own bills, so i can party.” “i have my own apartment, so i can party.” “i still have all my friends, and i can keep a boyfriend, so i can party.” “i’m young, i can party.” “i’m in college, i’m supposed to party.” “i don’t do hardcore drugs, so what’s the big deal.”

systematically, i lost all of those excuses. my life was only managable by a thread to begin with. and as my disease progressed, i did everything i said i never would…from losing jobs, apartments and cars, to losing friends because i was “scaring the hell” out of everyone, to dropping out of school,  to commiting felonies and getting arrested…to sticking needles in my arm. nothing was sacred, and all bets were off. i never once had a managable life. i’ve always owed money, i’ve always been sick, i’ve always been fighting w/ everyone over everything. i never had a moment’s peace, unless i was high…or so i thought. i had no idea what true peace was, all i understood was “numb”.

i gave myself over completely to drugs. since i first picked up, addiction dictated my entire exsistance, and i had no clue. the men i dated,  the friends i made, the music i listened to, the way i spent all my time…all to facilitate my use and abuse of drugs. all the parties, the concerts the raves…i wouldn’t go anywhere unless the substances were bought and in hand. towards then end i was getting jobs based on how i could use there, i wouldn’t go grocery shopping or do laundry unless i could get high first, or had a place to get off in the interum.

i wouldn’t waist my time on anyone that didn’t party up to my standards. all day everyday, and if you don’t like it, please step aside so the next kid can walk up and we can get this party going. i was a machine, the living dead, always on the hunt for my next fix, and who could make it happen. every boyfriend i ever had was an addict like me, a drug dealer, or both. the formula was sex + drugs = love.  if we could party together and have fun, you were it for me.

i look back on it now, and i’m amazed i’m even here to tell this story. at first i didn’t even want to, because it seemed so cliche…”junky girl suffers  addict life and lives to tell the tale.” but you know what, if nothing else, my story proves the rumors…

it is a disease, it is progressive, and it will rule you. but there is a way out, if you are willing to do the work. no matter what your past has been littered with, you can sweep it all up and use it to make a new you. that’s my belief today. powerless, yes, hopeless….not so much.

hope

thats not a word i throw around carelessly.  it’s also something i never had until i crawled out of the abyss and started walking amung the living. its not always easy to stay hopeful, but it feels like second nature on days like today.

a very good friend of mine, josh (we’ve actually been seeing each other for almost a month, but i like to keep it simple at this point) has a year sober today.

i’ve never personally known anyone that could get a year sober. ( and i mean actual sober, not addict sober…no booze no benzos, no diet pills no steriod, he really did it) and it truely gives me hope. that i can do it, that he can continue to do it. that if we want it bad enough and work for it, we can recover. it was always a nice “what if” but never a true aspiration in my life. i had resigned to settle for less, and it doesn’t have to be that way.

josh’s experience is alot similar to mine (and yours, i’m sure) he was a bottom of the barrel, end of the line, thief, hustler, puddle junky. he had nothing but trackmarks and whatever was left of his threadbare soul.

in the short time i’ve known him, he has been one of the kindest, funniest, most caring people i’ve ever met. he’s very serious about his recovery, and it has paid off. he’s getting better.

and in that is the hope i cherish today. the look on his face when i remind him he did it. the kid was living under an overpass in cali this time a year ago. and that is proof right there….no matter how far down into the abyss we swim, we can come back, stronger and more at peace than we ever dreamed.