Jackie’s Story: Addiction

There is a common misconception about addicts that I hear so often. People assume we all had horrible childhoods or severe trauma to get to a place where we'd give up everything for a drug. While this is true for some of us, it was not my experience. Addiction does not discriminate. It will take whoever and whatever it can get. I had a fantastic upbringing with loving parents, a beautiful home, and all the things I could ask for, (more than what I asked for if I am sincere). I think that is why no one understood how I ended up where I did. The people around me couldn't comprehend what could cause someone to give up everything they have for something that was bound to kill them.

This isn't to say my family didn't have their own issues. My dad suffered from severe OCD, which my sister also began demonstrating at a young age. She found unhealthy ways of dealing with it. My younger sister became the focus of the family when she began to self-mutilate to cope, and to say I felt I needed to be the perfect older sister and example for her was an understatement. Any problems I had, I kept to myself, but they never stopped eating at me.

Growing up, I had a ton of issues with self-image. As lame as it sounds, I never felt I was pretty enough, skinny enough, or popular enough. I started starving myself to lose weight quickly the summer before eighth grade. The sad part is when I returned to school, kids didn't recognize me. I was a little on the heavier side and losing 40 pounds made me nearly unrecognizable. I was never paid much attention to begin with. The feedback I got was insane. I was making new friends, boys were noticing me for the first time, and I felt more confident and sound emotionally. I continued what I was doing and when people would take notice, I would dial it back. Over the years, I got really good at hiding my restriction of food, and I'd do anything to maintain the new life I had going for me.

By the time I got to high school I had acquired a large group of friends, joined the cheer leading squad and even ended up being the captain of the varsity team. I was into my first serious relationship, which lasted throughout most of my high school years. I hated cheer leading and the whole aspect of it honestly, but I wanted to fit in. I wanted to have a place where I belonged, but mostly I wanted to have an invite to all the parties and weekend events everyone who was considered anyone would attend.

My first real high school party should have been a huge red flag of what was to come. I didn't drink like the others. I drank and drank until I didn't remember a single thing until I passed out, puked, or worse. In my sophomore year, I was raped at a bonfire where I had gotten too drunk. The only reason I'm positive it happened is that the boy had no trouble announcing what had occurred all over the school, and no one seemed to think twice about it. I was the one who got the heat for it. I got the reputation of being a "drunken whore”, which launched me into my first real experience with depression. I went through so many emotions and went through them alone because I refused to act as if I cared whatsoever. I started to feel so numb that I decided I might as well live up to my new found reputation.

Although I had a long-term boyfriend, I'd go to all the parties, be the drunkest, and screw the consequences. This acting out behavior went on for years. I cheated multiple times, got into physical altercations frequently, and ended up places I had never even heard of. When I made a group of friends who were doing harder stuff, I was more than willing to participate. When the weekends hit, I was always drunk, high, or both. Whether it be weed, ecstasy, or coke. Sometimes I would even show up to school Monday still screwed up from the previous day.

I started to see the consequences of all the damage I was causing. Friends wrote me off, my first love finally had enough and left me, and my parents were beyond embarrassed to have me as a daughter (although they would never admit it to me). Everyone said the same thing that they didn't recognize me anymore. The only people I had left were my small group of fake friends to get fucked up with, so I stuck with them, dated them, and partied with them. The summer after I barely graduated from my senior year, I met the man who would change my life forever, and not in a positive way.

I met him at a party, of course. We hit it off right away. I think the fact that he was terrible for me is what made me so attracted to him, and odd as that sounds. He was covered in tattoos, stayed in an apartment with "his boys", answered to absolutely no one, and did whatever the hell he wanted. What I didn't know when we got involved is exactly what kind of partying he was into. I found out a little too late in the relationship that he was into heroin, which I honestly had never even heard of at the time or knew how serious of an issue it was. Clearly, the D.A.R.E system had failed me. Naive as I was, I decided I could get him clean if I was supportive enough. All my efforts ended up getting me was a bag of dope on a really drunken night. It was apparently more manageable for him to do what he wanted if I was into it too. The second I felt it hit me, I thought I had found the Holy Grail, the something I had been searching for to fill my voids. I loved the feeling immediately and it was the start of the end for me.

It didn't take long at all for me to become a daily user. I'd steal some money out of my mom’s purse here and there, and since it didn't take much to get me high, the money got me by. But the longer I used, the more I needed, and the harder keeping up with my habit was getting. I can still remember the first time I got sick. The cold sweats, bone aches, chills, and vomiting made me feel like I was on my deathbed. The only solution I could find was to get more. My boyfriend shot heroin, and I sniffed. I hated needles and was completely wigged out by the idea, but I got desperate. When he told me, it took less to get high, if you injected it, I had my arm tied off without hesitation. What started as a fun escape turned into a living hell. All I thought about was how to score, and what I would need to sell or steal from my family to get there, and how soon I could make it happen. Whoever I hurt on the way was collateral damage. It's not that I didn't care about my family or my friends; getting high had just become such an obsession that I couldn't live without it.

I was no stranger to jail. My boyfriend had been locked up multiple times during our relationship, along with my drug dealers and "friends". It just had never happened to me, YET. I felt like I was invincible, which was utterly naive. The entire town I lived in knew I was a junkie, down to the cops that patrolled it. It was a small town, and people talked. My sister would even get taunted at school for having a "crackhead" for a sister. My dad would also get confronted at work by cops who would drink at his bar. It was a matter of time before I got arrested, and believe me, I got arrested quite a bit. I got caught with needles, resisted arrest, and eventually assaulted an officer while entirely incoherent. With a good lawyer, I lucked out and got PTI, which was a shot at making my charges disappear.  So, I went to my first rehab and decided I'd get clean and do right by my family by getting my life together. That lasted a whole two weeks before I left rehab and was back to my daily routine.

 The first time I overdosed was also the first time I ever considered I might die this way like all the other heroin addicts you hear about in the paper and news. I ended up hospitalized the first day of my sister's senior year, which she missed sitting by my bed with me. I don't think I had ever felt so shitty in my entire life. Although I had been getting past probation with my urine tests, they found out quickly, and I was given a choice to go back to rehab or go to jail. So, I chose rehab, again.

I ended up in Florida for half a year and was shocked when I began to fall in love with recovery. I loved being able to finally have a group of people I could share my thoughts and emotions with and have zero judgment come my way. I went to three meetings a day most of the time and created an entire network of friends in NA (Narcotics Anonymous). I followed all the suggestions given to me. I got a sponsor, used the phone, and soaked up all those great sayings they tell you within the first ten minutes. I came home with this feeling of positivity and I was ready to start a new life for myself. I had been diagnosed with Hep C, which is why I decided to come home to begin with, but I was optimistic about treatment. My boyfriend was in jail for stealing a car, and I wasn't the least bit concerned with what was going on in his life. I felt as long as he wasn't around to drag me back down, I'd be fine, and I was for a while.

I had a year clean before I started to drink again and entered a new type of toxic relationship. I replaced using heroin with drinking, and it was easy to do, considering my boyfriend was of age to drink and was on his way to becoming an alcoholic and would buy for me since I was still only twenty. All we would do is drink, no matter where we were or what we were doing. Bowling? We drank. Movies? We drank then too. I didn't realize how aggressive he could be until he put his hands on me. The first time he hit me, I blamed it on the booze.  The second time I let it slide as well. Within months of dating, I had returned home with black eyes and bruises. On one occasion, he left me on the side of the road poorly beaten, and thankfully someone spotted me and called 911. The first thing I did when I got out of the hospital was called my old dealer.

I started getting extra sloppy with my use. I didn't care who knew, who saw, or if I was kicked out of my home for it. I was staying on friends' couches and avoiding my family any way I could. I was still on probation, and when I showed up high out of my mind, that was it for me. No discussions, no deals, just jail. I spent a few months collectively in and out before I was urged to sign up for Drug Court, which is the most intense form of probation you can receive. It involved getting tested twice a week, going to court once a week, homework assignments, curfews, and random house checks. I would have never chosen it myself, but my only other option was prison at that point. So, once again I put all of my efforts into recovery. Of the 3 years it took me to graduate successfully, I had stayed completely clean and sober for the last two and a half years.

However, I made poor decisions in sobriety too. I married the first decent man I got into a relationship with two months after dating right when I signed onto Drug Court and was very new to sobriety. I can't say I would take it back. We became the best of friends and shared so many good memories; we just weren't compatible romantically. After two years of arguing and fighting, I decided I needed to step away from the situation. I received a divorce this past spring after being separated for years. We have both moved on with our lives since the split and came to a place where we could still be happy for one another. We are both engaged to someone else, and he has a year-old daughter.

I met my fiancé in drug court, and although I never pictured us together when we first met, he is the best thing to ever happen to me. We got together not long after I split from my ex-husband. My current fiancé was extremely patient with me during that difficult transition. We formed a friendship that grew with time. He helped me through my last year on Drug Court while I was on the verge of falling off the edge and giving up. To say I have put him through a lot is an understatement, but he never left when things got hard. We have been together for over three years now. I believe that being with someone who has been where I have been and has lived a life very similar to mine has been beneficial to me. I never feel misunderstood or looked down upon for my past, which I have time and time again in past relationships.

Professionals always told me that relapse is part of recovery, and in my case, they were right. After years of being sober and having other accomplishments during that time, I picked back up. I can't give you a reason as to why I decided to get high. There was no life-altering or depressing situation that pushed me, no loss or stress. I simply woke up one morning, and my brain wandered to a place it hadn't been in a long time. I’ve spent the last two years battling the same disease I thought I had conquered. I’ve woken up to EMTs reviving me twice, my fiancé a mess from keeping me alive until they arrived. I've taken away the relief and comfort my family had for years, thinking they'd never get a call that their daughter's life was on the line again. The trust between my fiancé and me was severely damaged and still has not fully repaired. However, I still have all of these critical people in my corner. As long as I don't give up, neither do they, and I feel like that is the purest kind of love there is.

I had to realize there is no beating this; there is no finish line. Addiction will forever be a part of me, tucked away in the back of my mind waiting until I am content and unarmed to reemerge and cause chaos. When I become complacent, I forget exactly what I have to lose and what I was fighting for to begin with. I have to share with others; I have to participate in therapy and voice the thoughts inside my head. When I think I can take care of everything myself is when I end up back at square one. I don't regret my relapses or my overdoses because each instance taught me something important, and every time I fall, I get back up faster and stronger than before. I have been doing well, and I feel hopeful, but I will never say I won't end up back where I started with one wrong move or bad decision. I have realized your strength is in your scars, and I wear mine proudly.