Climbing the Ladder of Addiction

My addiction habits started taking notice at age two when mom caught me trying to snort the creamy white filling out of a twinkie. That is when she said she stopped doing cocaine in front of me. I always remembered the smell of marijuana in our house.

I swore I'd never do drugs because of all the drug use I witnessed by my parents. My mom started sharing pills with me by 7th grade: valium, xanax, vicodine, etc. She would take me to bars by the age of 15. I swore I'd never drink because my dad was such an alcoholic, but by 9th grade I was drinking vodka like a fish.

I didn't smoke my first joint until age 17, and I really didn't like it. At 18, I took my first hit of acid and fell in love with the drug. I felt happiness for the first time. I went back to the dealer the next day and bought 3 more hits. My mother, her best friend, and I shared the hits and went back for half a sheet a few days later. I tripped heavily on acid for about a year.

Before my acid days were over I watched my mom's drug habit become out of control. I was tripping on LSD a few times a week and taking the pills she gave me, but I was not losing control like she quickly did.

This is when I decided to move to my dads while he was living in Mississippi. "A fresh start. No drugs", I told myself. I was so wrong. I fell right into the hands of drug abuse. I started using more acid, snorting meth and cocaine. I moved out of my dad's house because his drinking became unbearable, but little did I know I was moving in with drug dealers. Every drug was offered to me at all times of the day and night... little did I sleep. I just thought I was experimenting.  That's what it is when it's all free. Right? When my roommates started shooting up and carrying guns, I moved back in with my dad.

I soon fell in love with a man, got pregnant, and got married. This ending my drug abuse... for a few years.

After my pregnancy and birth of my daughter it was easy to not use drugs. I had no interest. My only interest was my family... until my marriage started falling apart. My husband's drinking starting becoming a huge problem. We even tried marriage counseling, but his drinking only became worse. When my mother died and he lacked the sympathy to care, my depression started to swallow my soul. I started smoking a lot more pot.

One day the chef at the catering company I worked at walked by me and made the comment "Damn, my teeth are numb, like dentist numb." I replied by saying "Whatever has your teeth numb needs to numb my brain." Little did I know that a few minutes later he would be laying out two lines of cocaine waiting for me in the office. I was back the next day with money for a gram, but unfortunately all he could get was a 8 ball, so off to the ATM I went.

I started snorting cocaine alone in the bathroom at my house and with the chef for a few weeks. I guess It was my passive aggressive way to get back at my husband. By this time, I started going to New Orleans with gay friends my husband worked with, taking ecstasy, drinking, leaving my husband behind to drink and come home alone, instead of me waiting home alone for him. Then at the same catering company I had a boss that was a huge coke addict and would pull me off the floor just to share lines with me.

Soon I realized my husband's drinking wasn't going to change. He would always say "I don't have a problem with drinking, you have a problem with my drinking." On April 7, 2001, on my husband's birthday, we both took some ecstasy, and I told him I was leaving him unless he could stop drinking before June 1st. Well, he didn't stop drinking, and I moved out of our house with our little girl. I was hoping this would just wake him up and make him try harder to to stop drinking, but unfortunately it didn't. We split time between our little girl so she would not have such a hard time with the separation. I never was the type of mother to keep our child away from her father. He was a good father, just a bad drunk.

After I filed for divorced, I was introduced to a meth cook, then dated a meth head, so to say the least, I smoke a lot of meth when my daughter was away. I never did any drugs in front of my daughter or while she was with me. I always felt empty without her. I started smoking a lot more pot and taking a lot more pills. My addiction was growing as my soul was withering. After I realized the meth cook and meth head were shooting up, I got rid of those connections.

My husband abandoned our house so I moved back in, and met someone I fell in love with for several years. He was supposedly an ex-junkie, ex-crackhead, but we still smoked meth and snorted coke together. At age 26, I left to go get some meth with one of his friends, but we were unsuccessful. We ended up buying crack, something I was totally against, but smoked anyway. This was just the beginning of my crack addiction. I started smoking crack on occasions with my boyfriend, then learned he had been shooting up the whole 5 years we were together. I was always against needles because of the memories I had with my parents and their junkie habits. It is also how my mom died. I said I'd never shoot up. NEVER SAY NEVER!!

Between the ages of 26 and 30, I had one house burn down, another house foreclose, and I started smoking cigarettes. My boyfriend and I of 5 years had broke up which was devastating.

When I was 30 I went through a severe depression. Depression is something I've battled all my life. My ex-husband decided in a drunken rage to kidnap my daughter from me. I went insane. I took him to court, but the judge ordered him temporary custody because I had recently been to a inpatient psychiatric hospital for my depression. This destroyed me. I went from having joint custody of my daughter, although she lived with me all the time, to only being able to see her every other weekend. I was dead without my daughter. She gave me strength. The only part of my day that I wasn't depressed was when I was taking care of her.

I moved to a new apartment during the court process, but I had already lost my soul. I started smoking crack on a regular basis, then at age 31 while in a crack house someone came to shoot up crack and a tried it, and I didn't stop trying it. It became a problem. Then I started dating a heroin addict and started shooting heroin. I overdosed and almost died and still didn't quit. The one thing I knew I'd never do, I did. I stuck a needle in my arm and "proudly" learned how to do it myself. Someone once asked me "What is your favorite part about shooting up?" You would think the answer would be the buzz or rush, but for me it was the registering (the blood going into the needle). Kind of like self-mutilation. I was a self-mutilator as a teenager so I guess it would only make sense. It's a sickness. This entire story is about a sickness inside me, and the demons that never stop screaming.

I was always a poly-substance user. I would try anything you had. No drug of choice, any drug would do. As the years continued, as you see, so did my drug use, but it is still difficult for me to call myself a drug addict. I finally left Mississippi and moved to my dad's in Texas, where I have been clean since December. I'm not in recovery, but I have no desire to use. The lessons I hope you learn reading my story is that you are never to old to become an addict, the addiction ladder you climb can be a long one, and NEVER SAY NEVER!

I have decided to become a marijuana activist. I helped form and I am the Executive Director the San Antonio NORML chapter. I am proud to have this position and feel inspired to be a part of such a wonderful organization. I do not believe marijuana is harmful. It has been used for thousands of years for hundreds of reasons. It is time the public become more educated about this God given plant, and marijuana should be set free in not only our country but around the world. I have spoken to my doctor about my marijuana use, and he has approved of me using marijuana because it helps reduce the amount of medications I have to take. I am not advocating illegal drug use or marijuana use among children, but I am wanting to educate, advocate, and fight to legalize marijuana. I am through with all other drugs. I have found what I was looking for :)