Jacque B-My Story

[JacqueB1997]

In 1975 my father gave up and committed suicide, I was 7 years old. I did not know at that time that he was an addict all I knew was that God had taken him from me. As I grew up I drank more and more. That was not enough for me, I needed more and wanted to be the life of the party. Thought that partying meant drinking and drugging. By the time I was 14, I was a full blown addict and did not even know it. The insanity of blacking out at that age blows me away still today. I woke in strange places with strange people all the time. At 16 I tried what brought me into the rooms of N.A. you guessed the infamous Crack-Cocaine. I used until about 18 years old when I first tried to stop, or should I say I had friends that warned me they would not hang out with me if I continued. To say the least, I did not stop, I tried every different to use, only on weekends, only at parties, only with this friend, only in this form, only this much at a time, needless to say every day was a party, all week were my weekends, friends that did not use it I stayed away from, on and on I can go. My first introduction to N.A. was when I wound up in Georgia from New Jersey and my mom was already in Florida, she had taken my first child to go bury her dad and her mom, my grandma, had a stroke so they all went to Florida and I stayed in N.J., I guess it goes without saying that this may have been one of the first real bottoms I hit. I got in enormous trouble in Atlanta and called my mom to let her know where I was and she sent that one way non refundable ticket to Florida. I came here and I still did not stop but after a few months I knew there was something wrong and I felt like I was going to die. I talked to my mom who already had an idea that I had been on cocaine. I went to detox for the first time of 14 times. In and out. In and out. for the next 7 years, in 1994 I really wanted to stop. I wanted to stop feeling like I was feeling and I went to my mom for the "oh I don't know umteenth time" and I wanted to go to detox and she said get there on your own. I did. I started going to meetings right after detox but I was going with a man I met in detox he was the speaker for an H&I meeting and I fell in love. He became what I thought was my man and I had his child. Let me back up. He left me after I got pregnant. He was HIV+. My son and I, 12 years later are still negative:praying Thank God. I wound up using again for another year I cam back and my clean date is 9/2/1997 and after celebrating 1 year that was the last time I saw him. He died March 30, 1999. I have been clean ever since. I attend meetings in my area, I am the Chair for my homegroup as well as ending my term for Chair for the Area Convention that just passed I have been very involved ever since. I am grateful for the life that Narcotics Anonymous has given me. Thank God for NA:ghug