SoberRecovery : Alcoholism Drug Addiction Help and Information - 7 Months and Going Strong

Hi there! I wanted to join an online form for addicts/alcoholics and share my story, as well as read other's stories. I want to just get right to it - so here we go.

Growing up my Father was an alcoholic and my mother was addicted to the computer. Strange, right? Before I was born she was a really bad alcoholic and coke addict - but this was when my brother and sister where children (15 years apart from me). So, when I was born - the only form of addiction I knew of was my fathers alcoholism. I didn't start realizing it was a problem until my mother started trying to pull me away from him, using that as the excuse. Although he was drinking and driving with me at times - so it wasn't fully an excuse, some of it was necessary.
They were separated since I was 4, so I never knew what it was like to have a family that was together... my entire childhood was a game of push and pull, tug of rope. I know that took a very large toll on me as a child. When I was very young I was the happiest child of all time - but by the time I hit the age of 10, I had a strong wrath inside of me and it all came out on my mother.

She was going through menopause at the time, as well as like I said above - she was addicted to the computer. She would go into online chatrooms and speak with men from foreign countries all morning, then go to work, then come home and make supper while on the computer, then stay on the computer all night until I'd fall asleep - then who knows what she did after that. One time, something pretty disturbing happened that I know scarred me for a long time. We had just gotten a webcam and I was so excited as this was at the time when they had first been invented, basically. I ran into my mothers room the day after she got it and pulled it up to take a picture of myself... and when I pulled it up I see naked pictures of my mother on her bed. She quickly ran over and deleted them. I will never forget that moment and I know that turned me into a very, very sad and tortured child who would be in pain for many years to come. Moving forward - My mother actually worked at a job where they'd give clean needles, provide methadone, condoms and food/coffee to addicts - so she was always going to other places in OUR country for conferences. That was normal, and still to this day in my mind - ok. But it when she started going to far out foreign countries "for conferences" is when it started to become a huge problem. I actually didn't find out that she was going to these countries to see these sick men until I was almost 19. Totally gross. Anyways - long story short - I ended up separating myself from my father as his alcoholism became too intense (though he was always an AMAZING father. Never once was he abusive, mean... I always had everything I needed. He was just sick) and I separated from him for about 6 years of my life. I regret this now, but at the time I didn't know what else to do other than block him out. The bad problems with my mother came soon after. She started to become violent with me and would actually threaten to kill me. I firstly moved to my sisters home for a year - then moved back in with my mother for 3 years - then it got bad again so my aunt took me in.

My aunt was a sober Alcoholic for 10 years when I moved into her home. She lived by the Big Book and she preached the words of the rooms to me. So from the time I was 14 on, I grew up on AA terminology and concepts. I am so grateful for this looking back, wow. I ended up living with her for the rest of my teenage years.

I went to a Buddhist high school (I know... not common) in a small city in Canada. I had 8 people in my class almost my entire high school life. We were all very close and very sheltered. We didn't party, we barely hung out outside of school - so my entire life from Grace 8 - Grade 12 was decently lonely. I just hung out by myself in my room with my dog most of the time. I was a simple kid who loved to play music. And I was good at music too (still am and now it is my career... just don't want to give away my identity). It all started at the end of Grade 9 when the cool kid Morgan in grade 11 who I was absoloutely in love with (because he played guitar like Jimi Hendrix and had long hair) was constantly smoking weed at school. We were about the only two in school who were serious about music at that time, so we took a common interest but never hung out. We would chat on facebook in the nights about music. He actually introduced me to Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, all the greats. I was so desperately in love with him (mind you... never having this experience before... being interested in anyone) that I thought I should try smoking weed because he would see me do it and then he'd realize his love for me.

It didn't work that way guys... lol. I tried it a few times with my best friend and got so high - it was the best thing I had ever experienced in my life. After about 2 months of trial and error - I was hooked. I fell into this whole "stoner chick" thing and off I was. The next 3 years of High school was ALLLLLLLLL about weed. As well as I hadn't even touched a drink at this point of my life. Hadn't even thought about it. Drinking wasn't a part of my life at home, so it never really came up til a few years down the road. I did get super drunk for the first time at my sisters cottage and puked the entire next day so vowed to never drink again (and I didn't for the next 2 years of my life lol).

Either way - Once I became somewhat dependant upon weed and felt the need to smoke it by myself, I started smoking it at home on Tuesdays and Fridays when my aunt would go to her AA meetings. At this time, It really wasn't a big deal. Honestly. I was 15... smoking not even a full joint on Tuesdays and Friday nights.. getting SUPER high and making food for 4 hours and shoving it down my throat. Whatever. I wish it would have just stayed that way lol.. but nooooo! I'm an addict yall.. more was to come.

I started smoking weed at lunch time, then came skipping the class after lunch because I was so high that I just stayed in the park that was up the street from my school and ****** around for an hour. Then it became after school as well before taking the bus home... then it turned into mornings before school and just blazing all damn day. It quickly escalated. It escalated to a point where all the teachers knew exactly what I was doing, every single student in that small school knew "who I was".... and I loved it. The attention was something I've been dying for from my parents for years. It almost seemed poetic or attractive to me to be "the one with the problem". Oh... if I only knew how those problems would become REAL problems.

3 years later - I end up in college for music. I am so excited to finally be at a place where I'll have more than 2 friends. And oh boy... did I ever have more than 2 friends. I ended up befriending an entire class of musicians of whom where all at least 1-3 years older than me. I was 18, not even legal to drink in Canada yet and frankly... not too many intentions on doing it... befriending people who were already legal. Another situation that quickly escalated. I went to my first college party and asked my friend to get me alcohol. They got me a pint of Captain Morgans spiced rum. I found my drink. From then on, for the next 5-7 months... I would buy either a pint or a quart of Captain Morgan and just down it from the bottle every single party. Most likely not sharing with anyone.

My aunt starting noticing that I was partying. I had never done this before, nor had I ever had any interest in partying before. As well as I was playing a lot of gigs with college and to her - they weren't gigs... they were parties. We started to fight a lot... she actually found 2 empty bottles of rum in my bag and flipped out because the rule was.. no alcohol in the home. I ended up getting frustrated with her not allowing me to party so I took my student loan money and moved to a piece of **** rooming house closer to the downtown area of my small city. I had NO IDEA what I was getting myself into. It was a party house... at least.. I made it a party house. The first thing I said when I walked in "wow.. we can host some great live shows in this living room" I was the only one that hosted parties though. Out of 5 roommates - I was the only one that took advantage of the space.... and did I ever. Oh and don't forget people ... I'm still 18.

I had my first house party with my band, a few of my friends bands.... and mostly people I knew. It was great. We had so much fun, nothing bad happened - it was deemed "the best party house in college". It was central to downtown so the people who were of age could go and come from the bars to the party. It was perfect and it was a young local musicians haven. I then had a second party and all went over well.

Then came my 19th birthday party. More and more people started finding out that I had the best parties EVERRRRRR (lol) so people started bringing friends of friends, I would get random messages on facebook asking if it was ok for them to come to my house..... weird ****. I had a friend who did coke. A lot. She actually went to high school with me but I never bothered with her because she came to our school because she was an addict and our school was trying to help her. Anyways - at this point I was willing to try it. I was offered it before and never accepted it - then finally.. this one fateful night.. I tried it. I didn't really feel anything. I was like oh thats nothing. And honestly.. didn't really think about it for a while.

Then... another party came and I tried MDMA. I ******* felt that let me tell you right now. As well as I did coke. Then, I started buying it off of my friend from college and doing it at bars on weekends.... weekends turned into karaoke on tuesday night and blow ritual with one of my friends who was new to blow as well. But still at that point - I wouldn't call myself addicted.

I then met the love of my life at a bar one night. (still with him today, clean and sober). I was still not addicted to blow at that point, it was just something I did when I partied .. which was at least 1-2 times a week - but it wasn't the main focus of my life and I didn't freak out if I couldn't get it.

When I met him.. I found out he did blow. Then I also found out that the dealer my friend got coke from that eventually came to me lived across the hall from this guy I was falling in love with. So... naturally - I asked to be introduced to this dealer and I started going to him ... once or twice a week... and then I started seeing the guy I liked there. So... I started going more. Me and the guy... lets call him Jake... started hanging out (only **** buddies...) and he made it clear to me that he didn't want a girlfriend. So... I figured that the best way to relate to him was to start doing blow with him. I had no idea, but he had been doing blow for 10 years. On and off again, but at that time... he was 100% addicted. It was a part of his every day life and I had no idea. Everytime we would hang out... he would have blow. This became almost a nightly thing. I started hanging with him at least 4-5 times a week... and 9 out of 10 times... there was blow involved.

We then started to fall in love. I have no idea if we originally fell in love because we shared a common interest or what.. but now we are truly in love so at least we've got that lol.

I soon started realizing that a lot of people I knew did coke. I thought it was cool. I really REALLY... ACTUALLY guys... thought I was SOOOOOOO cool. I started selling small amounts of it to people I knew as well who weren't as deep as I was ... I just thought no one could touch me. I really thought I was a queen on top of the world.

I started coming to Jake's house every single night and staying, we started an actual relationship.. and blow was the biggest part of this relationship. I also had a really serious band at the time and they started noticing that this was becoming a problem for me.

I also started doing MDMA every once in a while... as well as I started going to festivals and raves where drugs were running rampant. Everyone in the drug community started to know who I was and I was invited to all of the parties. They all knew me as the musician as well... so I was immediately accepted within the community as I would play shows for them at festivals and such.

Then - it started hitting me. I couldn't hold a job... I was doing blow every night... I was fronting blow all the time... I started getting in trouble with dealers - people that were once my friends started distancing themselves from me as I would always be asking for money to buy drugs with... it wasn't a party anymore. I didn't want to feel a single ******* thing.

I then took MDMA on my boyfriends birthday and actually ended up overdosing. I lost all motor functions and basically just went to sleep.
For like.... 6 hours. I couldn't move, talk, nothing. I blacked out. That was the first scare. I didn't 100% overdose. I ended up needing no medical help and I woke up the next day from it.. I was lucky.

That still didn't stop me though. I continued to use blow every single night (not at parties... on my ******* living room table on a plate)... at least 1-7 grams a night depending on how much money I could scramble up along with Jake's money that he got from work.

It got really bad. Then again, New Years eve came and we couldn't afford blow... we actually couldn't even afford food. I had a gig that night and we invited a friend of Jake's who we knew always had some form of drug. There was a party at one of my band mates house... so we went to Jakes friends house first and took some MDMA... then went to the party. This was half a year after the overdose scare and I had done MDMA a few times in between that period... all was normal... and then all of the sudden.. something wasn't right. I ran up to someones bedroom (thought it was my bandmates... turns out it was another guy who lived there who I wasn't too close with...) I just fell on his bed with legs on the bed and head on the floor and started puking. My vision started to blur and eventually went almost black and I couldn't cry for help. I knew this was going to be bad but my voice was gone... I couldn't speak. Jake eventually found me in this state and called my friends up to the room and all I could do was mumble. I couldn't move, couldn't do anything. I remember this time vividly. I was still there but going in and out of consciousness. I just remember seeing the crack in the door with light coming into it from the hallway. I lay there for 2 hours, they put ice on my back and forced water down my throat. They were going to call an ambulance but everyone else was high on MDMA too so they didn't want to do that..... kind of sad. I ended up just sleeping this guys bed all night with Jake and we woke up and walked home the next morning. I was so embarrased.

After that, I realized I might die. That was the first time that I realized what I was actually doing. At that point I knew I was an addict. It had been one and a half years of me doing blow on my living room table every night. I knew **** was getting really, really bad.

I ended up calling my sister and going to a day program away from Jake. I stayed there for 2 weeks and sobered up - while still to this day I have no idea what he did. When I returned, I did blow a few times... but we officially knew at this point we had to stop.

Jake had lost his job... then soon after we got an eviction notice. This was our first eviction notice and Jake fixed it. We made a plan to pay the landlord over the course of the next 2 months... we didn't pay her in full but we paid some... during this time Jake finally got a really great job as a door to door salesman. We stopped doing blow all together and he started to excel, but still... we couldn't pay all that we owed to the rent.

Here and there we would break the cycle and do blow. We'd be sober for a few weeks and then slip... as people sometimes do...

We then got the most amazing opportunity of all time. His job offered us to move to Ontario to be a part of a business that someone in the current office was opening. I have wanted to move to Ontario for music since I was 10 years old - so we were ready. We moved all of our stuff out of the place we were getting evicted from and moved up here with nothing. Sober... that was all that mattered. We knew moving up here would save us. We'd no longer be living across the hall from our coke dealer - as well as we'd know NO ONE who did coke here. We knew we'd be safe.

That was 7 months ago. We haven't looked back since. I've actually been back to my hometown for a visit a few months back and it wasn't even a thought in my mind. Don't get me wrong... I've had a few times where I've really thought about it - but no. Now... I'm ******* terrified of cocaine. I think about it and it makes my bones shake. To think that I sat there for 2 years of my life and snorted gasoline into my brain. That is just scary.

Now living in Ontario I see more people who are suffering. Every day I see sick, sick people who just can't get that grip by themselves.

It reminds me of where I was and where I could have gone if I hadn't have stopped when I did. I am only 21 and I can say I went through all of this and every day work at never going back.

I am so grateful.

The goals are now - with being a great musician comes having a voice. Not just a singing voice, but a voice that can reach people all over the world and HELP people.

In the coming years I want to speak on this matter and if I EVER... EVER get rich... I will be opening up shelters and drug addiction centres that don't costs thousands to go to... but still have the exact same standards as places that are unattainable for an addict who obviously has no money for clear reasons.

There needs to be more help out there and with my grace from God of sobriety - I want to help others who need it.

Thank you so much for reading.
If you are still suffering with addiction - remember this - when I was in active addiction and knew that I was an addict and needed help... I would speak with counsellors and say "I want to stop but I just can't imagine my life without it..." I promise you... once it's gone - your life is a totally different life. You have real goals, ambitions, reasons to live other than to get high. There is so much more on this side.

I pray for all who still suffer.
Love always,
EMA