Surrender1

I believe it’s true what they say. That we are emotionally stunted at the age when we first picked up a drink or drug. To this day I can behave with the emotional maturity of a 5 year old.

I didn’t stand a chance! At the age of 2 my mother left my father, without telling him, and took off with me to Colorado with a group of people. Had she the smallest bit of reason, she would have given me to my father to raise, before going absolutely insane.

My first memory of using was around the age of 5. My mother was a drug dealer, alcoholic and drug addict. She and her friends thought that it was entertaining to see a stoned or intoxicated child. There were many nights that my mom would wake me up, get me high, give me a shot, and then have me dance around for her friends. I was also my mother’s carrier. I would deliver her drug packages for her, because who would suspect a child. She was also violent and enjoyed watching me pick out the belt she would beat me with. By the time I reached the age of 8, I could roll my own joints.

Even at a young age I had faith, or maybe as a result of my surroundings it was all I had to hold on to. Every weekend I would beg the parents of friends to go to church with them. Each week I was exposed to different denominations. I loved it and it got me out of the mad house for a little bit. I remember praying often as a child and even though I would endure many hardships, I never lost that faith.

Living in this environment with a woman who prided herself on getting me high and at the same time was not paying attention had some serious repercussions. I was often left in the care of morally bankrupt individuals. I will not get into the details of my sexual abuse or those who violated me. I will say, there were many times, by different individuals and each were equally devastating.

For a short period of time I did have protection in the form of a dog. His name was Tobie and he was a Great Dane. He was stuck to me like glue and he would keep watch over me when I was asleep in my room, letting no one pass through my door. One day I came home from school and took a nap. While asleep I had a dream that Tobie was killed by a car. I woke up and went down stairs. No one was home and I figured my mom was out walking Tobie. 15 minutes had passed when a neighbor knocked on the door and told me that Tobie had just been hit by a car. I ran to the seen and the cops had to pry me from his body. I would spend the next 6 months in psychiatric therapy with Dr. J. I was 7 years old and I thought I had killed my dog because I dreamt it that same night.

Between the ages 7 and 8, my mother transitioned to a lesbian and embraced the gay community. There’s a man or two here and there, but there is always a woman in the bed. My mom’s friend, I call him Uncle Bobby is gay and he lived across the street. He would provide me some sanctuary, until his death from Aids, as I would enter the worst years of my life.

Soon everyday was a nightmare. My mother became a heroine addict. I watched her shoot up and I watched her O.D. She becomes increasingly violent towards me. The manner in which I am beaten can no longer be hidden and I am taken to the school nurse and photographed naked. Each blackened bruise cataloged. Needless to say, child services was called and they sent a social worker to the house. They didn’t do ****. My mom beats the crap out of me on a regular basis and I live in a state of utter fear. Soon any real friends she has abandons her and she is left with her even more insane girlfriend who gets a kick out of watching my mother beat the crap out of me. One night as I am sleeping in my bed I awake to being pulled down the steps by my hair and drug out the front door. My mother beats me senseless on the front lawn with the lights from the car shining on us. My screams of terror must have woken the neighborhood because I caught glimpses of house lights coming on as I was tossed around the front yard. As my mother tires of beating me she hoped in the car and in the passenger seat was her girlfriend smiling. They drove off as I lay in the grass crying. Ironically I had just got into a fight that day at school because someone called my mom a dyke. I was either being harassed at school or terrorized at home. It was during this time that I began to use drugs truly on my own.

Salvation was soon to come my way, but not the way I had expected. My mom was going to go into rehab and I was to live with my Grandmom. I was so excited! Finally, I was going to be free of the insanity. The day was drawing near and I was already packed. My mom came to me when I was leaving for school and said that I was NOT going to live with my Grandmom. My world had officially ended. I went to school crushed. I stood in the girls’ bathroom and took out my can of Aqua Net hair spray and threw it at the mirror, shattering it. I picked up a piece of glass and cut my wrist. At the age of 11, this was my first suicide attempt and a desperate cry for help.

I did later move in with Grandmom, but all was not well. I wasn’t a good little girl. I was a hard, ignorant 12 year old drug addict. I was running around crazy and I didn’t care. Was anyone really surprised? Growing up in those conditions created a little monster and the monster was me. After being involved in a gang fight which took place in my grandmother’s home, I ran away. My mother found me a week later. She was about to make the only good decision she has ever made, where I was concerned. The day after she found me, I was on a plane to Washington State. I was going to live with my father, a man I had only met once.

Needless to say, I did not want to go. I reached Spokane, WA and said hello to my dad and his wife. They packed me into the car and it was another hour before we reached the town of Newport. 15 seconds later we were through Newport and headed up the mountain. I was petrified as the paved road turned to a gravel road and as the gravel road turned to a barely drivable dirt path. I was thinking, “Holy ****, what have I gotten myself into.” We reached the house, which was tucked deep within forest around 2am. I followed close behind my father as he led me to the front door, I remember that night and there wasn’t a flake of snow to be found. I was shown to my loft and I believe I even fell asleep with my coat on. The next morning I woke up and in the short time that had past, 5 feet of snow had fallen. I asked my father where the bathroom was and he replied, “I hope you brought your snow boats.” That’s right, for the next 2 years I would live on the side of a mountain, completely cut off from the world, without any running water or electricity, telephone or toilette.

It was complete culture shock! In the beginning I tried to keep up the same old ********, but my father saw right through me and put a stop to it quickly. In 6 months I made a miraculous transformation. I went from straight F’s in school to straight A’s. I had pride in myself. I joined in school activities and found that I was good at a lot of different things. I was safe. I was able to release the demons of my childhood which allowed me to find myself. It was the most beautiful time of my life. Thank God for that time.

My dad though wasn’t harsh and I smoked pot with him and my friends often. While in Washington I picked up my demon, as I refer to it, because it haunts me to this day. I was using acid and almost immediately fell in love with it.

In the summer I went to New Jersey to visit my mom, who was doing well. After being there with all the amenities of modern society, such as indoor plumbing and light switches, I asked to stay and she said yes. To this day I regret that decision.

I began school in the fall and as I walked to the cafeteria and saw a thousand students, I felt like my heart was going to explode. In Washington there were 400 students from kindergarten to senior all in one school. It was overwhelming, so I took my Rodger Rabbit lunch box and my book and I would eat in the janitor’s closet. I dealt with my feelings of being uncomfortable by doing acid and smoking pot. That is until I was busted in school with a large amount of acid. I had a choice jail or rehab.

My first rehab was a joke. I was at Bowling Green for 2 weeks and the counselors there were more messed up then the patients. There was more sex and drugs in there than on the streets. I actually sprained my ankle attempting to climb back into the facility after escaping earlier that evening. I don’t remember the twelve steps being mentioned at all.

Once released I had to find another school because I had been expelled. This school was even bigger. On my second day the janitor found me eating my lunch in his closet. He was nice guy and saw that I was just eating and I told him that the cafeteria scared me. Still, I couldn’t use his closet. At this time I was using acid, pot, and cocaine. My grades had fallen, I was so uncomfortable at school and I just couldn’t deal. I attempted suicide by taking my moms pills. At the hospital I was told either to go in voluntarily or I would be committed. Soon I was on my way to Hampton hospital.

At Hampton I was introduced to recovery and the 12 step program. I received my first view of therapeutic rehabilitation. I enjoyed being there. I think more because I enjoyed helping others more than myself. In a family session my mother agreed to allow me to drop out of school as long as I got my GED. I played the part and the therapists were calling me doctor Heather. I believed that I was going to stay sober when I got out. I was released from Hampton and quickly dropped out of school. A week later I was tripping on acid. As I promised I took the test for my GED, high on cocaine I almost got a perfect score, I was 17.

The next few years are blurred together. I partied and did drugs and had sex with everybody, male and female. I was in my glory and I didn’t give a ****! I was having a blast. Where ever I was the party followed. I went out to Washington and came back tattooed and pierced. I moved to Myrtle beach and partied there. Taking my drug addiction to new heights. While at the beach I was tripping almost daily. I moved to Philadelphia and partied some more.

While in Philly I got together with my x-boyfriends best friend Ron. This get together turned into a serious relationship. It did slow me down but at the same time, he was a drug addict too. He introduced me to heroine. Every time I tried heroine, I would flashback to my childhood. It would make the experience disgustingly awful. I only used heroine 3 times. Ron noticed how upset I would get around heroine and wouldn’t do it or let our friends have it around me. That didn’t stop us from doing every other drug.

Our relationship survived some ups and downs and we were married in a Buddhist monastery on September 21, 1996. Foolishly I think we believed that everything was as it should be, but we were both using drugs and isolating ourselves from everyone. Ron was really possessive and didn’t want to share me with anyone not even family. When cocaine became a part of our relationship there was nowhere to go but down, down, down. Things between us got really bad and I decided that we needed to grow up. I left.

One thing that I have failed to mention as I have been writing is the cocaine my husband and I are using and the pot and all the drugs. I am buying them from my mom and her friends.

I moved to Myrtle Beach, SC. The day after I arrive in Myrtle Beach I am working in my Aunts night club called the Freaky Teaky. I resolve to forget everything of my past and reign over my new kingdom like the party queen that only I can be. I didn’t eat anything but fries. For the first time I was becoming an alcoholic, drinking every night. Then came the X. Ecstasy, I took it for the first time and in the middle of the roll I said to my friend, “I want to feel like this forever.” So that is what I tried to do. For eight days following that I took 38 pills. I was determined to feel like that forever. It didn’t last. What did last were the effects of taking that much ecstasy. 2 months after I was still having waves of heat that would circulate my body and end up in my head. In the beginning they were so strong I would lose my balance and fall down. I thought I was going to die. It didn’t stop me from using. While living at the beach I partied even harder mixing ecstasy with GHB and special K and acid and anything else I could get my hands on. Always drinking, never eating. I was about 98 lbs.

I was going completely crazy, but at times there seemed to be something watching over me. One night as I got off of work around 2am, I got into my 94 convertible mustang and headed to a guys house. I was very intoxicated and didn’t stay on the road long before spinning off into a ditch. I got out of the car swallowed a cap of G and then tried to push the car out of the ditch in my platform stiletto heels. That is the last thing I remember. I woke up at my aunt’s house the next morning having no clue how I got from the ditch to her house, she was very solemn as she recounted the story. Apparently two fisherman returning home spotted me in my hootchy momma outfit attempting to push my car out of the ditch. They asked if I needed a ride and I jumped in the car. I told them to make a left at the next light and then passed out in their truck. My aunt paused and I gasped, thinking of what atrocities could have befallen me. The two men drove around with me passed out for an hour, desperately thinking of what to do with me and how their wives were going to kill them, when my cell phone began to ring. It was my aunt, who kindly gave them directions. I was so thankful that they happened to be there at that particular time and place because I do not know what could have happened to me if they weren’t.

My lifestyle was reckless, but I was having a great time. I was traveling everywhere. I was up and down Florida, staying in the finest spots in Miami. In 2000 I was in Cancun and partied with MTV, I’ve got some great pics of me some of the most famous people on the planet. I had a job everywhere I went, so I could go anywhere. So, I was in Vegas or Georgia, Texas, Florida or South Carolina. I was drunk, drugged and ****** up.

It wasn’t all good. I was raped, stabbed, and robbed. I over dosed and was given bad drugs. I had my nose and cheek bone broken. My car was stolen. I made a fool out of myself on a regular basis. I was taken advantage of and I took advantage of others. It was a mean world.

Then “it” happened. My first, definitely not the last, acid flash back. I was working at a night club and I had not taken any drugs that evening. I had only one drink, it was early, the night had just begun. I was walking down the steps and when I reached the bottom it was like someone had flipped a switch, I was tripping. It was insane. I thought I was going to lose my mind. I was hallucinating and experiencing everything you experience when you take acid. My heart was racing so fast, I began to hyperventilate. I thought to myself, “You need to tell someone what is going on.” I went to my friend and told her what I was going through and that I thought I was having a flashback. Thank God I did that. She put a cold rag on my neck and talked me through it. To this day I have not picked up a drug since, but that has not stopped the flashbacks.

With drugs now completely out of the picture alcohol ruled my life and my life was going nowhere, fast. One night in July of 2000 I got into my car drunk and crashed. Thank God I only hurt myself. I shattered my ankle and after the surgery wondered how I had such a huge balled spot on my head. When I went to see my utterly totaled car, I saw a clump of blonde hair hanging from the windshield and realized how close I had come to going through the windshield. I decided to return to New Jersey and moved back with my mother. I would spend the next 8 months in a cast recovering.

So, I am back in New Jersey, staying with my mother. Ain’t this a bitch! I was thankful at the time for alcohol, I thought, “at least this can pull me through it.” My mother and I did not get along and with me on crutches I wasn’t able to make a quick get –a- away. I had 2 surgeries and was in a lot of pain. The pain medication mixed with alcohol didn’t make things any better. After another suicide attempt I decided to get help. I attended an out patient counseling program. It went really well and I managed to stay clean for about a month. My biggest problem was my mother refused to not drink or do drugs around me. She said in a family session, “I shouldn’t have to compromise my life because she has problems.” So, things went back to normal.

Finally I was up and walking. I couldn’t wait to get back to work and I soon got a job at a local night club. It got me away from my mother and kept me doing what I do best, party. When I was home, it was a nightmare. My mother was a mess and the **** was about to hit the fan. One night I was asleep and my mom kicked in my door and started yelling at me. I got up and immediately she started to attack me. She made a huge mistake. I was not a little girl anymore. I wanted to beat the **** out of her, but I refrained. She was obviously coked up and drunk. When she would attack me, I would nock her ass to the ground. I repeated this until she stopped. It hurt me so much to have to do this to my mother. The next night I went out with a friend of hers and explained what had happened and how upset I was. Don’t you know she went right out and told my mom what I had said. That same night my mother came home, with that friend, yelling and tried to fight again. I did the same as the night before and thank her friend as we were fighting. A week later I moved to Philadelphia with a friend.

Philadelphia was cool. I partied a bit but I just felt started to feel worn out. I felt like a cigarette butt, as if someone had smoked me and now all that was left of me was stinking up a dirty old ash tray.

Amazingly my husband had gone crazy too and his insanity landed him in jail. He got out of jail 3 months after I moved to Philadelphia. We saw each other the day he got out and we have been together since. It will soon be 5 years.

Seeing such a wonderful change in him prompted me to make some changes in myself, though they didn’t come easily. I suffer from acid flashbacks on a regular basis and I use alcohol to make them go away. I have huge panic attacks and I have been prescribed klonipin. My mood swings are nothing to laugh about either. Still, I got a job bartending at a restaurant and cut way back on my drinking. It wasn’t great but it was start.

My mother was even doing well. She had falling in love with a wonderful woman, who didn’t take any of her ********. She quit doing drugs and she was really getting herself together. For the first time in my life I was truly proud of my mom. So, we went to the Garden State Race Track to say farewell, they happen to be tarring in down, those bastards. I decided it was time to make amends. I told her that I forgive her. I forgive her for everything she had done up until I was 18 and that I accept responsibility for my actions after 18 because those were my decisions. Regardless of anything, we could squabble over details forever; if we have this simple understanding there could be a foundation for beautiful relationship. We agreed and hugged. That was the only day we ever talked. She actually opened up to me. She told me about her childhood, about being tossed out of the house at15 and about her stepfather. She didn’t give me details, but I knew. I never felt closer to my mother then on that day.

Late one night, as I am trying to fall asleep, the phone rings. It is my mom’s girlfriend. My mom has been taken to the hospital. I sprint from the bed like an Olympic athlete and head to the hospital. My mother has had a brain aneurism and is being air lifted to Jefferson hospital in Philadelphia. I thought I was going to die. My mother and I have a twisted relationship. Throughout my life she has been my mother, my daughter, my sister and friend. I was losing all of these people at one time. We get to Jeff hosp. and she is taken in for surgery. Two days later and without any sleep I finally get to see her. I don’t think I can even explain how I felt or what happened to me when I saw her with all the machines and tubes, I didn’t recognize her. I lost my grip. My mother laid comatose in that hospital for 2 months in the Nuero Intensive Care Unit. I was able to see her for a half an hour, every 2 hours from 12 to 8. There was a bar right next to the hospital and that is where I sat, waiting. I couldn’t deal. My mom was the only family I had and the thought of losing her killed me. There were times when I was in the ER of Jeff Hosp., while my mom was upstairs, because I had passed out on the streets of Philly. I was a mess. Eventually, my mother did wake up after 8 surgeries; they put a permanent tube in her brain to drain fluid. She recovered after a lot of physical therapy.

She was alive and well and I vowed to do something about my huge problem. Out of sheer will I put down alcohol. I was determined and I didn’t need any help from anyone. It was a year of hell for anyone around me. I was mean, pushy, bitchy, and irritated. You couldn’t say anything to me without me taking it the wrong way. Of course I thought I was the greatest. I thought because I stopped drinking everybody should be singing me praises. I would find out later that I was a dry drunk.

During this period of sobriety I did manage to pull one really good thing out of it, I reconnected with my faith. I became very active in my church taking on numerous responsibilities. It was a beginning for me. I thought that if I involved myself the rest would come naturally. I was right, but it wouldn’t happen the way in which I was expecting it to.

The ankle I had smashed started to give me more trouble so I went back to an orthopedic doctor. Apparently the screws they said would stay in forever, have been working their way out of my bones. I needed to have yet another surgery. The surgery went well and I was back on pain killers. This was not going to turn out well. Once firmly hooked on the pain meds I soon forgot my long history with alcohol. It wasn’t long before I was out of control and over dosed with a mix of alcohol and pain medication. I managed to escape from the hospital and run home with a cast on my leg in my pajamas.

My step son and I went to North Carolina for Thanksgiving to visit my in-laws. I have been coping with flashbacks for some time, but everything was about to change. While in N.C. I started to have a flashback and it never stopped. TO THIS DAY!!!!! After the first hour I seriously thought I was going to lose my mind. I was shaking. My step mother- in –law gave me xanex and it put me out. The next day as I began to wake up, I was afraid to open my eyes. I took a breath and felt the shake. I knew. I opened my eyes and saw the hallucinations and quick closed my eyes again. This was it, I was going insane, I was losing my mind, and it wasn’t going to stop. My father-in-law got us home to New Jersey and I was immediately admitted to Hampton Hospital. They put me on medication and continued to increase the medication until the flashback stopped. If I miss a pill or forget to take my medication the flashback starts again. It never goes away. The things I see and what I experience in my flashbacks are the same things I experienced the first time I took LSD. Now I will live with this for the rest of my life.

My experience in Hampton was a bit hectic and crazy. I attended the AA meetings, but the hallucinations and my physical condition made it hard to concentrate. The doctors there were manly concerned with my mental state. They gave me so many diagnoses: Bi Polar, Panic Anxiety Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Drug Induced Schizophrenia. The focus revolved around my medication and my disorders. The medication was working and I continued treatment in Hampton outpatient. Unfortunately their outpatient was a joke. It was less like therapy and more like a social gathering. I figured that my medication was working and all I needed to do was not drink alcohol. I was sure that I didn’t need to go to meetings like the rest of those fools. I could do this on my own.

My husband and I moved into our first house. I was doing well at my job as the Activity and Volunteer Coordinator in an Assisted Living Community. It had been 7 months since I left the outpatient program at Hampton when I relapsed. Two weeks later I was admitted back into Hampton Hospital.

As a patient at Hampton part of the therapy was to attend meetings provided by the Hampton Group. As I walked into the meeting dressed in my pajamas, I couldn’t help but feel utterly defeated. This disease has my mind crippled, my body is exhausted and my soul aching for release. They opened the meeting for sharing and my hand flew up as if I had no control over it. When the gentlemen called on me the emotional dam that had been holding all my fears and insecurities gave way. With tears running down my face, I shared of how lost I was and how I didn’t know how to start working the steps, but that finally I wanted too. I was utterly tired of this and I knew that if I continued I would end up in a state run mental institution for life or I would be dead. When I finished sharing a woman had brought me some reading material. I had been crying and I can’t remember who she was. I was in Hampton for a week and read everything she gave me and the Living Sober book I have read a few times since. I would really like to thank her, not only for the literature but for her kind act. I learned two valuable lessons that evening. The people of AA are some the most kind and generous people I have ever met and if I truly want to stay sober, I need to go to meetings.



I decided to continue treatment with Princeton outpatient. Wow! I got more out of one day in their outpatient then in all my other programs combined. I got a sponsor right away but it didn’t really work out. That’s ok; I’m not going to get all worked up about it. Maybe she has problems of her own to work on. To say that I have never felt better would be an exaggeration. My life is finally headed in the right direction and I can feel it. Princeton really helped me to find what was behind the need, behind the disease. It was intense therapy. It also provided me with tools and coping skills and for that I am very thankful.

Then tragedy strikes. My 18 year old friend dies of a heroine overdose. It hits me really hard because I had just seen her 3 days before she died and she had 2 months clean. I was devastated. For the first time in my life I was thankful for my mother’s heroine addiction. Her addiction probably saved my life. I tried heroine but when I did it I would be thinking of my childhood and it would make the experience excruciatingly awful. But for my friend and so many like her heroine is vastly becoming a leading cause of death. In the past I would have used this as an excuse to get loaded. Instead I went to a meeting and shared exactly what I was feeling. There I was able to release my feelings as opposed to repressing them into a liquor bottle.

It’s been during this period of time that my faith has really blossomed. I have remained active in my church for the past 2 years, but now a whole new light is shinning on me and within me. It is hard to explain. I have always had God in my life, but I think that when I am working the 12 steps I am also working on improving my relationship with God and that has brought me closer to him. I need to be as close to him as possible. Recovery is not easy and I need as much help as I can get.

I finally found a home in AA. It didn’t happen overnight and at first I was really uncomfortable at meetings, but I kept coming back. I knew that I couldn’t do it on my own and the only way for me to stay sober was to go to meetings. So, I told myself to keep going and to share. It wasn’t easy and even still I have to pull at myself because I know the key to sobriety is in AA. Eventually, little by little, I started to make friends. I’d say “Hi”, I’d sit at different tables, I’d offer to read, and I finally started dialing those phone numbers. I keep coming back! I have a sponsor and I’m calling her. I don’t have to do this alone. Someone had asked me, “How can you stand to be around all those alcoholics?” My reply was simple. I said, “The people in AA are the only group of people who, on everyday of their lives, take steps to make themselves better people and those are the kind of people I want to be around.” This is not easy. I have good days and I have bad days. I don’t drink, I go to meetings and I stay sober another day.