“I don’t remember much of my childhood because there was a lot of trauma. We spent time at the Penelope House in Mobile, a safe place for abused mothers and their children. I was also molested.

I was a good kid until I turned12; that’s when I became rebellious and bad. That was the first time I smoked maijuana. My mom did the best she could. I shut out everybody who didn’t understand me. When I got a taste for a different life, I went for it. I started doing drugs and lost my virginity before I turned 13. I would do anything for people to like me.

I realize now I was just a sad girl trying to find love and acceptance.

I hid it well in the beginning, but started cutting my hands and acting out. Nobody asked what was wrong or why I turned to drugs. My way of thinking was so perverted at a young age that I didn’t even see anything wrong with being molested. I thought it meant he liked me, and I liked the attention. I didn’t tell my mother about it until high school.

In the eleventh grade, I lost my cousins in a car accident. We were close, and losing them shut me down. That was the first time I took Xanax, then I went to Ecstacy, cocaine and whatever pills I could get my hands on. I got on the needle when I was 23. Meth, ice, and Adderall became my thing, and using felt good every time.

I got to the point where I didn’t care about anything. It was nothing to share one needle between five people. You do your shot, pull up some bleach and then pass it to the next person. The spread of hepatitis by needle is real. I got hepatitis C, but God healed me from that.

I got my first felony when I was 19. It was for burglary third, but I didn’t steal. A girlfriend drove my car and wrecked it. She didn’t tell me, so I went out to fight her. While I was looking for her, the people with me broke into the house next door and put the stolen stuff in my rental car. I didn’t know about it. That was just 30 minutes of chaotic life in the fast lane, but I was addicted to that life. You never knew what would happen each day

I went to jail several times and bonded out every time. The last time I was in for two-and-a-half months. Metro is gross, but all of my friends were there, so it was a reunion. Our motto was, ‘What are they going to do, lock us up?’

During all of this, I also had kids. The guy I was staying with was abusive to my son, but if I left him, I would leave my drug supply. There were also times I would be too gone to take care of them. My boyfriend’s sister called DHR on me. I am thankful for her because my children went to live with my mom.

I was saved when I went to the Home of Grace in 2013, but as soon as I got out, I relapsed. Addiction and that life had its claws so deep in me that it just snatched me back.

My turnaround was a vision during an overdose on heroin: I saw angels and demons warring for my soul. I woke up, and I was tired of fighting. I didn’t want to do this anymore. The last time I used was in 2015. Thankfully I quit before fentanyl got here. I have friends who overdosed and didn’t make it out.

I can’t tell you how many times I heard, ‘Why aren’t your kids enough for you to quit?’’I wanted to, but I couldn’t. Walking away from drugs was mental torment. It was like the person I am now was locked in a basement, hands tied and mouth tape shut. The addicted me was the one answering the door saying, ‘No, she’s not here.’ I wanted so badly to break free and be a mom and myself, but I couldn’t. I knew people looked at me as an awful, gross person.

Women are held to a different standard in addiction and recovery. We are supposed to be the nurturers. I loved my kids, but I loved drugs first. I couldn’t unlove drugs enough to love my kids fully. My babies shouldn’t see me shoot up and argue and fight with men. I couldn’t stop, so I loved them enough to let them go.

Once you go to rehab and get off of the drugs, there’s so much trauma and pain to work through. I tried to get it together, but I burned so many bridges and there’s the stereotype of ‘once an addict, always an addict.’ I was even told, ‘You’re not getting better. You’re just getting better at hiding everything.’

I couldn’t imagine a day that I wouldn’t be looking for pills or that I would get my kids ready for school. But I learned no one is ever too far gone. My mom never lost hope in me and prayed for me through.”

Angel, Part one

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September is National Recovery Month. We have so much to learn from people in recovery or family or friends who lost a loved one to a drug overdose, so I am going to share some of these stories over the next four weeks. If you have a story of recovery, substance use disorder, or losing someone you care about to an overdose, message me because I would like to hear it.