I am so excited to have this site; to have the opportunity to share with others and have them share with me. I am really grateful. Now I just need to get the word out! Those in active recovery or those even still struggling, talk to me! Tell your story here and share it with others if you feel you can. As I have shared in previous blogs (read them if you haven’t), my story is becoming so commonplace -addiction to prescription pills that turned into the worst nightmare imaginable. But the trauma that led to my disease of addiction, I am learning in the rooms that it is not an uncommon story either; every share I hear, I can relate to some part of. Lots of us have been abused, physically, emotionally, sexually…and we run from it our whole lives as hard and fast and long as we can…until we crash…and we find ourselves in the pit of despair -trapped in a life with no way out–or so we think.
Sick as your Secrets (my history)
My trauma started when I was very young. I had a half-brother who was using a lot of hardcore street drugs, and he had a violent temper, which I witnessed up close and personal from the time I was a toddler, until I was grown with children of my own (I finally cut him out of my life as an adult). Quaaludes made him crazy -so violent. My half-sister committed suicide and I didn’t understand what was happening, then he went to prison and when he emerged, he decided to become a pimp. He would beat these women in front of me as a child (while he was supposed to be “babysitting” me. He would leave for a couple hours, and make me accountable to him for whether or not they turned their tricks and earned their money. If they didn’t, he would beat them bloody in front of me, and order me to wait for him in his bed where he would later sexually abuse me. This is the first time I have talked about this without a therapist. A few years later (we moved across country from California to New York, to get away from him), I was walking home from school in upstate New York. I was ten years old and decided to take a shortcut through the woods to my neighborhood. A gang of teenagers grabbed me, tied me up, and took turns molesting me (thankfully they did not rape me). A couple years later, back in California, my half-brother the pimp returned, with his pros in tow. These girls would put makeup on me and dress me in their clothes, the way they dressed up for their tricks. So it was no surprise to me that my girlfriend’s dad also molested me at fourteen. This pattern seemed to follow me throughout my formative years, as when I got to New Mexico, my best friend’s dad started getting me drunk and taking advantage of me when I was sixteen. He took my virginity as well and that relationship continued on until I was twenty. Years later, I was working in the broadcasting industry, and one night after a promotional event I hosted at a bar, a man followed me to my hotel room, pushed me backward through the door into the room and raped me. There are lots more incidents like these throughout my life…now that I am clean, I really can’t believe all of the things that have surfaced. Stuff like this, coupled with the traumatic experience of the loss of my husband and mother back-to-back later in my life, just fueled my addiction. I cannot believe the things I did to get my drugs. I’ll talk about what a shameful hussy I was another time. For now, the point is that I am living clean today, 43 days today, because I found help and hope. I can visualize another future now for myself. I could not before. Can you see your dreams becoming reality? I don’t mean like winning the lottery, although, that would be NICE, but just the dream of surviving and learning a new way to live -clean…healthy…happy. I would have never thought it was possible 44 days ago, then I just wanted to DIE, and that was ALL I could see. Today I am blessed with one more day clean, sober–which is more than I deserve. Just for today, I AM grateful to be in NA. Thanks for listening…let me know how you’re doing.
NMRecoveryHOPE 