“I took my first drink when I was about 14 years old. For the first time, I felt okay. I needed more. On my fifteenth birthday, I took my first hit of acid. The probation officer told my parents, ‘She’ll be dead in a few years.’ My bottom was near.”
‘Girls like her don’t come back from this.’ I left home when I was 15. I found my oblivion in the form of a needle. I always wanted MORE.’: Recovered addict shares sobriety journey, ‘I am FREE’
‘We placed my son in the back of a black SUV and said goodbye. I lost all hope. Just before I drank myself to death, I found out I was pregnant.’: Mom’s harrowing journey to recovery, ‘It’s up to you to break the cycle’
“Right after I turned 15, I met the absolute love of my life. Apparently, we were never really exclusive. In the summer going into my senior year, I got pregnant. I learned alcohol numbed the pain. After my daughter’s father left without telling me, I started partying more. He had no more fight in him. Days after his 4th birthday, we brought him home on hospice care.”
‘At 19, I got pregnant and relapsed. My son wasn’t enough to stop me. I continued to use behind his back. I went back to hiding it, and was caught by my son’s father.’
“My friend introduced me to a better way to get high: injecting. He left when I got pregnant. I looked at myself in the mirror. ‘What are you doing? You are worth so much more.’ I wanted my kids to have love, but first, I had to find it myself.”
‘When I was 15, I was sent to a private boarding facility in the backwoods. I snuck out was roaming during the night. I was suddenly taken into a building far in the woods, the doors locking behind me.’
“For the next 2 years, I was ‘locked up’ with wire fences, an open bay dorm of girls in dresses. I was to say yes ma’am and no sir. Everything was taken from me. Our letters were censored. Girls who would cry would be forced to sit in a baby stool with a pacifier.”
‘I didn’t know who the father was. I continued to use drugs, until I received life-changing news. I was not expecting one baby, or two.’: Woman overcomes addiction, gives birth to triplets
“I began prostituting, and living out of hotels. When my daughter was 1-year-old, I left my 5th rehab facility and began getting sick. I assumed this was related to my hepatitis C. It wasn’t.”
