“The severely criminal charge was, in fact, a reference to my 24-year-old. I never imagined that term would apply to him. An unexpected call helped me through his transfer to prison. It had been weeks without contact when I answered the unfamiliar number. I fought back tears. He told me how much my son loved me.”
‘I heard two words: ‘fugitive felon.’ I caught my son’s eye. His shackles made my stomach flutter uncontrollably. His public defender smoothed her beige suit, and approached him.’
‘I woke with a softball size lump on my neck. I couldn’t breathe. They looked at me like I had 3 heads. Without saying a word, the doctor packs the wound and sends me on my way.’
“I fell asleep. The blood from the gauze had dried to the pillow. When I rolled over, it pulled the gauze out of the fresh wound. I panicked. I went into the bathroom. This was the most insane moment of my existence.”
‘I had my first alcoholic drink at the age of 10. I deployed to Afghanistan in 2015. I drank to calm my nerves. The drinking kept escalating.’
“I returned to the States. I started drinking even more. My marriage was falling apart. When I woke up from the coma, I was still hallucinating. The VA had no inpatient treatment facility spot open for me.”
‘I was 29 when I found out I was pregnant with twins. I continued to use every 4-6 hours.’: Addict ‘didn’t want to die a junkie,’ finally gets clean for her children because ‘enough was enough’
“I had gone to Cotillion and Girl Scouts, went to Catholic school and had a family who loved me. Now I was a junkie. One time my mom hid her money in her pillowcase while she slept, and I cut it out with her laying on it. Birds fly, fish swim, and addicts use. That’s what I did. But my kids deserved for me to try.”
‘I woke up in jail, my hands and ankles handcuffed because I’d refused the breathalyzer test. My kids had been in the backseat.’: Woman beats addiction after several years of drug and alcohol abuse
“I drank nightly, but not always excessively. I thought I was in control. A few months later, I found myself living a literal nightmare. Simply getting drunk wasn’t enough. I’d drink well past the point of feeling good. But I wasn’t getting drunk until after I put my daughter to bed. I always got to work on time and performed well each day, so I refused to believe I had a problem.”
‘Drug addict by day, mom/wife by night’: Woman’s journey from hiding pills in her bra to becoming ‘The Healing Junkie’
“I started experimenting with drugs at the age of 13 — smoking pot and drinking, until someone gave me a Percocet. I still remember the warmness that came over my body as the surge of dopamine flooded my brain… I was in love.”
