Saying I Hate You...

So, I’m heading to Connecticut for the holidays and I’m extremely excited, but for some reason also nervous. I’ve got tons of memories from when I lived in CT. both good and bad, but for some reason the holidays tend to make me think of bad memories. I’ll be staying at my best-friends house and then making my way to NJ. to see family! One specific memory I think of around this time is the time I told my mom I hated her. I didn’t do it over the holidays, but for some reason that memory has been popping up a lot lately! 

Growing up my mom gave me everything  I could EVER want. We had a pool, a hot tub, all the Beanie Babies you could imagine, Sega Genesis (old school) hooked up to every TV, and my friends always liked coming to my house because I had the cool young mom- with the best clothes to borrow.

When my mom started doing drugs things changed drastically; at the beginning of it all she wanted to keep things the same. She wanted to be able to buy me all of the clothes I could possibly want, and I’m sure she wanted me to go out and do things with my friends, so she would always give me money and try to do things. It got to the point where it was clothes, and then no electricity, or more clothes and then no cable or food in the fridge. One year my mom bought me a thousand dollars worth of gift certificates, plus other things, for Christmas (how Jewish of me) and I was thrilled, obviously because I was spoiled for so long, but that money could have gone to good use. 

My Freshman year of High School all of my friends and their parents were going to Cancun; I wanted to go so badly, so my mom made it happen! I was thrilled to be able to go and hang out with my friends, but at this point in my life I still had no idea about my moms drug use. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t go shopping for new clothes before leaving for Cancun, I felt like I had no summer clothes to bring with me, and on-top of that my relationship with my mom was slowly falling apart. She got me this great vacation which meant she was going to get the heck out of her room, and we were going to have a good time, but she wasn’t going to buy me a whole new wardrobe- and I did not like that. 

I was definitely more pissed at my mom’s absence in my life (not the fact I couldn’t go shopping), but I didn’t know how to express that feeling-any who the night before we were leaving I remember trying to pack and just getting so so angry! We got into a huge blow out fight, and I went to bed sad and angry; the next morning my mom woke me up to catch our flight and I told her I hated her and didn’t even want to go. The look on her face and the way I made her cry is something I probably will never be able to get over. 

I wound up having a really good vacation with my girlfriends, but hardly remember hanging out with my mom. She spent most of the time sleeping in our hotel (just like she did at home); I found out years later my mom went a week without using Heroin.

Like I said I really appreciate everything my mom has done for me-and I still really enjoy when she gets me presents, but sometimes I just feel so selfish (I’m no longer spoiled)! I also really feel like I NEVER want to hurt my moms feelings; this year she got me a beautiful necklace for Christmas (geez I mean Hanukah) and I had a really really hard time telling her that I didn’t love it, and wanted to exchange it for something I can wear everyday. She seemed fine with that and wants me to have something I love! I’m always worried about hurting my mom’s feelings but I need to remember she’s an insanely strong woman. I have a really hard time getting over the fact that my mom has been treated badly by so many people, and I always feel as though I’m tip toeing around things in order to not hurt her feelings more.

For the Holidays I want to apologize to my mom for saying such hurtful things to her-she put me through hell, but she has to live with that every single day. The last thing she needs to think is that she wasn’t a great mom or that she has a daughter who hates her. 

Looking back at it I really admire how hard my mom did try. I’m really thankful for all that I had, but really what I needed during this time was a mom (or even a dad), not brand new materialistic items. 

I can not wait to see my mom and the rest of my family (that includes friends, their parents, and siblings in CT) while I’m home! I hope everyone has an amazing Holiday, and I hope you get to spend it with great people like I get to, because that is much much more important than presents. 

If you have a story similar to mine please share it! If you don’t feel free to share anything that’s on your mind (pertaining to addiction of course). I look forward to hearing from you all soon.

Love,

Bailie

Anonymous

"bailie, i really appreciate all the things you are doing. although ive never had to deal with someone i really loved (other then friends) getting into such a thing as heroin, all the stories brought to mind that its not just the hardcore drugs like heroin. any drug can cause pain and disapointment. I remember my first love. during the time i dated him i had strong morals against anything and everything except drinking. im talking smoking pot, cigarettes, anything. our friends smoked and what not but my boyfriend and i were above it. when we started going through some rough times, it was weed that ultimately ruined our relationship. He started smoking with his friends and hiding it from me. i would smell it on him and it felt like i drank a vat of acid. i could literally feel the pain from my throught all the way to my stomach and everywhere. i wanted to say so many things to him and often i did but again, many times i couldnt even comunicate to him the things i wanted to say bc i felt soooo sick.I just wanted so badly to fix things with him. i would invite him over after school and hed agree and i would get sooo excited. id run home and clean the whole house. think everything through down to what i wanted to be doing when he walked him, and then i would sit there for hours waiting for him to show up. IF he showed up, he was almost always late and always high. smoking weed was more important to him then i was. wed hang out for an hour and when hed leave id cry. id stay up for hours at night waiting for him to call and balling my eyes out. now when i think about it though, im not so sure if i hated him for smoking or if i hated him for doing something without me. and this is how a simple things like pot threw my life off course. i was a smart, athletic girl and i had everything in front of me. yet, he was having fun so i had to have more fun. i began drinking heavily...like HEAVILY!!! just to make him jelous. i began smoking cigarettes (even though so many people i love i have lost to cancer) to throw it in his face that i wasnt as much of a "good girl" as he thought. i dabbled in a few other things, some that i havent been able to kick yet, and all that i never thought i would ever do. i lost all my morals and beliefs thats i was sooo proud of. although my life is not completly out of control...i honestly feel like i would have accomplished way more, and would have been way more proud of myself if that had never happened. i wish drugs never exsisted."

Well Anonymous, I know exactly what that's like! I started smoking pot, drinking, and dabbling with other things when I was younger because of guys or because thats what was "cool"-really it's not. I did cheerleading for a long time and then in High School all I cared about was drinking and getting high too, and I wound up missing out on a lot of fun times with some other friends-best friends that I ditched! It's also really crazy how much boys are involved in that sort of thing; when we really "love" someone we'll do a lot of things to make them "love" us back-those things may not necessarily be the right things or even what we want to do.

Also, I agree with you 100% that it's not just the hard drugs that make us do bad things. I know a lot of people who smoke weed often who have never tried hard drugs, and I know a lot of people that once they tried smoking weed started trying a whole bunch of things. It depends on the person definitely-I don't smoke weed anymore because I don't like the way it makes me feel, but I don't necessarily think people shouldn't smoke, and I do think smoking can ABSOLUTELY lead to other things.

Thank you very much for posting! Maybe you're boyfriend smoking pot wasn't as bad as other stories on the blog, but it still effected you in a very strong way. I'm glad to hear your life is not out of control, and I hope that one day all habits will be kicked so you will be able to enjoy all that life has to offer :)

Emotional Eating

"My dad was an addict and part of his addictive, compulsive personality involved eating foods that were horrible for him and in crazy huge amounts. Watching those unhealthy eating behaviors as a child caused some screwed up eating patterns in my own life."


This was posted anonymously, under my blog post "Pancakes". I think this is a really great post and I admire your courage for posting about your eating patterns. As I shared with you all briefly-I have eating issues. I'll talk about my emotional eating/not eating in greater detail, but to be honest it's something I still struggle with. My issues stem from my mom and also just from within.


I'm sorry your dad's emotional eating issue has resulted in you having messed up eating problems, but I'm extremely happy to know that you have been able to acknowledge where these eating patterns come from- and I hope that you are able to get the help you deserve to live a happy/healthy lifestyle! 

Intimate Relationships, and Addiction

"Bailie,
What you're doing is helping more people- and in bigger ways- than you can even imagine. I've passed the URL on to some important people in my life. I hope they can start to share, too! Everyone has a story, and your blog is so unique in that it gives a forum for people to share, to care, and to be cared about, with the comfort of anonymity. Thank you taking the bold steps to provide us with such a strong support network!

My last relationship lasted two years and was with the sweetest boy I had ever met; unfortunately, beyond being sweet he was also an addict- something I didn't know when we started dating. His drugs of choice were OxyContin and Xanax. I have lots of stories that I can share about this chapter in my life. After reading Anonymous' courageous post about the effect of another parent's drug use on their child, though, all I can think about is how drug use affects family, and one particular story I have about that, from a slightly different point of view.

Last year, I took a semester off of college and moved back home to work and be near my boyfriend. We loved each other very much and would often talk about settling down together after college and starting a family. Our relationship was lovely, aside from his addiction. In fact, his addiction sometimes didn't even seem like a problem because he was so well off financially with a steady supply of drugs that he always had pills and therefore rarely experienced withdrawals. I guess the addiction related depression was the worst- he was depressed with the drugs but would be depressed AND sick without him, so he was literally high 100% of the time. During the semester that I was home, I got pregnant. Since we'd talked about having a family together before, the idea of having the baby and giving it up for adoption- or maybe keeping it- was a real possibility for us. One day, we sat down to make a plan. I asked him, very clearly, if he could be clean for the entire time I would be pregnant. His reply? "I don't know if I can do that." In retrospect, I'm so glad that he was able to be honest with me- and himself! I had to put my self in the shoes of a mother of a child whose father was an addict. I knew that I couldn't do that to a beautiful, innocent baby, so I made an appointment at Planned Parenthood and asked him to come with me, under the condition that he had to be sober on the day. He told me that he didn't know if he could do that, either. He was crying and crying and saying he felt like a horrible person. I remember this so vividly- the memory is burnt forever into my mind. I knew he wanted nothing more than to support me, but couldn't because of his awful addiction. He had been relying on drugs to get him through any tough situation for so many years, that he literally couldn't handle tension without drugs. He was so unable to deal with reality that he booked a plane ticket and got high on a beach in the Caribbean for a whole week, while I endured the most painful, most emotionally devastating event of my life to date.

I'll never forget being in Planned Parenthood alone, pregnant with the baby of an addict who loved a drug more than me, and more than unborn his child. Every day I wonder about my decision. What if one of us becomes infertile? What if one of us was born infertile and that was a fluke- our one chance at having a baby? Anonymous, your post gave me some perspective on my decision. I know that your shoes are the hardest to walk in, and I doubt that I could be as strong as you are in them. I feel confident now that I made the right decision. Thank you so much for sharing!!!"


Anonymous- Thank you very much for passing my blog on to people you think will benefit form it, it makes me extremely happy to hear that I'm helping people. It also makes me very happy to know that there are people trusting me, and opening up to me, with such intense/private stories. Thank you for sharing this story with all of us, and I'm so sorry you had to go through such a traumatic experience without the one person you loved. 


Abortion is an extremely tricky topic, some people are for it and obviously others are not. The way I like to think of it is "to each their own". I say I wouldn't get an abortion, but I really haven't been in that position so I don't know. I also think of it as nothing bad ever comes from a child, but bad things happen when people have children and are not prepared. 


It was extremely mature of you to realize that having a baby was not the right thing for you at that time, and it was very bold of you to put your unborn child before yourself. It would not have been a good idea to have a baby with an addict. If he couldn't be sober to at least go to the Dr's appointment with you-he would not be able to get sober for that baby. 


Again, thank you very much for sharing your story, and I really hope that during this time you had someone to talk to! 

Anonymous

"Bailie,
I wanted to thank you for this very candid blog. I am the stepmother of a wonderful little girl that I love to death! My husband and I have full custody of her now, but when she was young we shared custody with her mother. Her mother was and still is an addict to a number of drugs. We knew what was going on by the stories our three year old would come home with after her stay with Mom. She would come home usually in the same clothes we sent her in three days before, cold, and sniffling. We filed for custody, but it was a very long battle. For three years we had no choice but to send her as we were required to by law. I could not believe that the legal system was allowing this to happen to this precious child. We thought we had won when late one night her mother was pulled over. My stapdaughter was in the car where the police officer found a collection of used needles thrown about, but they fought for her parental rights...so we had to keep sending her to a place we knew she was not safe. This happened for three years. For three years I held her in the night when she had a nightmares of being locked in the closet while Mom had "friends" over or seeing a man hold a gun to her Mom's head. I would just hold her and cry with her. Finally we did get custody...at four years old she was found alone in a hotel room with drugs all over the place. i am glad that we can give her a good home, but I worry so much about her. She still has nightmares from time to time which she no longer realizes are memories not just dreams. It is difficult for her to understand her life situation. She of course loves her Mom and cannot always understand why she cannot see her. She is 10 now and realizes more about what happened but desperately wants to believe that her Mom is better now. if this were the case i would galdly let her see her, but it is not. She has spend the last 10 years in and out of rehab and jail...she is not better. What pains me too is that my daughter has 6 brothers and sister that she has never met who have been adopted by other families. i don't know how I even begin to help her work through such a mess. She is only 10 and has seen more pain than some people ever do. I wanted to thank you for giving me a look at a daughter's perspective."

Anonymous, I'm a nanny and I've been working with kids for a long time. This was extremely hard for me, because I love children- they're so amazing, and I do not know how someone could do such terrible things to something/someone so innocent. I plan on having a big family, and I hope I can be a great mom like you.

After reading this post I was so so pissed, at your daughters biological mother, I couldn't really get any other thoughts together so I needed to think about it for a little while. It's understandable for me, and other people reading this post, to be extremely angry at your beautiful ten year old daughters mom (if you can even call her that)! It's also alright to be sad for your daughter, and for her six other brother's and sister's-are you in contact with any of them?

The truth is the woman has a severe problem, and she is missing out on seven extraordinary lives. You are such a courageous person, and I admire everything you have done for your little girl. I'm sure it wasn't easy, but because of you she now has an amazing mother. You are so lucky to have someone so amazing in your life, and she is truly blessed to have you. I'm sure times are hard, but I'm so thankful that there are people out there who are as strong as you-and really want to help.

My Aunt and Uncle adopted me when I was 16, and it was really hard because I was so old! I grew up with my mom, and felt as though I was already grown up when I moved in with them (because of all of the things I had witnessed with my mom). At times I was so angry with them, but they were helping me tremendously. I've realized that I was just angry with my mom, and couldn't actually acknowledge all of the amazing things my family was doing for me, until after I moved out. My Aunt is now like a mother to me, I love my mom and my aunt so much-and could not possibly be where I am today without the help of both of them.

I'm sure there are going to be times where your daughter misses her mom, but because of you she is going to have a great life. I hope the best for her biological mom-but I'm really having a hard time empathizing with her and her actions. She is missing out on seven amazing lives, and she's really going to regret that unless she changes.

Thank you so much for sharing your story with all of us, people like you and your daughter are the reason for my blog. I hope that you will be able to share more stories with all of us, and I hope that talking about your situation makes it a little less difficult.

Anonymous

"I remember all the months and months of not hearing back from my sister, no calls returned and wondering what was going on with her. We tried to connect with her and her family whom we had not seen for over a year and thought it was so strange that when we had been so close in the past, she now just made no room for us in her life. 

Just when we would write her off, she would call, out of the blue, crying about how depressed she was and all the beefs we had had with her would be pushed aside to listen to her sob stories. We would forgive her for being so out of touch, for not making the time for important family events and get togethers and make a plan to get together but it would never come to fruition. The whole cycle would repeat itself. One of use would suspect drug use but the other would say no, it couldn't be.

The frustration and anger beat us down but there was always the motivation to stay connected because of her family. There were kids involved, cousins, and we needed to continue making the effort for their sake. Where were they? What was going on? We had no idea how bad it actually was."


This is the EXACT sort of post that I am looking for. Thank you anonymous for sharing this with all of us, this story shows how an addicts behaviors effect everyone in their lives- you don't need to live with an addict to have to suffer from their actions. This must have been an extremely hard time for you! I'm sure you were in denial and didn't want to even think that your sister was using (drugs or alcohol), or maybe she was the type of person you thought never would use, and at the same time it sounds like you had your own things going on.


I think it's very important to have a strong family, and that is really really hard if you are constantly being betrayed! There are so many different emotions that go along with addiction- so it's ok that you were angry with her when she wouldn't call, or when you wanted to write her off. Feelings like that are very natural, and at the same time it is very hard to help a person who doesn't want the help. 


I hope the best for your family, and I really think talking about it will help you, and maybe even bring your family closer. Thank you again for sharing with all of us. 


On another note, I presented my blog to my Cultural Anthropology class yesterday and had amazing results (I brought one person to tears, which intern brought me to tears). I've also been receiving a lot of Facebook messages- I would like everyone to know I really appreciate everything you are doing for me. The blog has had a lot of success, and it has only been one month- I'm extremely excited for its future! 


Friend requesting me on Facebook, and sending me messages is 100% alright with me, but what I really need for the blog to continue on such an amazing path is for you all to share your stories, under the "Comments" section on my post. After I will post 5-10 Stories so that other people can comment on those, and then I will share another personal experience (just like "Pancakes" and "The Day I Finally Stopped Lying to Myself").


Feel free to write me personally with questions, or comments, or stories-but if you send me a message be prepared for me to ask you to put it on the blog :)

Pancakes

For those of you who do not know me- I absolutely love food! Growing up my mom would cook for me all of the time. I feel like throughout my whole childhood she was cooking for me, and also for my friends. She was always very talented, and generally didn't make anything that I didn't like (except this mustard chicken when I was ten...eww). She would always buy new cooking gadgets- we used her rotisserie for a month straight, and she would constantly say "Bailie it's great, all you have to do is set it and forget it", she loved this thing! Her specialty, or maybe just my favorites were Captain Crunch chicken, pancakes, and smoothies.  

When she started using drugs she cooked less and less, and her food just wasn't really good. She would put things together for me to cook when she had work, we didn't eat together much, and I got a lot of takeout. I didn't really mind it, but I missed homemade food.

This one morning (when I was 15) my mom decided to make pancakes, and I was so excited! I was going to help her, and we were going to eat together. She started making batter, and then needed to take a "bathroom" break. She went into the bathroom for probably 30 minutes, and came back completely messed up. She continued to cook, and I tried not to get mad at her but it was insanely hard-once again I was disappointed.

Within minutes our kitchen looked like a war zone. There was batter EVERYWHERE, pots and pans turned upside down, the sink filled with gross water-it was awful. All I could think of was the "This is your brain on drugs" commercials that I saw growing up. I have no idea what I said to my mom while she was passing out mid burning pancakes, and destroying our kitchen, but it must have been awful. She started to cry and went into her room for hours- I remember one other time that she cooked for me after this, and I remember a 100 million times that I made her cry.

In my eyes my mom is still a great cook, but it is crazy to still have such a vivid memory imprinted in my mind. All I wanted was to be able to cook a nice meal with the person I love, but she couldn't wait 30 freaking minutes to use her drugs!? She had to have them mid hanging out with me, and that hurt very badly.

While my mom was using drugs food became my comfort; I would practically eat all of my sorrows away because I was really depressed, and this happens to be something I still really struggle with. Sometimes I eat a ton, and other times I don't eat enough at all. I will talk about my eating problems, and body image issues more as I get to know you all. Within the last 4-6 years I've learned what's healthy and not healthy, and I wound up, eventually, learning how to cook (Thank you Alma, Mrs. Egdahl, and my Mom)- and I happen to be really good at it!

Well, if anyone has a memory having to do with being extremely disappointed by an addict please feel free to share. Being disappointed by someone you love really sucks, but sadly I would assume we are all guilty of it! Take care, and I hope everyone has an amazing weekend!

Here is a link to the "This is your brain on drugs" commercial I was talking about; I didn't really think it is an affective commercial until just looking at it, but I can relate to it and others may not:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE7ukc7MV-k

Anonymous

"My sister was/is my best friend and I thought at the time that I knew everything about her life. What I didn't know was that she was ditching school everyday to get high, that when she was sneaking out of our bedroom at night that she wasn't just going to see her boyfriend, but was going to do coke with friends. My parents knew we were close and that she confided in me, and I covered for her for far too long. Every time she snuck out she would wake me up and let me know where she was going. Sometimes she would get caught and our parents would wake me in the middle of the night asking where she was, and as her sister and best friend I would lie and say I didn't know. It got to the point that everyday upon being dropped at school, I would go inside and she would pretend to walk in with me, then the second my dad would pull away from the curb, she would turn around and walk down the block to an older friend’s house. She began to loose weight, and rarely ate with the rest of us. She admitted to me one day that she wasn't hungry because she was high. Sometimes it was coke, sometimes ecstasy or pills (oxycotton, xanax, etc...). Things with her and our parents progressively got worse and worse, screaming matches about grades and curfews, and a whole assortment of things. Finally one morning I had to be at school earlier than my sister and left the house before anyone was awake. About midday I got called to the school office to take a phone call. It was my sister calling from the airport to tell me she was being sent away to a wilderness rehab camp, she would be hiking all day, 7 days a week for the next 6 weeks with no communication with the world. I was unbelievably angry that my parents would do this, but I was young and didn’t understand the severity of her situation. After 6 weeks of wilderness school I thought I was getting her back, only to find out that she would not be returning, but finishing her sophomore year of high school, as well as her junior year, at a boarding school in Utah, aka a rehab facility. We were not allowed much communication with her at first, but were eventually allowed to visit about 6 months into her therapy. She had changed so drastically I did not even recognize her. She was surprisingly happy and content with her situation and had no desire to return home to all of the people that had started her interest in drugs. She stayed in Utah for the next year and returned back home for her senior year of high school. I had never seen her more motivated, nor so serious about going to college. She had a lot of school to make up for all of the classes she had failed and worked harder than anyone I have ever known so she could get into her dream school, UC Berkeley. Come the following year not only was she starting at UC Berkeley, but was admitted to the honors political science program there. I know that rehab does not work for everyone, and that sometimes it isn’t even an option, but I cannot imagine what my family would be like if my sister had stayed on the path she was on."


Thank you Anonymous for sharing your story with all of us. I'm happy to hear your sister is doing well now, and going to UC Berkeley! It must have been very hard having to lie to your family for your sister, and it must have been extremely hard/scary to watch your sister doing all of these things at such a young age. It's amazing that your family saw the warning signs, and were able to help your sister before everything got completely out of control. I hope you, and your family are doing well. Please keep posting, and maybe share the blog with your family if you think they will benefit from it. Thank you again, and stay strong!

Anna

"Bailie, I saw the link to your blog from a friend's Facebook page. I have never met you and probably never will but I have tears in my eyes as I read every post on this page. I was married to an addict for 5 years. Finally I could not take lying to our kids to make sure they didn't know what was going on, I could not take lying to myself that I, Myself, could make this person stop using. We ended up divorcing after 7 years of dating and 5 years of marriage. We had 2 very small boys that were the world to me and they were what mattered, not me and not my husband. It has been 6 years since my husband and I divorced. I had to realize that there was nothing I could to do make him stop using. No matter how many times I asked if his drugs were more important than his wonderful children, how many times I asked him to stop, it wouldn't work. This was a decision that he had to make on his own. He would not/could not change because it was something I wanted him to do. He had to want it for himself. I can happily report that he finally came to his 'senses' and has been clean for 2 almost 3 years and we are trying to work on being a family again. It has been and always will be something that we will always battle as a family. Everyday I am thankful for what we have together. I can only imagine having to deal with such a serious issue when you were so young. I look forward to hearing more of your story and pray that your mother realizes what a special angel she has in you!"

Anna, I honestly hope that one day we will be able to meet! You seem like such a strong woman for many reasons, but one that stood out to me was knowing and understanding that your husband could only change when he was ready. I'm sure it was awful watching him hurt himself and ruin your marriage, but really you had no other choice. I'm sure he loved you and your beautiful boys, but unfortunately people on drugs care about one thing more than their family and friends-and that is the drug. While my mom was on drugs I tried everything to get her to stop, but unfortunately I could not do that, and it sucked because all I wanted to do was help the one person who had helped me so many times!

Good for you for removing yourself and your kids from the situation; I will assume it was not easy, but seems like it was worth it. I'm extremely happy to hear that your story has a happy ending! Thank you for reading, and please keep posting, good luck with everything!

There is a show called Under the Influence: Kids of Alcoholics on Nickelodeon; it premieres Sunday, November 14, 2010 at 9pm ET/PT. I will be recording it, and would like to ask whoever will benefit, or is just interested, to check it out!

Thank you all, once again, for being so optimistic and supportive :)

Miss you Katie!

"baybay, writing this takes so much courage and strength! and its amazing. as im sure you know i myself was a heroin addict. after i lost justin, i lost myself. i hurt all the people that loved me. and i never knew how that affected them, reading this is helping me understand that. im sure that writing this is helping with your healing, but its also helping mine. i have been clean now for 2 1/2 years but it is something i have to deal with everyday. when i had my daughter there were certain medications that i could not take because i was afraid that i would relapse. addiction is a very hard battle to overcome, thank you for sharing this amazing story. i cant wait to read more! your such a strong and amazing women. you have so much strength a courage! im so proud of you, thank you for doing this...i dont think you know just how many people you will help :) love you girl! xxoo"

This was a post from my friend Katie (I think she prefers Kate now) who I have known since we were about 7! She was one of my first friends when I moved to a new town in CT. We were on the same cheerleading squad for years-but when we began High School we started doing our own thing. We saw each other occasionally but for the most part we lost contact.

After seeing this post I started talking to Katie on Facebook; I had no idea that she was using heroin before moving to Florida, and I wanted to know a little more about her situation. She told me that after her High School boyfriend passed away (also one of my good friends) she started using a concoction of pills, and shortly after started using heroin, because a "friend" had introduced it to her. Her family had an intervention with her and within 12hrs she was on her way to rehab in Florida. After getting out of rehab Katie relapsed once, and her parents stopped talking to her. She has now been clean for 2 1/2 years, and is starting to rebuild the relationships with her family.

Katie seems so happy and optimistic about her future. She has a little beautiful baby girl, and a great boyfriend in Florida. We've made plans to see each other around Christmas time in CT. I'm really looking forward to catching up with her :)

Katie I love you! I'm so proud of you, and I thank you for sharing your experience with me. Every day is a struggle, and if you ever need anything I will always be here for you.

Thank You Anonymous

Bailie thank you so much for making it easier to talk about our experiences. Here is one of my stories:

"When I was 16 I was dating a drug addict. Like you I was in denial and just thought that he liked to smoke pot sometimes and experiment with drugs a little bit. I didn't realize it was addiction. One major clue should have been the people he surrounded himself with. This particular experience is about the time I watched his best friend overdose on cocaine. 

I had just brought some lunch over to my boyfriend (he didn't have a job and lived in a friend's basement). A few of his friends were in the room adjoining the one we were in. He and I were sitting on the couch talking and eating when a girl in the other room started screaming that *** was overdosing. We ran in to find my boyfriend's best friend convulsing on the bed, white saliva spilling out of his mouth. We also noticed that he was biting down on his tongue over and over again. My boyfriend tried to put something in his mouth to make him stop but it didn't work. To my astonishment almost everyone else in the room left because they were too scared of getting caught, and no one who stayed mentioned anything about calling 911. I started screaming that we had to get him to a hospital because he was only getting worse and finally I convinced them, but they also convinced me to drive him to the ambulance station in my car. We got *** in the car and after about 5 minutes he stopped convulsing and had no recollection of what just happened. Then he started to freak out, telling us that he was fine and demanding that we let him out of the car. He even started to cry because he was so scared that he would get arrested. Meanwhile he was saying all of his with a lisp and blood coming out of his mouth from biting his tongue so hard. We wouldn't let him convince us though he did try to jump out of my car at every stop sign. We waited in the hospital for hours for him to get out and drove him home when he did. He had bitten a hole straight through his tongue. Through his lisp and to my insistence he promised he would never do it again. The promise, of course, was never kept. He called me a week later asking if I would drive him to a pick up. I said no. I've seen his name in the paper from time to time, getting caught with heroin, going to jail. 

I went to therapy for weeks after this, it was incredibly traumatizing. It's hard to be on the other side, watching someone hurt themselves and being helpless to stop it."


-Thank you Anonymous for being so brave, and sharing your story with all of us. I'm sure it was not easy, but it was very courageous and I really think it will show people how much drugs can really change a person. You were so you young, and you saw something no one should ever have to see. 


Isn't it crazy how we call these people our friends, would you still consider the people from this night to be your friends now? Friends are people that are there for you through thick and thin--not people you have to convince to bring to the hospital when they're overdosing! I'm very proud of you for knowing that this guy needed help; luckily you weren't messed up on drugs, and were able to know how to react under pressure. Also I really don't think you were "helpless" if it weren't for you his other "friends" probably would not have helped him at all!


I'm also extremely happy/proud that you went to therapy after this! Seeking out help is always hard, but I'm sure that it was helpful for you (or at least I hope that it was). I'm a HUGE advocate of therapy, but I also think you need to be in the right mindset to really appreciate the help that is available to you. 


I'm sorry to hear that this person has now been in and out of jail. Hopefully he gets well someday, and hopefully he does have someone to help him with his recovery process...when he is ready. Once again thank you Anonymous, this is exactly the kind of story I was hoping people would be able to share with all of us! 

My Amazing Friend Chris

This is a continued comment from my amazing friend Chris who means the world to me. Chris is a father to be, and I know he will be such a great daddy! Hicks things happen in life that we don't like (or want to happen), and I really truly believe it will be healthy for you to get all of these bad memories out. I know a few of your stories, but really honestly look forward to hearing more. You are such a strong person, and you have always been there for me. I'm so fortunate to have you in my life, and I'm so happy that you are posting. Thank you so much for sharing such an intense time in your life with all of us!

"I remember getting the phone calls from him and hearing my mother cry all the time. She would pretend to be strong for us, but every now and then I would catch her crying in her room or breaking down at odd times of the day. My mother loved my father and always gave him another chance, she loved him with all of her heart and stayed faithful to him. I saved alot of the letters he would right to me, and still remember the little cartoons drawn on the front of the envelopes, like Chip & Dale The Rescue Ranger or Mickey Mouse. Eventually he got out of jail and him and my mother were doing good until his friends started coming around to see him and slowly but surely he would get back into robbing houses and stores trying to feed his addiction. My mother would scream and he would yell back, (but he would never hit her, he loved her), as me and my sister would run into eachothers bedrooms and just cry and hug eachother and wish that it would all just go away. He went back to jail and we would start getting the phone calls again, but these days were different. My mother would tell him if he really loved us he would stop doing this shit and be a real man. She would tell us "your father is an asshole" and then she would calm down. We started going to visit him at different jails around the state and grew used to this life style. I would always tell her I didn't want to visit him anymore because I thought he didn't love me or else he would be home. But deep down inside I knew he did and it tore me apart growing up. I wanted to be the great Chris Hicks Sr that everybody loved and admired yet I didn't want to be anything like him at all. All the choices I made in elementry school like my first kiss, standing up to bullies and who my friends were all started with the thought, what would my father do. I always felt so alone, and singled out, no father at my school programs, no fathersday, no body to teach me how to be a man. I was lost and confused and just wanted him there to show me how to play catch and go camping and just shoot the shit. I remember he finally got out again, and again, and again and my mom would take him back and then she would kick him out. He dropped off a hundred dollar bill to me one time and I told my mother "look what dad gave me and she grabbed it and ripped it up and told me that I didn't want his drug money. Again I was left with nothing. He would rob store with my uncles and houses all around the area and bring home candy and money for the family but my mother wanted nothing to do with it. The money he got supported his habbit, the want grabbed ahold of him and it would never let him go. I have so much more to share with you Bailie and this is less then ten percent of my life with drugs. So keep me posted and I will share with you every week a new and different story. It feels good that someone actually wants to hear about my problems but it brings up alot of supressed memories that I would just like to forgive and forget, ya know. I love you and good luck with your new life over there in CO girlie.
Sincerely one of your best friends,
Christopher D. Hicks Jr"


I will post four more stories from other people just like Chris, and then I will share another one of my personal experiences. Thank you all for your support!

The Day I finally Stopped Lying to Myself

I am a 22-year-old student at Front Range Community College; I am planning on transferring to Metro. State College, in Denver, for Social Work.

I've decided to do this blog, not only as an assignment, but because I'm extremely interested in addiction, addiction recovery, and what family and friends of addicts have to deal with.

My mom started using heroin when I was 13 years old. My life changed drastically, and I have extremely awful memories from when my mom was using. I plan on sharing my most personal stories; things I have never shared with friends, family, or therapists. I hope that friends and family members of addicts will join me in doing this.

Sharing my stories with all of you will be a way to heal myself, but also a very nice way of HOPEFULLY helping the youth stay away from drugs.

I have done my fair share of drugs, and rebelling. I do not think addicts are bad people, but I do think that there are addicts out there that have done horrible things. I think that there are children and teens that have to deal with addicts every single day, and I do not necessarily believe teens have enough people to go to.

I hope that my blog will help people who are in a bad place in their life. I hope that people will share their personal experiences and benefit from what I say, and comments from what others say.

I would like everyone to know my mom is clean now, and we are working on rebuilding our relationship. I love her very much, she is my best friend, but there are some things that I may not ever be able to forget...but I have been able to move on. With amazing family, friends and therapists I have managed to dig myself out of the dirt and become a very strong woman.

No one is perfect, people make mistakes, AND HERE is where I will post my first story…I was extremely in denial of my moms using. For years I saw drug paraphernalia, but could not believe that mom was using drugs. So from age 13-15 I lied to myself. When I saw needles, and blood and little baggies all over the house I lied to myself. When I witnessed someone overdose, at the age of 14, in my Mothers arms I called the cops, and lied to myself.

It was not until I was 15 that I realized I was completely nuts! My mom told me she would hurt herself by taking blood out of her body with needles, and then put it back in. That was the reason for the blood in the bathroom, and I believed it. At the time, my boyfriend had just moved in with my mom and I. I told my boyfriend exactly what my mom had explained to me. Immediately after he told me, my mom was definitely hurting herself, but she was hurting herself by using heroin.

I was hesitant, duh I’ve been lying to myself for years, but trusted him. He told me that he had recently found a bundle of my mom’s heroin, and showed me. We proceeded to search the house, and I found a stash of what seemed like a 100 million little empty wax bags. It was finally a realization; my mom was a heroin addict.

My complete and utter best friend left me for a world of drugs, and I was on my own. The next day I did not go to school…and I made the choice to stop going FOREVER (well not forever actually, but that is a whole other post)!