Drug Addiction Stories

Whenever I see a young woman acting a little off, I think back to Marci. I was in college and she was in the dorm across from me. Every time I went out to grab a smoke, she was there. She was watching me from her window. 

Marci was beautiful. I admit, I was into her. However, Marci had a bipolar disorder and when she drank at parties, it was even worse. As beautiful as she was, I could not see her for very long. After just a few weeks, it was getting well, sort of creepy.

I met her at a party one Friday night. We ended up hanging out all weekend together. She was beautiful and honestly, I could have found myself falling in love with her if given the chance. But her mood swings became apparent in just a couple of weeks. Her watching me seemed almost, well, as my mom said, like a stalking situation.

One night, Marci called me. I started not to answer but something made me. Her voice was slurred and I thought she was drunk. She was but there was something more going on. I could sense it. Marci mumbled something about her brother dying. She said she had no family left now and she wanted to die, too. She had taken all of her bipolar medication, a half bottle of sleep sedative and was on her fourth drink. She wanted to die.

I raced over but her dorm was locked. I called 911 while my roommate called Campus security. The paramedics got there and tried to revive her but they were too late. Her neighbor in the dorm said Marci had been notified earlier in the afternoon that her brother had died in a car accident. Marci did not have a roommate because she was hard to live with according to the girls in her dorm.

I think about Marci from time to time. She was so beautiful and had everything to live for. She was in college and wanted to be a journalist. She was always writing in a spiral. She could have gone places.

I was studying psychology and became more and more interested in bipolar disorder after Marci’s death. I did some research and saw that people with bipolar disorder who have a drug or alcohol problem have more episodes than those who don’t. Today I am a mental health counselor. When I see a patient with bipolar disorder, my mind goes back to Marci. When I see one with a drug or alcohol problem, I make sure they are part of a dual diagnosis program. Maybe, just maybe, if someone had done that for Marci, she would still be alive.  I feel like every time I help a patient, I’m doing it for Marci, too.

When I see girlfriends huddled together in the mall, I think of Judy. When I see grown women having dinner together in a restaurant, I think of Judy. We had been friends for seventeen years. She had a way about her, beautiful and bright, slender and carrying herself well. When I thought of a best friend, I thought of Judy.

One night she called me and asked if she could come stay with me. She lived 400 miles away and had decided to leave her husband. She moved in and that is when another side of her that I had never seen emerged. Somehow, somewhere, Judy got hooked on prescription drugs. She had no ailments that I knew of so I did not understand all the pain medications I saw on her dresser in the guest room. I asked her about it and she said doctors give them out left and right to her. She even told me I should give them a try as they made her feel good. I was shocked. I tried to talk to her about getting rehab but she informed me she was not an addict and could quit anytime she wanted.

Still, for the most part, she seemed okay. I helped her get a job and we went out one night to celebrate. Beautiful Judy usually had no trouble getting guys and that night was no exception. She caught the eye of several guys. A man I had recently begun dating showed up at the club after work and we danced and played pool while Judy flirted with her admirers.

I went to the restroom and when I came back, the man I was seeing (Paul) was visibly upset. He told me he thought he should go and looking at the time, I felt the same way. I asked Judy if she was ready and she said yes. I said goodnight to Paul and Judy and I left for home. On the way she told me Paul had made a pass at her. I was speechless. Still, she was pretty so I was not surprised.

The next day when Paul called and asked me out for the following evening I said no. I told him I did not want to see him and told him what Judy had said. He told me she had actually come on to him after he caught her attempting to put something in my drink!

I confronted Judy and she shrugged and said “Yeah, so what? I just wanted you to loosen up some.” That conversation ended seventeen years of friendship. I found out through a mutual friend that her marriage ended because her husband could not handle her addiction to the pain relievers.

I miss the Judy I used to know. I heard she lost her job and took off back to our hometown where she got busted a couple of times for drugs before going into court ordered rehab. Sometimes, when I see two friends sharing a moment together in the mall or a restaurant, I think of her. I miss my friend, Judy.  I wonder if she ever thinks of me?

My battle with drugs began as a teenager. I know now that it was a cry for help. I was the only survivor of a three-car accident that killed my parents and my brother. I was in the hospital for about a little over a week and became addicted to the pain reliever they had me on. I went to stay with my grandmother. I did not realize until I lost my family that I really had no one else besides her because both of my parents had been only children and my father’s parents were gone as was my grandfather on my mother’s side.

Somehow I made it through my junior and senior years. When the doctor and my grandmother decided I had been on pain relievers long enough, I found a new way to relieve my physical and emotional pain: crack cocaine. If my grandmother ever suspected, she didn’t let on.

After high school, I went to work in a call center for a major telephone company. I continued to live with my grandmother. While hitting up my dealer every chance I got for crack cocaine, I was also getting back into prescription meds. My grandmother’s health was failing and she began having a home health aide come in. It was this woman who would eventually answer my call for help and save my life.

One night I barely made it in from partying with friends. I took a couple of my prescription meds and dimly remember spilling the bottle of pills on the table. I began lining them up and playing with them. Then I passed out right there at the table.

My grandmother’s aide was staying over and she wandered into the kitchen sometime that night to get a drink of water and found me at the table surrounded by the pills and some white powder. She checked on me and found me to be breathing fine and somehow helped me to bed. The next morning when I got up, I went into the kitchen to find her at the table having coffee.

She sat me down and told me that she had a family member who had been on drugs and gotten clean at a local drug rehab center. She wanted to help me do the same. Seeing someone talk to me like they cared, having a conversation that was about me and my needs for a change made me break down and cry. She got someone to come in and watch my grandmother for a while and we went over to the drug rehab center. They helped me set up a leave of absence from work and helped me get off drugs.

My grandmother lived two more years. Her home health aide was there again for me as I was for her when my grandmother passed away. Aides become attached to their patients sometimes and she had fond feelings for my grandmother.

I did not slip into the abyss of drugs that time thanks to my support group and my grandmother’s aide who had become a good friend as well. I also met a wonderful man and I am engaged to be married. I still miss my family very much but now I know how to grieve properly without having a relapse. It is hard sometimes, but I know if I can do it, you can, too.