Drug Addiction Stories

I have been on cocaine for years.  I was married for sixteen and my husband got high with me, but then he cleaned up.  He wanted a divorce because I would not get clean with him.  We had two kids, a daughter 15 and a son 12.  We were both fighting for custody.  One night my daughter was injured in a car accident while out with friends.  She lost a lot of blood and we both donated to help her.  We found out that night that my husband was not her father.

That meant one thing. Our cocaine dealer from back then was her father. I tried to find him only to find out that he was dead.  He had died four years earlier from an overdose.  My ex told me he still wanted her, he wanted both of them.  Then he asked me if I really wanted to keep going the way I was until she was essentially biologically an orphan.  That was my wake up call.

I went into a residential treatment program.  My ex came to a session once with me and told me with the counselor sitting there that he did not condemn me as we had both been on cocaine.  The blessing of our daughter far exceeded how she truly got here.  Yet he got clean and he insisted that our children also deserved a mother who was clean.

I was in the residential program for three months. It was hard but after I detoxed I began to understand what I had done not only to myself, but to my children.  They never invited their friends over because they were embarrassed and now that I was clean, I understood that and didn’t blame them for feeling that way.

I am in aftercare now and I attend my meetings regularly.  I have a job making minimum wage at a fast-food restaurant but I have barely worked my entire life so that is a blessing.

My ex still has the kids.  I get them every other weekend and we are slowly re-connecting.  We decided  to tell our daughter about the past and instead of hating us, she has been really mature.  Her father assured her she would always be his baby girl.  I told her the dealer who was her biological father had died and she has no interest in finding out anything about him.  Her daddy will always be her daddy to her.

Although we are divorced and will never get back together, my ex and I have maintained a friendship through which we care for our children.  They live with him and I maintain a small one-bedroom apartment, but they come to visit and I am grateful that we all have been given a second chance at life and as a family.