Drug Addiction Stories

I was in my car driving home from work just minding my own business when a song by the talented snger Kellie Pickler came on the radio. It was a song about a girl saying she wondered if her mother ever thought of her. The song took me immediately back to my own daughter.

I had been into crack cocaine pretty heavy when the state took her away from me. They gave her to her aunt and uncle on her father’s side. My ex had died of an overdose himself and neither of us had family except for his sister. They took our daughter and raised her. I remember calling her on her 16^th birthday to tell her I loved her and my little girl told me she wanted nothing to do with me. She was in high school, she had friends and she never had to worry about eating or who would be in the house when she woke up. Before she hung up, she said “Mom, the only thing I want for my birthday from you is for you to get help before you end up dead like Daddy. Otherwise, I am not sure I can handle talking to you and wondering when you will die from an overdose.”

That call prompted me in a way nothing ever had. I hung up the pay phone and just stood there crying. A couple approached me and asked if I was okay. I poured it out to them. As luck (or the birthday candle fairy?) would have it, the woman was a drug counselor. They were just out taking a stroll that Saturday when they saw me crying in the phone booth.

I went into rehab that day. I was staying with friends who were as hooked on crack as I was and I had nothing but a few changes of clothes. I knew if I did not go with the couple, I would go back to the house and use feeling sorry for myself as an excuse to get high.

I was an inpatient for four months. Afterwards, I got a job through the help of one of my new friends in my support group at a retail store. I wrote my daughter and told her I was getting help and while she was still understandably cautious, we began writing and talking and she had recently sent me an invitation to her high school graduation.

I was out of rehab just over a year when I heard that song. It brought back all the memories of what I had done to my daughter. These days, however, my crutch isn’t crack. I took a deep breath and changed lanes as I decided to turn right instead of left to my small apartment. There was a support group meeting starting in about 30 minutes and I knew after hearing that song that I needed to be there.