Drug Addiction Stories

My name is Joe and I want to share my story with you. Looking for a job is hard when you are a drug addict, especially if you have a record. It can be done but still, it is hard and it is stressful. People are getting jobs and I am sitting here trying but the minute I tell them I did time for dealing and using, I get excuses and sometimes even a blunt “No thanks”.   Sometimes, I feel like I am still in jail. 

I guess if I had any advice to give someone who is on drugs it would be to get clean now, especially if you do not have a record because once you get one, it is gonna be hell trying to get a job. My mom gripes that I need one but she does not understand how hard it is to try to get one after the stupid stuff I have done.

About the third or fourth time someone tells you no or you feel a change in their attitude towards you, then you just do not feel like trying again, you know? But I am about to get evicted and I know my mom and dad do not really want me moving back in.

Sure, if I had it to do over again, I would do it differently. But what is more important, the fact that I am honest on my applications or the fact that I made a mistake in the past? Are you telling me that no one else made a mistake, that everyone else is perfect?

So what did I end up having to do? I ended up having to lie. I got a job at a fast food restaurant because when it asked on the application if had ever been convicted of a felony, I marked no. I cook burgers and fries now for a living but hey, at least it is something, you know? I am thirty years old and dealing with teenagers and when I see them messing up, I take them aside and try to explain to them that one of these days they will regret the stupid stuff they are doing but they just laugh, look on me like some old geezer (at 30!) and call me Holy Joe behind my back. Yeah, I have heard them do it.

Trust me, if you do not have a record, go get clean before you end up with something that is going to follow you around the rest of your life. If just one of you kids listens, I will know I did something right and made a difference in at least one person’s life to the good instead of all the damn negative stuff I did over the years. Call me Holy Joe, call me whatever, just think that maybe, this old geezer does know what he is talking about.  You do not want to live the rest of your life in a prison without bars.

When she moved in next door, I have to admit I was ecstatic.  She was a beautiful young teenager and the perfect age to be a babysitter for my young daughters who were in kindergarten and first grade.  As I took a pitcher of lemonade and some homemade cookies over to introduce myself the girls insisted on going with me.  April, the teenager smiled as she saw them coming over.  Her face lit up and as she confided in me after we got to know each other, she told me she had always wished for a sibling.

April soon became part of our family.  I learned that she lived with her mother and stepfather and that her mom had been unable to have more children following her birth.  I also picked up on her dislike for her stepfather but I did not know why.  April started babysitting for me on a regular basis and bonded with my two young girls.  She would even sleep over and as a single mom who worked two jobs I appreciated that.

One time, April’s stepfather said the girls could stay over but when I saw the look on April’s face I said it would be easier if they could just sleep in their own beds.  Over time, I began noticing changes in April.  She was eating like crazy, and things started to go missing around the house.  I told her she was too pretty to start eating like that but she said she actually hoped she could get fat so “he” would leave her the hell alone.  When I asked who he was, she would not answer.

One night I caught April in my purse. I had begun to suspect she was on something and she confessed it was heroin.  I walked her home and talked to her mother.  Her stepfather was at work at a local manufacturing plant.

A couple of days later, I heard screaming and went in the backyard in time to see April hitting her stepfather with a shovel.  My two daughters were in their yard.  April was screaming “Stay away from them, you asshole!  You are not going to touch them or I swear I will kill you, you son of a bitch!”

Someone heard the commotion and called the police.  When they got there, they arrested April for assault.  She kept begging me to keep the girls away from her stepfather.  It came out after she saw him with his arm around one of my daughters that she had been abused by him for several years.  The heroin was her way of dealing with it and getting through it.  However, she did love my daughters and could not stand the thought that he might hurt them too.

The charges against April were dropped and she was sent to a treatment program.  Her stepfather was charged with several counts relating to the sexual and physical abuse of April.  She moved in with some relatives in another town but she calls and lets me know how she is doing and the girls love talking to her on the phone.  I cringe when I think of that dirtbag stepfather of hers touching one of my little girls but I am thankful that in the end, April’s love for my girls stopped her nightmare of abuse and she got clean.

I started drinking when I was about 12. Both of my parents drank so there was always plenty of beer in the house. Mom and Dad worked but when they got home, the drinking started and so did the arguing. God, I hated to listen to that day after day. By the end of the night, I would be drawn into the arguing. They would either argue about me or something I was supposed to do or should do. So, one day before they got home from work, I grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator just to see what all of the fuss was about. I didn’t even finish that beer and I was feeling the effects. I understood why they called it a buzz. That night, when my parents argued, I thought it was kind of funny.

One beer soon became two and before I knew it I could down a six pack without thinking twice about it. By the time I was 16 I was drinking 10 cans of beer a night. I wasn’t doing real well in school and I had missed so many days that the school was threatening truancy action. I did get my driver’s license though which meant my friends and I could go cruising and drinking. So, that’s just what we did. I thought it was so cool…I thought I was so cool.

One of my teachers took me aside one day and asked if I was using drugs or alcohol. Of course, I never answered her. I just said “It’s no big deal” and walked away. That same night, my friends and I went out driving (and, of course, drinking). We had the music up and were laughing. We were having what I thought then was a good time. I was going around a curve and I reached back to grab a beer when I saw the truck’s headlights coming right at us. The next thing I knew it was 4 days later and I was in a hospital. My entire body hurt so badly I started to cry. They said I had a concussion, 3 broken ribs and a fractured pelvis. I also found out my best friend who was next to me in the front seat had died. I felt like dying too. How could I have been so stupid? I almost killed myself and I did kill my best friend. I have to live with that every day of my life, but I live with it sober now. I may have thought drinking was no big deal, but losing my friend sure was.