Drug Addiction Stories

I was sitting in the restaurant having lunch with my girlfriends that Saturday he came up and gave me a big hug.  He smiled charmingly at my friends as I introduced them.  Before I could say who he was, he told them all I was his baby sister.  They looked at me questioning. 

Yes, this was my brother.  This was the guy who had done drugs for the last ten years, who could not hold a job, who had gotten to the point where all he did was sit home and snort crack.  He noticed my ring, the reason why my friends and I were out that day, a celebration of my engagement as we planned the wedding. 

“What?  Stacy, you have been married about six times already, come on.”  My girlfriend, Carla, leaned in and asked “He really doesn’t know you very well to be your brother, does he?”

No, he did not.  My brother had left mentally years ago.  He put drugs ahead of family, he was not there for our mother’s surgery or our father’s funeral.  He only called one of us when he needed money or to be bonded out of jail.  Daryl just could not be bothered by anything except getting his next fix.

He asked when I was getting married and I told him on our dad’s birthday.  He shrugged and hugged me and said, “Call me.”  How could I call someone who did not have a phone?  Who did not ask how our mom was, how the rest of the family was, and who could not even keep himself straight from day to day.

Then he leaned in and whispered that he needed me to take care of his dinner bill.  He left his wallet at home, he claimed.  He handed me the ticket without waiting for an answer and kissed me on the cheek then told his waitress his baby sister was taking care of his tab. 

That is what having a big brother on crack does.  You only see him when he wants something, he tells lies, he can not remember his own little sister has never been married and he hits you up for money one way or the other even if it is not to pay directly for his drugs.

My friends leaned in and hugged me or touched my hand and said “It’s okay.”  A couple of them had family members who had been into drugs and they understood.  They promised to get me through any future storms with my brother if they occurred.   Still, as I watched Daryl walk away and pulled out an extra twenty dollar bill to pay for his lunch, I felt a touch of sadness as I realized that my big brother had probably already forgotten seeing me in just those few minutes.

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.

I never knew that tough love was the greatest love of all until a couple of years ago. I deeply resented my parents for their divorce and the fact that my mother moved us halfway across the country to her home state. My dad was always traveling for work and she wanted to be close to family. I did not care. I was pissed.

The other girls stared at me at school. So did the boys. My brother and sister were younger than me and neither was in high school. I was a junior and I hated starting in a new school. I heard a prissy cheerleader whisper to her friends and then laugh. I turned beet red. I just knew they were talking about me.

At lunch I looked around and that same cheerleader came up to me and asked if I wanted to join her table. Thinking I had totally misunderstood earlier I said sure. She just looked at me and said “Keep dreaming”. I decided then and there that every movie ever made about rude cheerleaders was based on her.

Someone else came up and asked if I wanted to join her table. She looked a little gothic but she was nice. She invited me to a party that weekend. I started getting high and my own life did not seem so bad.

At first my mom was glad I had made friends but she smelled pot on me one night and threw a fit, forbidding me to leave the house. I was furious and snuck out anyway. I tried crack that night at the party. Sure enough, my mom was waiting for me when I got home. I was busted but good. I turned it around on her, though and told her if she had not divorced my dad and moved us to this crummy town, it never would have happened. She looked crestfallen and sent me to my room. I eventually fell asleep with tears running down my face.

The next day I heard voices outside my room. The crazy part was I could swear one of them was my dad. It was. My mom had called him and he had flown out to help her straighten me out. They united together in tough love and got me into treatment that afternoon.

My parents are still divorced and we still live a ways from my dad but I realized while in treatment that I still have two parents who love me. I have been clean for nearly two years now and I am going to college close to where my dad lives next semester. He was at my graduation, sitting right next to my mom with my brother and sister on either side of them.

Tough love. It is the greatest type of love in the world. I know because I have the parents who cared enough to use it.