Drug Addiction Stories & Info

I am a mother who has three teenage children.

6 years ago I became addicted to narcotics prescribed to me for a back injury. I began abusing these drugs.  My drug use escalated quickly, and my parenting skills deteriorated just as rapidly. I am hoping that by explaining my story that I may be able to help you avoid some of the heartache that I have experienced.

Although I swore to myself that I would never forsake my children for the drugs, I soon found myself doing just that. I stopped being the attentive, involved, loving, caring, responsible, content mother that I had been for many years. I was able to hide the drug use for awhile, saying I was just tired, etc, but just never feeling 100% “there” for the kids. Then it proressed to that I started sleeping late in the mornings, neglecting to get them up for school or to make their lunches.  I was once actively involved in heading up every organization or team that they joined, and I quit doing all that because I was exhausting my body with the drug use.  I had no energy to involve myself with their lives, and soon found myself losing touch with what they were interested in or what their lives outside were like. I became very selfish, irritable and emotional. I stopped trying to even appear interested in them or what they had to say. I made errors, lost things, forgot to cook dinners, left them home unattended for extended periods of time, or spent excessive periods of time sleeping off the effects of the drugs while they were home, leaving them there to amuse themselves.  Eventually they would start looking after themselves as they couldn’t count on me. All these drugs did was make me tired and zombie-like, wanting to sleep. Not the picture of the mother I once was at all.

The end result has my life looking and feeling like a war-zone.  My children were taken out of my custody by my ex-husband who by this time had filed for divorce.  My eldest, a son, and I had so many heated and violent arguments and battles during the time of my drug abuse that he has completely cut me out of his life.  I don’t blame him one bit.   I have not spoken to him in 2 and a half years.  Thankfully I still have my two younger children who are still present in my life, but of course treat me as I deserve: without trust and at arms length to some degree.
I have been in rehab now for 6 months and am working towards building these relationships back up.  It has been the most difficult thing I have ever done and I have no idea how it will all turn out but I have hope and help from great people.

My children used to be the center of my world. Drugs took their place.  Not anymore.  I AM BACK and stronger than ever!!

I am hoping that by reading this you might see somewhere in there a little bit of anything that might resemble your life,  and then see what could happen, once the drug use gets out of control.  And believe me, it does get out of control. I managed to be the ‘weekend warrior’ drug user for a while,  always thinking I could control it, but it doesn’t take long until drugs are running your life.

L.V.

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.