Drug Addiction Stories

Little girls only understand the black and white.  Things like alcoholism and disease are foreign concepts to little children and I was no different.  On alternating weekends, my parents and their friends used to go over to each other’s homes.  One Saturday they would come to our house and the next, we would go to theirs.  My sister and I were the same ages as their two girls.  Oh, we had great fun almost every time.  We kids would play.  The women would talk (and drink) and the men would play cards and drink.

He was a good man, a family man…but he was an alcoholic.

My favorite times were when we were allowed to spend the night over there because the alternative was riding home with Dad driving.  It terrified me.  I would crouch down in the back seat and try not to look at the way he was driving.  Back in the 60’s, there was an advertisement billboard, which had what appeared to be the back end of a car sticking out of the sign.  We called it the “Car in the sign”.  My father, in jest, said “Oh, someone had too much to drink and missed that turn!”  That was all it took.  I was a child, of course I believed him.

Those memories are still so very vivid to me even years after my Father is gone.  He was a good man, a family man…but he was an alcoholic.  Even as a young girl, getting into a car when he had been drinking literally terrified me.  I’m sure that affected who I was and who I became in many ways.  The blessing was we never did get into an accident.  I can’t account for that because there was so many times that my Dad was blind drunk and could barely walk.

I can remember being all of 7 or 8 years old and having the courage to tell my Father; “Daddy, when you drive and have been drinking, I’m scared.”  My Father held me tight and said something I’ll never forget.  He said “I’m sorry, kiddo.  I’m being the only kind of Father I know how to be.”  The alcohol was so much a part of him, he could not distinguish the fact that his drinking scared me, he didn’t.  And so, it continued and I knew that on alternating weekends, my friends had to deal with their Dad driving drunk.  Then there were the camping trips…

I vividly remember going into that hospital room every day and adjusting the ventilator on a patient known only as “Kathy”.  Kathy couldn’t talk, or move, or breathe.  She was in a coma due to an accident involving a drunk driver.  Medical personnel may seem cold and distant but I was not the only one who would talk to Kathy while I was in there.  I would swab her mouth so that it would not get too dry and I would apply Chap Stick to her lips

Driving while being drunk can cause fatal accidents. Call a taxi and save lives.

One day, I had heard they were making the person responsible for the crash come and see Kathy.  He was a relatively young man, about 24 or 25.  He and his friends had been celebrating his birthday and had gotten intoxicated.  Barreling down the interstate at 90 miles an hour, they crossed the median and hit Kathy’s car as she was driving home from work.  “Brian”, the intoxicated driver, got out with barely a scratch but Kathy’s prognosis was yet uncertain.

I saw him, along with a police officer approach Kathy’s room.  At first, he seemed to have no reaction but was hesitant to go in.  The police officer talked to him as they stood in that room.  I don’t know what he said but the impact of the situation must have hit him.  He put his head in his hands and began to sob.  Soon, he was saying “Oh, my God!” over and over.  It is odd how the person who does the drinking sometimes escapes injury while they leave a totally innocent person at death’s door.  I wondered if Kathy could hear him and if she could, what she would be thinking.

Brian could barely walk as they left the room.  Although it was sad to see him like that, I hoped it would bring him to stop drinking all together.  I am sure it was a scene he will never forget but was it enough to make him think how many other people suffer because of his drinking?  Drinking causes so many to suffer emotionally, spiritually, physically and mentally and that is before the accidents even occur.  Actually, I think Brian got lucky.  He didn’t have to explain to Kathy’s 7 year old daughter why he put her mommy into a coma.  Kathy hadn’t been drinking and yet her entire life was now changed because of alcohol.

-V.B.

I was one month into my new-found sobriety, I took the day shift at the restaurant, and I was back in good standings with my family.  I think more then anything they were just relieved that I had done something about my addiction.  I still battled these reoccurring dreams where I was using, I would wake up in the middle of the night sweating and feeling like my skin was crawling.  I tried to change other things around in my life, I joined a small gym to exercise, and was watching what I ate, but the dreams were still there.  They were very powerful and at times I would find myself planning out an entire night of getting up, sneaking out of my own apartment, going to find my dealer, and getting high for days on end.  I had all the excuses, reasons, and even the alibi’s planned out, so I would not be considered using.  Somehow, I managed to stay away; however, it was not until I was visiting a group of old friends from high school, whom I have not seen in years, where things went down hill again and even faster this time.

It was the middle of summer and a group of us were attending a beach party, it was almost like a small reunion.  There were people there that I have not seen in a very long time, and of course there were many new faces.  Just like any beach party, there was BBQ, loud music, and lots of booze; in fact, it looked like two liquors stores were cleaned out just for this party.  I was watching what I was drinking, but still I managed to get buzzed, I was on my sixth beer in three hours, but the sun and the alcohol was not a great mix.  The evening was starting to come and the group of friends I was with wanted to go hit the clubs, I reluctantly agreed, as I was doing pretty good up to this point.  Throughout the day I was not paying attention to the amount of alcohol my friends were drinking, I had assumed that they were all ok to drive, unfortunately I was wrong.  My friend JT got in the drivers seat along with one other guy, and I got in the back behind the passenger seat.

We were heading west bound towards downtown, I was reflecting back at how well I have been doing this past month, things were looking brighter for me.  I was caught in my daze when I heard a loud screeching noise, and my whole body jerked forward abruptly pulling me out of my daze.  After violently jerking forward my whole body slammed into the door and my head cracked the window.  Everything was blurry, the car was spinning, and I went blank.  The sounds of metal and glass shattering and crunching were the last things I heard.  I drifted back off into nothingness and thought of home, and again I was ripped out of my dream world, this time it was my family pulling me out and they were standing over me.

I came out of a drug-induced daze, and it took me a few minutes to adjust to my surroundings.  I was in a hospital room, and my family was standing around me.  The last thing I remembered was the loud sound of metal and glass breaking apart all around me.  I looked down, and my leg was wrapped up and was put in a brace. My father told me I had broken my leg, and was actually quite lucky to be alive.  I had also suffered a mild concussion and had some cuts and bruises over my face from the glass.   I asked my father what happened, and he told me that we had run a red light through a very busy intersection, and a garbage truck came through the intersections and hit us right in the middle of the car.  The impact was so strong that the car rolled over three times and was almost torn in half.  Witness on the scene told police the car was air born, and were shocked that anybody survived.  The fire department managed to pull me out along with the passenger who was in front of me.  They had to tear into the car using the jaws of life.  The only reason I am alive is because of where I was sitting in the vehicle.

My father told me that my friend who was sitting in the front passenger side is in the intensive care unit right now fighting for his life.  JT, my friend who was driving, he died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.  When the doctors did toxicology of his blood, they found that his blood alcohol concentration was over .08%.  I sat there in my bed not knowing what to think, I wanted to go back to my dream world of a good life.  This was completely unreal to me; my father said I was scheduled for surgery for my leg, which had been mangled pretty bad in the collision.  After my family was finished talking and visiting with me, the police had come in to ask me some questions.  They were conducting an investigation into the crash, because there was alcohol involved.  I told them the entire story, they simply nodded, no expression, taking notes at what I was saying.  For them this was not the first time doing this, and surely was not going to be the last.  I went into surgery and spent the next two weeks in the hospital recovering from my injury, learning how to walk on crutches, and just trying to get my head wrapped around what had happened.