I had promised to post a topic on drugs a few days ago, but in actuality I had already created it last month when this site began because this is a topic that should not be overlooked. The reason being, for me, drugs were so horribly devastating and their nature so cruelly incidious, that in order to overcome my past I had to face the issue of drugs and not sweep them under the rug as I was so tempted to do. In my life, there were long term effects with no easy short term answers. At age fifteen, when I met John, I had already smoked pot and in fact pot was a medium that John used to get closer to me. Once our relationship was established, I was not allowed to smoke pot anymore, except on those occassions when he brought it home and we actually did go through a period of not smoking anything at all. At that time drugs were not important to me. What was important, I thought, was that I felt as though I was in love with John and John was (possessively), in love with me. The drugs came back into my life when John brought them in and in the end he brought not only pot, but cocaine and freebase, and he brought them in with a vengence.
I can't deny the effects cocaine and freebase had on my system. I was emaciated and many times craved it to take away the pain that my reality had become. Eventually, after getting away from John, I rejected any kind of drug in my life blaming them for every horrible thing that he ever did to me. But there was still alcohol...and depression...and fear...and insecurity. Those crippling elements that remained behind and took me years to filter through.
Today I am clean AND sober and I have been for many years. I also have had years of counseling. The issues of depression, shame, guilt, remorse and post traumatic stress syndrome were so severe that the only true relief for me was to muster the courage to confront my past and my pain, clearing the road to learn and grow. It is what has worked for me.
I will never underestimate the damage that drugs can create in a person's life. In writing my book, it was of the uttmost importance for me to honestly detail the path, the seemingly harmless road, that drugs lured us down. My story unfolds in the late seventies and early eighties. No one really knew how high a price we would all have to pay back then. It is my understanding that Cocaine Anonymous wasn't even established until 1981, the year of the Wonderland Murders. Today, as a survior, I find myself in the obvious role of passing down my story, perhaps offering a more educated view of the truth behind the seduction of drugs.
Take care of yourselves. Value yours and other's lives. We are all worth it and for those times that it may not seem like it, remember life has much more to offer than any drug can supply.
Blessings, Dawn