METHING UP YOUR LIFE WITH METH...A STORY OF SURVIVAL
11/9/07
Billboards now line streets in every town with the statement, "Don't Meth Up Your Life." While most people pass these signs without a second though, I am always reminded of how meth nearly took away everything I loved. Yet, I am one of the lucky ones. Maybe the only former meth addict who was able to put it down and walk away, with only my love and devotion to my family to carry me through the darkest days of my life.
It all started years earlier when I began smoking marijuana. I still remember the programs at school swearing that marijuana was a "gateway drug" that could lead to things such as cocaine or heroin addictions. Meth had not yet been created or dispersed when I left high school. I never heard about it until it was too late, I was already high and in a very bad place in my life.
You know, it is true what they say about meth. The first hit you take, you are hit. You feel so good about yourself that you could never believe you are ruining your life. It was only two weeks before I knew, without a doubt, that I was hooked and had one foot in the grave. I was only 24 years old and had four children who depended on me to make all the right choices. Because of meth, I began making all the wrong choices, somehow falsely believing that I could justify them.
I still clearly remember someone telling me, during an eight day binge, that if I knew what was in meth, I would never touch it again. His expression was priceless as I looked into his eyes and told him very calmly that it was too late, I was hooked and going to die because of this drug. The shock on his face surprised me. After all, he was my dealer and the one supplying this poison to me.
For six months, I used meth every chance I had. My warm, funny personality inadvertently pushed me up the food chain, as I like to call it. I was introduced to those higher and higher up the distribution list. Before I knew it, I was sitting in a $600,000 house with the supplier of four counties, smoking more meth than I had ever seen at one time. I recall a time when I looked at those around me and said, "if I smoke one more hit, my heart will explode and I will die." I waited five minutes and hit it again.
My wake up came from walking into a bar at 3:00 a.m. one morning and literally running into my best friend. The look of horror in her eyes as she looked at me still haunts my mind, four years later. I rushed home and looked in the mirror. I finally saw what everyone else had been seeing for weeks. My skin had a green tint to it from the chemicals, my face was pale and pasty, and my hair was falling out. I was the living dead. I knew I had to quit right then and there.
No more trips to the dealers houses, and thankfully, they had no way to contact me since I always went to them. For two weeks, I laid in bed with the equivalent of a migraine, physically unable to stay awake. When I was awake, I felt like I was in the "Twilight Zone". Voices sounded so far away, despite the speaker sitting right next to me. Everything I looked at seemed to shake or vibrate. I thought to myself that I stopped too late, I was still going to die.
I slowly began to eat a little more each day. I had lost over 60 pounds in a four month time frame. My bones were showing through my thinning skin. I was so weak that I could hardly sit on the edge of the bed. I could only eat a few bites of food at a time, as my stomach struggled to regain the ability of processing food. Yet, as each day passed, I became a little stronger, I ate a little more, and my thoughts became a little more clear. I was going to survive this hell.
It has know been four years since those dark days. I refer to it as the time I almost killed myself. Since then, I have worked hard to get two Associate degrees, a great job, and moved into a beautiful house with my family. Life is now what I never thought it could be. I was even rewarded for my hard efforts by giving birth to another child after having a tubal ligation. He is just that much more inspiration to continue down this path of doing what it is right.
I hear people say all the time that they admire my determination and strong will. I so badly want to tell them that they would never want to experience the hell I have that made me so strong. I would not wish my experience on anyone. It is definitely a part of my life that I would like to forget, but every time I see those billboards I am reminded of the time I almost died.
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This post contributed by Shanna Coon - a writer at Helium.com
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