By Bella
It all started when I got arrested for shoplifting in February 2012, about three months before my high school graduation. I had a lot going on emotionally and had done some stupid things that led to my taking a mental health break from school and starting an outpatient treatment program.
A few days after the arrest, I snuck onto school property in the middle of the night. I remember it was a Tuesday. There was no good reason; it was just something to do. And part of my entitlement attitude led me to believe I had a right to sneak onto our school’s roof, where there was an amazing skyline view. The same night, the school was sprayed with graffiti. I didn’t do it, but I got the blame. (Years later, some kids from a different school would confess to it.)
The next day, while I was in my outpatient program, my parents (my mom and stepdad, who raised me) were called into school and told I was not allowed back. I found out when they came to pick me up. I can’t tell you how humiliating it was. And as a part of being expelled, the school strongly encouraged them to send me to inpatient treatment. (By the way, I was the third kid to get kicked out and put into rehab that year.) So instead of going home, they took me straight to another facility. I was the youngest person in this program—not quite eighteen. It was a halfway house where we had group therapy daily, attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings nightly, and lived with therapists who provided twenty-four-hour counseling. It was there that I was informed I was a drug addict. I fought that diagnosis. Yes, I was smoking marijuana daily, but I honestly didn’t consider myself an addict. I had done LSD once and ecstasy twice, but that was the extent of my drug use.
I left the inpatient program in May 2012, around graduation time. I didn’t get to attend the graduation ceremony, although I did receive my diploma that October. I was completely sober from drugs at this point. I was living at home, waitressing and attending Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings every night. I was still drinking, though; in my mind, I never had a problem with alcohol.
At the same time, I had been having panic attacks about never being able to smoke weed again. It was a medicine for me. I lied in NA about my drinking. I was drug-free but still drinking. I continued to pick up my chips marking my sobriety. I didn’t feel bad about lying. I was told I was an addict and had to live sober or would be institutionalized. My parents put this persona on me, and I had to live up to it. I really felt it was a survival thing. If my parents knew I wasn’t sober, I wouldn’t be able to finish high school or live at home. I had to lie, so I didn’t feel guilty at all. I just didn’t drink at home. I drank after work but made sure I was sober when I went home.
On my eight-month anniversary of being drug-free, I smoked weed again for the first time since treatment. This was October 2012. Having graduated high school, I was planning to start college the following January. I didn’t think smoking weed would lead to a downward spiral. I spent eight months in NA and drank the entire time. When you’re in NA, you’re supposed to hang out with others in NA. When I got out of rehab, I continued to hang out with them and proceeded to try the drugs they did.
Why did I relapse like that? I think in part it was because I felt really unheard and alone, and like nobody understood me. I was being told I had a diagnosis, and because I was under eighteen, I felt I couldn’t stand up and say it didn’t sound right. And, of course, every addict in treatment says that.
In December 2012, I was arrested for DUI.
A month later, I started at Georgia State as a film student. My parents thought that if I moved into a dorm, it might put me on the right path. So I did, but I didn’t know anyone there and felt so alone, anxious, and depressed—even though I was studying what I wanted to and had everything paid for. I was looking for some kind of escape. I didn’t talk to my parents about my feelings. I didn’t think they would know what to do with that idea.
Then one night in February 2013, a boy from rehab texted me and asked if he could stay on my couch. He had been kicked out of his apartment because his roommate found syringes. He had heroin with him, and I asked if I could try it. I was hooked by the third time I did it.
For the next year and a half, I did heroin every day. I dropped out of GSU and got a refund on my tuition—without my parents’ knowledge. I took the money and bought enough drugs to last me about six weeks. I pretended to go to class every day. I also applied to Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) in Atlanta. During that time, I introduced heroin to my best friend, Maddie. I wanted her to try what I had fallen in love with, so I bought her a small bag of the substance. We would snort it for fun. About a year into my heroin use, I met a boy and fell in love. He taught me how to use a needle.
When you do heroin for about three months, you get to a state where if you’re not giving it to your body, you go into withdrawal—like a flu times ten. That’s when all hell broke loose. I started breaking into my parents’ house, writing fraudulent checks, shoplifting, stealing food to eat as well as electronics to pawn, and spending all my money on heroin. It was a quick progression.
My parents knew. There was an incident when I was parked in front of their house and fell asleep with my head on the steering wheel. A neighbor’s kid saw me and thought I was dead. I woke up to firetrucks and police at my car window. My parents took me to a drug testing facility not accessible to MARTA. They expected me to fail, but I faked the drug test and passed it. Still, they didn’t believe me when I said I was not on drugs and put me back into rehab. They gave me an ultimatum: either treatment or a one-way MARTA ticket. It was tough love.
I decided to go to treatment. I moved into a residential program for three years. You’d form your own halfway houses with others in rehab. The first year, I cut everyone out of my life who was not in rehab. I cut out all my friends I was shooting heroin with, including the boyfriend who gave me my first dose. The only person I refused to cut out of my life was Maddie. She would visit me in treatment and pick me up after my group therapy sessions. I started living cleanly. I didn’t realize how miserable I had been until the end of my initial intensive forty-five days. I started feeling happier again and more like myself. When I came into rehab, I had been living out of my car. I never ate, so I was impossibly skinny. Before, I woke up every day thinking about who I would steal from. I had a $150-a-day habit and no job. Now, I was waking up not feeling sick or wondering who to steal from. I fought really hard to never get back there again. I still do.
Six months into treatment, I got a call that Maddie passed away from a heroin overdose. During the last conversation we had, she told me she wanted to get sober, but her parents just didn’t have the resources to put her into treatment. Around the time Maddie passed, SCAD responded to my application. I had been accepted. I started college again a few months later, in 2015.
I have buried a lot of friends, and I carry a lot of guilt. The guilt from Maddie’s death really helped to keep me sober. I attended fifteen funerals in the first three years after rehab. The oldest was twenty-nine; the youngest, seventeen.
And then I guess it got to the three-year mark, and everyone I got high with was either dead or in recovery—except for the boyfriend I had fallen in love with while I had been using. He had been in prison. The check fraud I committed caught up with him, and he had a few run-ins with the law following that. After about three and a half years in recovery, I reached out to him. I heard he was out of prison, and I wanted to make amends for the part I played. We reconnected and figured out we still had feelings for each other. Three months later, he relapsed on heroin and never woke up from his high. I was completely devastated. That was another big factor in keeping me sober. He died on December 3, 2017. It was close to my four-year mark of sobriety. That was probably the lowest I had ever been. I tried to get heroin again. I wanted to kill myself with it, because all my friends had died. I hit up five or six people. Not a single person got back to me. All were either dead or in prison. I got through that deep grief and haven’t wanted to use a substance again. His passing is what closed that chapter of my life and started a new chapter one.
A few months after he died, I graduated from SCAD and had three job offers. I fought really hard, pulled myself up, and made a conscious decision that I wasn’t going to kill myself. Heroin used to be something fun, and now it equals suicide in my mind.
Today, I don’t consider myself either sober or a drug addict. I don’t want to put a label on it or put myself into a box. I stay away from opioids. I’ll have a half glass of wine once in a while. I don’t go out to bars with friends; instead, I stay home and watch TV most nights. I spend a lot of time with my parents. There is still a lot of pain and hurt and rebuilding, but we have built a strong, loving relationship. I have a great job and can pay for my own place, which I share with two little bunnies.
I like to volunteer my time, and the biggest part of my service work is sharing my story. I go to my old school and others, and I work with addiction programs. I don’t want other people to go through what I did. If I can save someone else that pain, that would be cool. If I have one message, it’s to be honest with yourself. Don’t cover up your feelings; reach out. Grasp onto support. Just being aware of your emotions makes a world of difference.
I don’t give myself rules to live by other than living honestly and treating everyone with love and respect.