Thank You All- Cleanguy

I am an addict, my name is Tim. I am grateful I didn't have to use my drug of choice today. There was a time in my life when I didn't have a choice on using, I had to. I remember that feeling of self loathing I had every time I used, but could not stop. I didn't run into meth until my thirties. I had recently re lapsed from a four year clean period in my life and was introduced to it by my dealer. It didn't take long until that was the only drug I wanted, it seemed to make me immune to any other kind of buzz I was trying to get. When my feet hit the floor in the morning I started looking for a foil, lighter and straw. At first it was fun but after I became mentally obsessed, physically compulsively and spiritually self centered it became a full time job. After becoming a window peeping zit picker for a few years, getting busted and still using, totally paranoid about everything and everybody, I finally got to the point that I couldn't do anything but use. By the time I got myself high enough to do anything I was seeing things. At that point I knew I was in a hopeless state. I could not go on using but I could not stop. I had to end it or get help. I was defeated. I went to a local hospital. My family got me in there. I told them I was a meth addict and I didn't know what I was going to do while I was in there. They asked me if I was homicidal, suicidal, and ready to do whatever I had to do to get clean. I said, "Hell yes!" I stayed ten days and walked out the door scared to death and wanting to stay clean, but not having a lot of faith in being able to. I started going to 12 step meetings of any kind and then after feeling different in AA, because I had a dope problem, I went to NA. I wasn't just any addict, I was a "meth" addict. Nobody could have hurt as bad as I did or could have went as low as I did. It took me a long time and a lot of sitting in the back of the rooms listening before I found out I was just the same as all the other people in the rooms. I just wanted to stop hurting and stop using. I know NA is not for everybody but it has worked for me. I have about 27 months clean and the overpowering urge to use I used to have has faded to a regretful thought. I have hope today. I am getting a little more freedom everyday I dot use. I am learning how to tell people what I am feeling.

AddictNamedTim

I became seriously addicted to meth when I was 19 years old. After I began using the drug, I kept a journal. I was obsessed with this journal and any time I could find time I would write in it. Here's a little bit of what I wrote down during the bad periods ... Today my mom asked me if I had anorexia. She said she has never known me to be this thin. I just stood there in my pants (safety pinned) and promised her that I did eat. I feel so bad, but I had to rush out before the painful heart beats kicked in. I luckily made it home and managed to get into the shower. The shower I missed when I woke up late for work. The shower that I couldn't stand up for. I did manage to get all of my panties into the shower with me. I didn't have any clean, but they are now. They are clean with Victoria's Secret "Sweet Temptation". God they smell so good all hung up to dry on my toothpaste rack and in random places in the shower. I'm wearing little see through butterfly shorts with a matching top. It looks so good. I tried to do a strip tease in front of the full length mirror, but I couldn't finish, so I lay on the floor. Keri probably feels so good right now because it has been a while for her. Not to mention, she has been eating. I wish that I could enjoy being skinny. It is what I have always wanted and I can't enjoy it. My stomach is growling horribly bad I don't feel hungry though, I feel sick. Like I want to throw up, but I know there is nothing in me. I'm empty and I have to be careful with everything I do or I might break. My heart hurts. It hurts to breath, to laugh, even to wear a necklace. I don't think I will hurt myself if I crawl. I love Paul. I wander if he knows something is wrong with me. He has to think something. I just wander what? I try not to let him feel my heart, but after about an hour or so of pillow talk and making love, I feel so dead. I have to tell him that I don't feel good. He thinks I have an eating disorder too. I fell down naked in his bathroom. I don't even know what possessed me to get out of bed, but I got up and went to his bathroom, shut the door, and fell on my book bag, the Polo one I put all of my "get ready stuff" in. I didn't turn on the light. It was a dark, cold minute before "Are you okay?" and he took me back to bed. He told me he would take me to the hospital if I wanted to go. I didn't reply and fell asleep. Nothings been said since. I had to go to ***** yesterday. I had the hardest time getting home because I decided to find my own way home since there were two cops sitting near the interstate. I will feel much better about cops when I pay my ticket. I will get my license back when I pay it. I hope so bad that I do. I hope I don't take all of my money to Justin's house. So ... I took my own way home and ended up in the town of ****** at the McDonalds near the college. My mom was worried because it had taken me so long and I still wasn't there. She thinks I went to work to type something on my way home. She has no idea that I stopped and got a milk shake to try to make myself feel better. The guy in line was flirting with me. I couldn't smile at him, it was too hard. I answered all of his questions in between grinding my teeth. I sat in my car and forced the disgusting milk shake down my throat. I didn't feel better until I did another one. I couldn't get the whole chick fill a biscuit down this morning, but I managed to eat the hash browns. The bad part is, I drove 30 minutes out of my way to go to chick fill house because I was craving a sweet tea. So, I was late to work. My hair still wet and no eye liner. Weird, I woke up on time. I need to start setting two alarm clocks because it is hard to get up when you crash. I have been okay today. Melissa asked me if I was sick when I walked in the door. I need to put makeup on, I just don't care. This town means nothing to me, not the people, not anything about it. I'm just here killing time until my lunch break. The lunch break I take daily. When I say I'm going to Brittany's to eat. Then I drive to the Wal-Mart and park. I love it, with music and cigarettes. I take care of my bag there. You know the one out of four in my makeup compact. It makes me work when I go back. Paul called twice today. Disappointing that he works until 1:00 tonight. Disappointing that I made a list of "what to pack" planned to tell Jean and Chris I was working in ***** overnight, but mostly because I wanted that bubble bath with my plumeria so bad. I would shave and oil. Paul wouldn't know I did it. When he got home, I would have on my AE white pants, and look cute. He would wander where I had been and I would let him, because to me, its important for him to think I did something on my Friday night. That's what I did last week, when he came home and me and Shaun were on the couch watching "The Sweetest thing". The girls in that movie remind me of how me and Keri used to be before this. They dance and go to clubs and have a lot of friends. We don't do any of that any more, I guess it's because we can't afford it. Today I decided to go to a different parking lot instead of Wal-Mart. What would people think if they saw me in the same place for an hour everyday? Would they suspect something? A white van, like the one I saw yesterday came through the parking lot. It kind of scares me, like I'm being watched or something. I try not to be obvious, but of course I'm going to look around as I make a perfect line on my three doors down cd. When I smiled at them they drove off, but this was not a normal smile. This was the one where I raise my eyebrows and show my teeth questioning, "Can I help "you". After they left, everything was fine. I love it when Melissa tells me she is shutting her door. That gives me the freedom to sit at my desk and stare. I hate it but I don't feel like talking to anyone. Its so bad because she is so excited about everything, about life in general. My Saturday nights are beginning to become routine. Pulling in the driveway, preying nobody is home. Lying alone in my bed. Keris is of course not home. She is almost always with Justin, because he is her first love. He is the "real thing". But I know something she don't know. Justin is her first big mistake when it comes to relationships. He's nice when he is okay, when he didn't heat that glass tube up for his nose, when he didn't use the foot long mirror to measure the white line. Then he doesn't make sense anymore. He's gone. Gone like I was last night in my cheer leading shorts and Paul's Abercrombie jacket. When I flipped through TV channels until my arm ached. When I put my phone on vibrate so it wouldn't be loud. When Keri's family got home I felt it vibrating once before I fell asleep. Justin must have been wondering where I was. I promised I would be at his house with fifty dollars so I could survive another week, but I couldn't get over there I couldn't move. Funny, I dreamed I was pregnant. All I could think about was how I would have an excuse to quit and a reason to eat. I wanted a cigarette so bad, but I didn't want to hurt mine and Paul's baby. John and I talked a long time at Justin's house. Its nice to know somebody feels the same way I do. Someone who wants to get out from under this as bad as I do. John said he was going to quit before this summer so that he won't be pale anymore. I like that idea. He said he never feels good either. I walked into Justin's house and everybody smiled. Shane sits on the chair measuring enough for my money on his little scale and everyone else playing play station. They are all so nice to me, and so willing to sell. I wish I stayed over there. Well, it's bad! I had my phone off to avoid talking to Jennifer this morning. She is not the best at knowing what to say and when to say it when I'm lying in the bed with Paul, who doesn't know what is going on. I turned it on at 1:00, this afternoon, when I crawled out of bed to check my messages. The one that was bad was from Keri. She was crying hard and begging me to call her. I did and it happened this morning, when Justin told her to make sure he got up for his second day at his new job, the job his parents insist he has in order to have the house, their old house that they gave to him. He didn't answer, never woke up until she showed up at his house, cursed at him and told him to get his ass up. His dad came over and took him ... He took him to rehab because of all of the stuff laying around in the living room. The opened briefcase with all of the bags, the glass pipe, and the glass tube.

He cried. We cried

Babyjk

My Nephew's Meth Story My Nephew Josh well he had a rough life, coming from a broken home, having a younger brother that his Mother gave up for adoption, in which my parents adopted. Their parents had separated while she was pregnant, and my brother was in and out of jail. So Josh grew up with his Mother, in which she was very fond of drugs of all sorts, but mainly Crystal. The boys knew each other and they knew they were brothers, and they knew who their Dad was and their Mom. As Josh grew up his Mother lived with several different men, had a 3rd child in which she kept. As the years went by, we always said "Josh was a street kid". Most of his Mother's boyfriends beat the shit out of him. His Mother was always strung out, in which Josh would have to stay home from school to watch his younger sister. I don't think he got a very good education. As Josh grew up he started doing drugs, pot first, then others things; however his drug of choice became Meth. And I think his addiction really Kicked in when he found out his Father (my brother) had Aids. He was pretty devastated. Josh would always come and stay with me and my family, we never had a problem with him stealing or anything, except I would never have enough food, he hate like a horse. As time went on I started learning of his abuse, and seen him becoming very skinny, and lost his job as a union brick layer for starters. One night I remember sitting in my kitchen and talking with him ( I did not know that he was as high as a kite, I don't know much about meth) I don't remember what we were talking about, but he just comes out of left field and was like " I am going to play pro baseball" I kinda chuckled, he says "what you don't think I am good enough" I said "No I didn't say that, I know you are pretty good and smart at the game" Well that night came and left. And about 2 weeks later him and his brother ( my adopted brother) they were in the parking lot of my condo complex, and I could hear them yelling at each other, and my brother (adopted) came inside and was like" Josh and I are going to go cruising around" I asked "what the hell was going on" he said "that Josh was dope sick and wanted to go back out to were he lived so he could score and he wasn't going to let him" So basically he was going to baby-sit all night. Well not knowing what the term dope sick meant I was like" well his he throwing up?" I had notice over the course of this time which was probably was about a year or more that Josh was different. Being as naive as I am I just thought he was depressed? After that night I didn't see Josh for about 3 months. I was of course worried. Then one night I got a knock at my door and it was Josh, he asked me if could talk to me on the front porch, so I stepped outside. He said "I want you to know I stop doing that shit" I was like "what shit" he was like "Meth" I said "well that is great, how did you do it" he said that "he just cold turkey'd it" and that he was living with his grandma because he couldn't go out to where he lived anymore. I said " well Josh if you can beat this and win, you can do anything you put your mind too, and that I understood that it wasn't easy to do this" He said "No it isn't easy, but I am just tired" I gave him the biggest hug I could, and let him know that he was more than welcome to stay here if he needed. I had the chills like I had never had before that night. About a week later, he came back over and told me that he has enlisted in the Navy. I was like "Wow!" He said that he didn't really have a home and this just seemed like the best alternative. And as of June 2004 he went to basic training, and made it. Now he lives on the Carl Vinson Aircraft Carrier, and is on a 6 month deployment, going to like 11 counties, and delivering bombs to Iraq. He is doing quite well; he works on the flight deck. He said that it is like summer camp and he loves it. It blows his mind to think that this time last year he was a Meth head and had no direction. Now he has a career. The point of my story, is for all of you that don't see a silver lining and just see yourself as worthless, YOUR NOT you were put on this Earth for a purpose. I hope that there are more good stories like my Nephew's. Every one of you are capable, you just have to be strong in you hearts and minds.

Someone Sky knows...

God Bless You All

Anonymous in Missouri