One Last Hit #6 w/ Nicole G | Heroin, Meth Addiction and Losing Everything Propelled Her Into Sobriety

 Nicole G. grew up in Phoenix, Arizona , born to an alcoholic father and a drug-addicted mother who had no business raising a child. The only stability she ever knew came from her grandparents, and when her grandfather died, the last anchor she had slipped away. What followed was a decade-long spiral that touched almost every stop on the map: drinking, opiates, heroin, dealing, a home invasion, a high-speed police chase through residential Phoenix, a night in jail in a Chipotle uniform, and a relapse the same day she left her first rehab. She didn't have a dramatic rock-bottom moment , she had a hundred of them. The aunt who busted down her bedroom door. The glass in her hair from a crash she barely remembers. The moment she sat high in an AA meeting telling herself she was fine.

Today, Nicole is 12 years sober. She's married, a stepparent, and one of Haley's closest friends. Her story isn't about one breaking point — it's about how long a person can survive on empty before they finally let someone help them fill it back up. This is the One Last Hit Podcast. 

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Transcript

Intro & The Sausage Party Text

SPEAKER_04 1:17

Oh man, you guys are in for it today. What's happening, everybody? My name is Austin. Welcome to the One Last Hit Podcast. Joining me today, very special guest, Ms. Nicole G. Nicole, what's happening?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

What's up? How you doing?

SPEAKER_04 1:30

Dude. Oh man, I'm good. I'm good. So Nicole's uh like best friends with my wife, and and and Haley texted Nicole to to see if she would come on the podcast. And do you want to tell everyone what you replied back with?

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Um I said, yeah, let's get some clam in the sausage. What did I call?

SPEAKER_04 1:50

Yeah, you said let's get some clam in the sausage part. What was so funny was Haley's phone was on the counter and my 15-year-old, who's like one of us, it's fine. Yeah, she was the first one to read it. And Haley goes, What did Nicole say? And Maddie goes, Oh, you should probably read that one yourself. Dude, it was it was awful. And I'm so glad that we have you here. And the only thing I know about your story is that Haley said you were fucking nuts when you came through the door.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

I keep I keep thinking about that. Um, she always used to say I was like the weird Barbie because I had like half of my head shaved. That was a very big thing though, back when I got sober. It was like the Rihanna like side shave haircut thing.

SPEAKER_04 2:33

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

And I remember when I did that, it was before I went to treatment because I was like, I don't have a job, I have nothing going on, I have no reason to like look respectable, so may as well shave my head. So I did that. Um, and that's what I was rocking when she first met me in the halfway house. But yeah, I mean, I was I was a totally different person than I am now.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

My second wife, um, the schizophrenic lesbian, she uh no, that's I shouldn't refer to her that way. That's terrible.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

How many wives are we on now?

SPEAKER_04 3:05

Well, uh three. Uh Haley is my third wife. That's okay. My job's on the five. Haley's my final wife. Yeah, I'm I don't have energy for for that sort of thing anymore. Um uh but she she was like, yo, should I shave the side of my head? And and she did it, and I really liked it. Like I dug it. It was it was a thing for a while.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

So it was a thing. Yeah, it was.

SPEAKER_04 3:26

So we're gonna hear we're gonna hear all about the ways that you destroyed your life. And I want everyone to know how long you sober, Nicole, long time.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Oh my gosh. So next almost 12 years. Next month it'll be 12 years, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:41

Okay, so 12 years sober, Nicole wanted to make sure there were no wrinkles in her bed. Uh video. We're gonna hear about, you know. That's so funny. I know it's great, it's great. So let's let's kick it off, man. What uh how'd you start life, man? Where'd you grow up?

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Oh man, I'm from Phoenix, Arizona. Uh, if you can't tell by all of my fun tattoos I'm doing lately, yeah. I'm like starting a desert theme. Cool. Um, I didn't have any of this. It's an alien. You have it's a yeah, it's a UFO.

SPEAKER_04 4:13

Yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

It's fun, right? Um Phoenix, Arizona, the born in the desert, heat of the desert. Um, I was born to an alcoholic and a drug addict. So that is kind of what set me up for life. Um yeah, and I talk about this in my story because I think it's very important. Um, I didn't really understand all the things that went into I think making me an addict and an alcoholic and whatever I am. Um, but I know that that's where it started. So I was born into a family of addiction and alcoholism on both sides, and they were still very much in their disease when they had me. Probably no business having a baby at that point. Um, but you know, that was their choice. Uh I was born and raised there my whole life until I ended up moving to Florida and uh getting sober.

SPEAKER_04 5:05

What did that feel like as a kid? Being, I mean, did you know that your parents were like getting fucked up all the time?

SPEAKER_01 5:12

So, and this is the story I tell everybody too, and the way I the story that I know is what I've heard from my parents, right? So there's always this side, that side, and the truth. So everybody experiences it differently for what what their life is at that point, right? So my dad, and this is the story, sorry, I'm stuck. This is the story that they tell everybody, or my dad always told everybody was that my dad met my mom at Home Depot, and she was working at Home Depot. Um, and he was 26 and she was 19. So he picked up a younger chick. Um, they fell in love right from there, and then they were inseparable. Um the alcoholism for my dad was we'll say manageable to the point where he could still work and still like maintain some sort of life. Um, but he very much had like youngest child man baby syndrome where he was like enabled by his parents, blah, blah, blah. Um, but my mom was like super fucked up from her own childhood. Um, and I don't not to like put her on blast, but like she experienced some serious trauma when she was young. Um, and it happened within the family. So with her dad and her, there was some weird shit going on um that really like traumatized her.

SPEAKER_03 6:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

And she started drinking and using from an early age. Um, she had my older sister when she was like 15. So she was a baby having babies, and then she just kept having babies. Um, so I was my mom's second baby, and I guess like, and in Arizona, like meth is always really big. Can we talk about like actual substances?

SPEAKER_03 6:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Okay. So methamphetamines were huge in Arizona, still are. I'm sure they're big everywhere, um, but especially out there. Uh, that was, I guess, her drug of choice for a long time. Um, she was using it supposedly, like when around the time I was born. She denies it. Um, everybody else in my family says that she was using while she was pregnant. I don't know, whatever. Um, all I know is that I came out um with like severe ADHD. So I don't I don't know if that like has something to do with it, but um they got married. My mom was pregnant in their wedding video. When I was a little kid, I used to go and I used to find this wedding video because I was living with my grandparents like intermittently half the time. And I used to go and like dig through like the family cabinet, and I would find this like wedding video for my mom and dad. And they were young, it was in the backyard. My mom was wearing a pink dress, pregnant with me, probably like six or seven months. Um, and I remember looking at it and thinking she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my entire life because I didn't have her in my life. Um, that's what addiction did to my mom. So when I was like eight months old, my parents were already separated. Um, and that caused my mom, not that, but her addiction caused her to lose her parental rights over me. So the story goes, my dad went to pick me up one time, and I was in the backseat of her car, and she was just like loaded out of her mind, and I was like screaming in the car seat. So he snatched me out of the car and said, You're never seeing your fucking daughter again. Uh kick rocks, basically. That's and that's obviously I don't remember this, but that was my start, I guess. Um that actually led to that's the dysfunction, right? Like that's that's the type of dysfunction. Um, and that's I think where the start of the hole in my heart happened. And I have a bunch of like weird random memories of like seeing my mom in childhood. Um, because I guess at some point my dad decided to go against the court order and just like let her see me, like here and there. I remember moments of when my dad like wanted to go do some random thing, like get his nipples pierced, so he would drop me off at my maternal grandma's house. Hey, can you watch the kids? So there was like some contact, but it was so like dysfunctional and infrequent. Um, at one point, I was staying at my mom's house. I was like five years old. She's having other kids at this point. She's got other husbands. Her husband at that point was a meth cook who was in and out of prison. And the story goes that they were, this is not Vaseline, this is an AirPods case. I'm not the story goes, they were like living in this house, and he was like cooking meth like in the house, and the kids have like weird fucked up teeth from it, and like it's whatever. Um, but I was at that house, like visiting her. I remember trauma from that. I remember visiting her at a random apartment one time, and some dude broke in and was like smashing the dishes and beating the shit out of her. I was like two years old, like two and a half years old, like smashing everything, breaking everything in the house. And he was wearing a pink shirt and his name was Sam, because I don't know why I remember this. It was like an old boyfriend. It's trauma, right? Like as a little kid, like that's some of my earliest memories. Um, and then all I remember is my big sister, who's four years older than me, um, just scooping me up because I was standing in the hallway and I'm just like crying like this, like like watching everything, just horrified of what's happening in front of me. And I remembered little arms just like scooping from behind me and just dragging me like down the hallway. And then I remember the sliding closet and my big sister pulling me in and putting me on top of her and closing it. And I just remember her saying, Shh, shh, it's okay, it's okay.

unknown 10:40

Shh.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

So you have these children who are already experiencing such a level of dysfunction. Everyone's in survival mode. My mom's in survival mode. She's, you know, a young addict at this point, and she doesn't doing the best she can, right? So these types of memories, that's what I

Grandpa Was Her Only Safe Harbor

SPEAKER_01 11:01

grew up with. Um varying degrees, but I don't remember much else from that except that my grandpa showed up to come get me. So my dad's dad is this important character. Um, and my grandparents were kind of my like safety net my whole life. Um, and then eventually that story ends with both of them dying. So I had some normalcy and some togetherness, like as a child. Um, and then eventually that goes away. So my story is just consistently an empty hole in my heart that I wanted to have a mother. Um being profoundly influenced and changed by that. Uh watching the wedding video, also, you know, sneaking up out of bed in the middle of the night to go like find a family album with pictures of my mom in it when I was like five or six years old, and just looking at her and being sad, like shit like that. Uh just empty whole, confused, no control. Don't know why things are happening to me. And then there's my dad who's um kind of in and out. Uh, I would live with him sometimes. He would sometimes be able to pay rent on his apartment. Uh, we would live with different girlfriends, and I would live with his different wives. Uh, he's on wife number six right now. He is at this point where he refers to them as W. So W2, W four, W six. It's probably insane, dude.

SPEAKER_04 12:32

Yeah, dude. I heard somebody the other day who called I forget the speaker's name, man, but he called he called his first wife God's will number one. That's what he was calling. And God's will number two. Like, oh my God. But anyhow, sorry, back. How old were you when when your grandparents passed?

SPEAKER_01 12:47

So my grandpa passed when I was 12. So he passed much sooner than my grandma. Um, but he was like the strong male like figure that was really stable and kind, and like his presence was just so funny and fun and like loving. And like that's what I remember about my grandpa is like everybody loved him. He was awesome. He was fun. That's my cat.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Hello.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Um, but uh I was 12, and the thing that I really remember about it, he was a World War II veteran. Um, there was maybe some shit about like them testing like mustard gas on him, and that like led to like some cancer. We were looking into like suing whatever. I don't know. Um, but he developed esophageal cancer. I knew he was sick when I was a kid. Um, I was also going through my own shit at that age too. So I don't know why nobody really told me what was happening. He was dying, they tried treatments, it wasn't working. Um there was an end date. I'm I'm guessing everybody else knew about it. But for me, the way I found out that it was happening was uh we started going to the hospital more and more. Um, my dad had gone through, I think, his third divorce at that point. Uh, so he was actually staying in one of the bedrooms at my grandparents' house and I was living there. I think he had like left me there for a while because it was like kind of staple when I was in school, whatever. Um but one night um I remember and I had broken my leg because my dad took me skiing for the first time. That was his Christmas present, was he bought me a lift pass. Um, in Arizona, there's this ski place called Snowball. He, I'm sure, was drunk. He was he was always drinking, right? Um, last run of the day, I was tired. Uh, I didn't have any ski lessons. I was figuring it out. Um, but my dad's way to teach me how to ski was to just put me at the top and send me down. There was no like pizza french fries, you know, bunny hill shit. Yeah, it was like, well, you're gonna do it. You're gonna do it. So last run of the day, um, I'm tired. I didn't want to do it anymore. I hit a tree and I broke my I broke my leg. And um the ski basically like clipped the tree like at the perfect point where it bent my leg like this. And it broke my I broke my tibia, I broke my fibia, I broke my ankle, I broke another bone in my ankle. Uh, but I didn't hit the tree. I was like this far away from hitting the tree. And somehow behind the tree was a guy who was like with the ski patrol and had a radio. And like the tree that I hit already had like a medical professional waiting at it. And then they took me down, got me whatever. Um, that's a whole story in itself. But that's also the unmanageability of like my father's alcoholism, is like making unsound choices, putting me in dangerous situations. Um, he did the best he could, but like I see it now as an adult. So I'm laid up in bed. I have this broken leg uh at the family home. I can't get out of bed. Um, and I hear my grandma yelling from my dad. Uh, and my dad's name is Matt. So I just hear, Matt, Matt, get out of bed, get out of bed. Something's wrong with your dad. And I can't get up. I can't see anything. I don't know what's happening. I just hear this escalation of like people yelling for each other in the house. Um, and then eventually I see lights from an ambulance, and um, something happened to my grandpa. I guess what had happened was that he had had a stroke um and he was bleeding, so not to be graphic, um, but he ended up having a stroke in the bathroom, and then they took him to the hospital, and then he was there for three days before he died. Um, he was in ICU for a while. Family was there. Um, that really that was really horrible. But um eventually I was able to get there even with the broken leg. Somebody came and got me. Um, and I was holding his hand when he died. And that was that was yeah, that was like the last super stable person I had. The only person that I really felt safe with was gone. So I think that's kind of like right where all of my mental health issues really kicked off. Like it was already there, it was a recipe already ready to go, but that really it really by 12.

SPEAKER_04 17:05

You've you've gone through a lot at this point. So yeah, I mean, that's a lot. I remember doing a timeline in rehab, but I've done I've done a lot of timelines, but but one of them I remember looking at myself and going, This kid was fucked from jump, like me being that kid, you know, and and you definitely had a rough start. So, like, where do we go from here? Like, what happens after grandpa passes?

SPEAKER_01 17:27

So it there was other things going on too at the time. I struggled in school. I was kind of a book nerd. Um, I didn't, I was quiet, I didn't really have a lot of friends. Um, I had already had thoughts of like wanting to die at that point. Um, and then I think the grandpa dying just made it worse. Um, I was bullied because I was a little bit chunkier. Um, people made fun of me for being fat and like the fat and ugly chick. I still remember this. I'm 37 years old, and I still remember like a kid in class saying, Why do you always talk to ugly chicks, fat and ugly chicks like Nicole? Like, so that like right, like that very much stuck with me. Um, and I was eighth grade, like young kids are horrible.

SPEAKER_04 18:11

Like it's just part of fucking mean, dude.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

Kids are fucking. So um, yeah, these kids that were bullying, bullying me in middle school. I was coming home crying every day. Like I was I had it rough, dude. Like it was not, I had it rough and I had no power and I had no solution as a child. Um, so I think that probably led to like overeating. Um, that was probably my first drug, um, which I think that was really the only thing that I could control at that point. Um, and and that's something that I don't really talk about too often uh in like the recovery settings, but I think it's a big one. Um, because as soon as I got sober this last time, it was what is it? It's nicotine and it's food and it's caffeine. Like there's always something, right? Um but because of the bullying, my grandpa dying, uh, some people in my life, my aunt particular, she's like the the one other person who is not like a raging alcoholic or addict. Um and she was kind of like a stable figure in my life, like pushing my dad to like do better and like making sure I had the things that I needed to a degree. Um, but it also wasn't her responsibility. So yeah, um, she pushed me to go to a private high school instead of following all of my bullies to the the public school, which I think was the best decision um from a bullying standpoint. And it was also a decision that led to me meeting certain people and making certain choices, and then yeah, kind of got the ball rolling because the rich kids have the rich kids can afford the drugs. Better drugs, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 19:52

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:54

So when did what how old were you when you first uh drank or used?

SPEAKER_01 19:58

So um I was 14 and I'm at uh I'm at this this new private high school and I'm finally making friends. And ironically, the friends that I had were two girls that I was friends with at the public middle school who had also gone to um the private high school, and I'm still friends with these girls to this day. Um, but I'm with my friend in her bedroom and uh uh a kid from the boys' school, so it's Catholic school, it's like boys and girls school. Um, so one of her friends from the boys' school, we were all hanging out in her room, just like being goofy, uh, watching Monty Python, and she had a bottle of something, and um they pulled it out and started taking shots, and she offered them to me, and it wasn't even a question. There was no like, oh maybe I shouldn't do this. Like, there was none of that. Like it was just like

First Drink — She Finally Felt Normal

SPEAKER_01 20:52

that's that was it. Like it was it was the the the thing they talk about, like the warmth and the calm and the okay. Um I think for me the biggest thing was like socially, I felt capable and I felt fun, I felt funny. I didn't feel like I had anything to hide or worry about. Um, so that that was really my first taste of what a solution was. Um yeah, it was great. Uh, even as a child. And like looking back on this too, like as an adult now who's sober, um, I'm a step parent. So I, you know, have my share of like responsibility to some degree, right? Um, but like looking back like on like little Nicole and like the choices that I was making and like the lack of guidance and supervision I had, it's pretty horrifying. Like, yeah. So I was 14 years old and I went from having my first drink to trying my first drug to having my first kiss to losing my virginity all within like a frame of like two months. So all of these things that happened to me very quickly, um, and it fundamentally I think changed the course of my life because I discovered love as a drug too. Um, I discovered attention as a drug. So I, you know, not to like change topic, but I also started, you know, dating like an older person. Um, I'll say. I mean, I was 14, he was 18. Um without like talking poorly about this person because you know, an 18-year-old is still kind of a child, anyways, like a legal adult, but still a child. Like it was just a recipe for disaster. Um, so I started hanging out with older kids and I started experiencing like things that were in their circle, like harder drugs. Um, and my drinking increased as I was still going to school, and I was also sneaking out every night, like it was. It was bad. Oh, my friend taught me too how to um apparently, if you didn't know this, hopefully there's no kids watching. Um, if you just like pry off the magnets on the window that like triggers the alarm, like if you just pry them off and tape them together, you can just go in and out of your window without setting off the family alarm system.

SPEAKER_04 23:22

Damn, don't tell my kids that.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Oh my god. Yeah, you're in trouble.

SPEAKER_03 23:27

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

So we did that, and then I was in and out of my window every single night, um, hanging out with this boy, getting high, drinking, having sex, like at like 14, 15, like still a child. Yeah. So I basically was just trying to escape and disappear from my situation. Any opportunity I had, uh, I started to not really care about anything else. Um, so mind you, I'm still in private school at this point. So I would sneak out at night, get my dose of attention and drugs and love and like these things that I was so starved for. And then I would set my alarm on my Nokia and brick phone, and I would sneak back into the house uh like an hour before I had to be awake. Um, sometimes I would sleep, sometimes I wouldn't, and I would go to school. So I was maintaining school somehow. Um through I I don't even know how I did it, but I did I graduated. But at that point, I had also graduated and I had also tried so many other substances. Um it was we were kind of like the burnout circle.

SPEAKER_03 24:36

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Um but you know, my friend's house was the party house on the weekends. So during that time, I basically lived from one moment to the next, like just getting all my shit done during the week that I had to get done in order to get to that party on Friday. And in order to get my pack of cigarettes, I would save my lunch money to buy cigarettes because, like, not to put them on blast, but there was this liquor store that would let high school kids buy cigarettes if you came through the drive-thru and not into the store. So I would save up my lunch money to buy a pack of Marlboro. And then I would ask my friend with the car to drive through the drive-thru liquor store so we could get cigarettes.

SPEAKER_04 25:16

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

And we were in our uniform, we were in a Catholic school uniform and like, do I have a pack of Marlboro, please? And the guy would look at us like, here we go.

SPEAKER_04 25:26

Different, different times though, man. I mean, you know, it's I wouldn't trade it for anything. We had yeah, we had one of those stores too. So who are you living with at this time when you're still? Oh my gosh. Is that your aunt?

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Um, so uh no, I'm living with my grandma at this point.

SPEAKER_03 25:39

So your grandma, okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

Yes. So my grandma was also old as shit, but she had her own like kind of like bipolar type stuff. Like, I just remember she was very like hot and cold. Um, I mean it might have been a problem too, like having to raise somebody else's teenager as like an 80-year-old woman. Um, there were a couple instances, and she was very Catholic, very Irish. So very Irish Catholic. She didn't drink at this point, um, but she had her fair share of alcoholism back in her days. She saw what I did to my entire family. Um, and she had the tools that she had, right? Hang on, I have to burp.

SPEAKER_04 26:20

Yeah, burp away. Oh, nice. That was a good one.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

I'm sorry. I chose a beverage today that's also a snack, which is like coconut water. Why the fuck would I choose something? Like, choose something that I have to like also chew. It's like, oh, I'll take a sip. Like, like, hang on.

SPEAKER_04 26:39

Is it chunky?

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 26:41

Oh shit, man. Shit.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

So, anyways, my grandma was kind of like a bipolar. She was scary. Like, she was a scary motherfucker. Like, she would look you straight in the face and be like, God's gonna get you.

SPEAKER_04 26:53

Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Yeah, like devout Catholic. She would go to church multiple times a week. Um, and that's I think where like my first impression of God came in. My higher power right there was like this punishing, like, I'm gonna smite you and wipe you off the face of the earth for having premarital sex and being a whore. And uh that there were a couple times where she did, I would say out of like 365 days of the year where I snuck out, she caught me twice. So statistically, that's like not a bad track record.

SPEAKER_04 27:26

Pretty solid, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Yeah. But on the time where she did catch me, she slapped me across the face. And I remember her saying, You're just a whore like your mother. Um, so that is also a prevalent part of my story, is that I have this one side of the family that thinks my mom is a horrible person and trashy and a whore and blah, blah, blah. Um, so I remember hearing that narrative a lot that like my mom was a terrible person. That side of the family is trailer trash. Um, they're no good. So there was also a conflict inside of me because I wanted to know them. Um, I missed my mom. There was a hole that was inside of me that just wanted to fill it with my mom and that side of the family, and I wanted to know them. So I also kind of felt bad because I was hearing this from my family I lived with, my dad's family, that like they were horrible and trashy and just bad people, and they make bad choices. But yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:28

So that's a lot before you even graduate high school. What what drugs were you doing at this point?

SPEAKER_01 28:33

So at this point, I had gone from alcohol to weed, and those are my daily, like not daily drivers, but like that was my normal whatever, right? Um, and then I had tried, I had tried mushrooms, I had tried ecstasy, um, cocaine, and this is probably from the time that I was like 14 to 18, we'll say. Um what else? I still have never smoked crack. I don't know why I'm proud of that. I think because my my husband has and like pretty much everyone I know has.

SPEAKER_04 29:08

Yeah, I I was big, big ass crackhead, you know.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

I believe it.

SPEAKER_04 29:12

Well, you know, I wanted to ingest more cocaine than my nose would allow. I just had to go a different route, you know?

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Yeah, for sure. Scrape the noggin. Yeah. Um oh, also pills. I had tried like random pills at that point, because who hasn't, right? Um pain pills ended up being the thing that I tried, I think, when I was like 18.

First Opiates — Painkiller for Life

SPEAKER_01 29:32

That I really, really liked it. Like just the it's just if there was a painkiller for life and all of life's experiences, like that was it. Obiates, that was my jam. Um, but yeah, and that's where everything kind of, that's where the shit hit the fan. Like that's tell me about everything. Everything became unfunction unfunctional. Like I was totally dysfunctional once I found that. And then once I started increasing how much I was doing that. Uh, and it was let's say from age 18, um, where I was occasionally like getting a couple pills from friends. Uh, like, oh, hey, do you have any more of those percocets? Like, I have a headache. Yeah, that's fine. Here's two five milligram percocets. And then a couple months later, I'd be like, Oh, do you have any more of those? Like, yeah, that's fine. Here you go. Like, it wasn't even a big deal. It was not a big deal until it was, right? Like, till it was. Uh, I ended up going to college, kinda. Um, my aunt really wanted me to have the good old college experience. So I graduated from high school, applied to ASU, which is a notorious party school.

SPEAKER_03 30:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Um, and I spent a lot of time there just not really being there, not going to classes. I didn't care. I didn't want it. I wasn't ready. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I think I was so bogged down by just like my whole life experience um that I just didn't, I just wasn't in it. Like it was a waste of money. I flunked out after two semesters, um, academic probation, the whole thing. Um, and then I went back home, lived at my grandma's house for a little bit, lived with my dad again. I was kind of like back and forth a lot of the time. Um, but in college, uh I drank, I made friends, very focused on the social rather than like learning. I didn't care. Um I went back to my grandma's house, was living there, didn't know what I wanted to do, was still partying. That was like the main focus. So drinking was like my main focus. And sometimes like I tell myself, oh, I'm not an alcoholic. Like I didn't have a problem with alcohol. And then I think back of like the way that I drank, and it was not normal. So I would, you know, get through my day. I would go to work, do what I had to do. And in the back of my mind, I'm just thinking about like where I have a bottle or like how I'm gonna buy that bottle and like whose whose house we're going to, like, we're gonna just drink, party, take my shirt off, like just shit like that, right? Like, there's like people that have pictures of my titties, like still. I told my husband, I told Jerry about it, and he was like, That's because you were raised by wolves, and just pass me on the head. And I'm like, I I was like, it's it's crazy. I very much like hung out with like the metal kids that would go to like the metal shows and like the punk rock shows, loved it. I still love it. Um, but yeah, it was that was that was the fun house was was drinking and partying and getting fucked up and like going to metal concerts and you know, just not being posers.

SPEAKER_04 32:37

Yeah, dude. So how long? Let's see, you were in ASU for a year, you go home. Not even how old are you at this point? 18, 19?

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Let's say 18, 19. So these years kind of blur together. Um, because I I did a lot of the runaround of like working at a grocery store, working at a golf course, like just getting whatever like job I could get, um, just living at home, not having any bills or like real responsibilities, trying some like community college classes, like these like couple of years blur together. I don't, I don't even know. Um, but it's it's the same thing. So, like the theme is the same, it's just focused on drinking. Um, drinking, going to strip clubs, having fun, uh doing mushrooms and like going on long walks like uh through the desert, like just all sorts of shit. Um, but it was always focused on having fun with my friends and and partying and doing drugs and drinking. Um overdrawing my bank account to go to the strip club, like been there, man.

SPEAKER_04 33:38

Been there.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

I had I had fit. I'm like, I have $50 in the account, so I'm just gonna take out 75. I was obviously not a high roller. Um, but yeah, as long as I had money for alcohol and whatever fun activity we were gonna do. Waking up at different people's houses, um, making bad choices. Uh romantic partners weren't exactly like, you know, the greatest. It was just basically a warm body and whoever would give me attention. Um, it was fine if they were like abusive or narcissistic or controlling or hit me. Like it was all that shit was was normal to me. And then it finally escalated. I don't know why I keep thinking about this story. Um, there was one night though, when a bunch of friends were drinking at a house, the party house, and um it was in Arizona, the way that like the houses are set up, it's you either have a chain-link fence between the houses, or you either have like a cinder block wall. So this one had a chain-link fence. This is the party house. You just show up and you just drink. Like you don't even have to call. Like it's just the core group of friends, you know you're gonna be there, right? At this house, I saw somebody get stabbed. Um, the cops wouldn't want to spoil it. So this night, I can't remember, it was a holiday of some kind, right? We had been through the whole rigmarole of drinking, um, partying, having fun, listening to music. We're in and outside smoking weed, smoking cigarettes. Like, that's just what we did. Um, the neighbors behind them were tweakers, I guess is like a nice word for it. But um, we always called them those stupid tweakers behind the house. Like you could tell, like, they were doing they weren't as bad as us, or we weren't as bad as them because we weren't doing meth and we weren't tweakers. Um, something happened between the fences, the dogs were fighting, like the animals we had, whatever. Um, it escalates, some shit happens. Um, they start like threatening some of my friends at the party. Owner of the house is asleep in the bedroom. Um, these guys, I guess, like drive around around the block. We hear a car pull up to the front. Um, someone starts beating on the door, threatening, screaming, basically, like a home invasion. Um, we didn't know what to do. So we tell the owner of the house, hey, somebody's like the neighbors are freaking out. We were already on the phone with 911. Like, you need to wake up, basically. Like, some shit's going down. Um, so he wakes up not knowing what's going on, uh, because uh he was asleep. Like, why would you know what's going on? He wakes up very much like, I'm gonna confront the situation head on. Like, what let me just find out what's going on? Like, there's nothing wrong, right? He opens the door, immediately gets pistol whipped in the face. So these people break into the house, everybody's fighting. I'm the only female here at this point. So everything happens in slow motion, as trauma does, right? All these dudes are fighting. They're in the living room. I just look and I'm like, I'm seeing guns and I'm seeing fighting, and like, oh my god. Like, I slow motion walked through the living room and out to the backyard, um, where there's another one of my friends still on the phone uh with the police, like saying, They're in my house right now. You need to get here right now. Um they basically, and then I stand in the backyard just kind of like waiting to like be kidnapped, raped, shot, dead, whatever. Um, it happened probably in the span of like a minute, two minutes. It was very fast, but it felt very slow. Um so the cops show up. The people had left at this point. Um, they left a bunch of evidence behind too. Like they like dropped a like a magazine from a gun on the ground, like all sorts of shit. My poor friend is sitting there on his couch, just like bleeding. Like they smashed his eye socket, like he had to have reconstructive surgery. Um so I'm sitting there just like with like ice in a towel, like holding my friend's face together. So that's like a that's that's not manageable, like life experience. Like, that's not normal to be in a situation that escalates so much that like you have a home invasion happen where people are assaulted. And I'm lucky that like nothing happened to me. Um but you know, my friend ended up pressing charges against this kid. The the people went to jail, which is good. Like, you can't just like show up like all mecked out and assault people. Like, um, that's fucking nuts. But that was, I was probably like 21 at this point. Um, but still, even after that happened, after the cops left, took everybody's statements, we're all sitting there, and the first thing we do is like start hitting bongs, you know. Like that's all we're just like, damn, like rolling up like rolly cigarettes and just like coping however we can. And it's substances, substances is always how we cope. Um, but yeah, that's that's just a little taste of unmanageability, and like that's the type of shit I went through with my friend group, and that's it's traumatic. Um, but I stayed friends with those people up until I basically ruined all of those friendships. Um my life got darker and darker as I kind of suck into like pills and opiates and for a while it was just pills. Uh I was kind of maintaining normalcy going to work. Um, and then it got worse and worse. Uh somehow I made it uh into nursing school because I was in community college and I've always been very smart. Um, I've always been very book smart and capable in that aspect. I've always been fascinated by science um and wanting to do something in that arena. Um, but I finished all the prerequisites for nursing school. I got in. Um, I was kind of nursing a prescription pill addiction at this point. Um, and I kept telling myself too, like I was also smoking a lot of weed. So I was like, okay, I had the date in my head from when I had to take the drug test to get into nursing school and how long it would take my body to like get rid of the weed versus like the opiates. Um, and I had it all planned out. So this like date on this calendar is getting um like shorter and shorter. And I'm like, okay, it's coming up two weeks. I'm like, well, it takes what, like two weeks for weed to get out of your system, unless you've been smoking it for years, in which case, like, dot the eye across the T it's gonna take. We all do that. And I'm like, how much golden seal do I have? To um, so ultimately, like it came down to it. I was able to quit smoking weed, totally fine. I could not stop doing the opiates, like to the point where I was trying to like wean, and then like in my head, it was like I forgot the day was coming up, and I was still doing the same amount. I mean, you you gotta do what you gotta do to feel well. Um, I couldn't go into nursing school like in withdraw. Um, but I also like didn't know how I was gonna pass a drug test. So there was this like smoke shop down the road. This is horrible. I hope this isn't a crime. Wait, I did a lot of crime.

SPEAKER_04 40:31

I don't yeah, that's not the one they're gonna get you.

SPEAKER_01 40:35

Statute of limitations is up at this point, so it's fine. Um, so I buy this like fake pee, and I heated it up at my friend's house. I call my friend, I'm like, Can I stop by and need your microwave for my fake piss? So I heat up this fake pee and uh and I go and I take the drug test. And that was also another thing is that I was very manipulative, like a lot of us. Like, and I didn't have tattoos, I didn't have any facial piercings. Like, this is all recovering me. Like,

Home Invasion at the Party House

SPEAKER_01 41:02

this is this is like true me. But back then I was very like, I was still like clean cut, like very innocent looking. Like, I very much use that to my advantage. Like, hi, I'm here to take my nursing school drug test. And the guys like it's like a one-man operation. We're just like, Yeah, not a problem, just go in there, make sure you don't flush the toilet. Right, right, right. All right, that's good. I go in there and it's instantly like dun dun dun dun dun. I'm pulling out this pee, I'm pulling out the fake pee that's like strapped to my leg, and I'm like checking the temperature read to make sure it's like still good. Um, and I use the fake urine, and I'm like, there's no way that's gonna work. Like, no fucking way. And then I come back past. I was like, okay, cool. So I started nursing school um in full-blown percocet addiction. So I still had to like make the money to buy at least five pills a day. Um, I don't know how I was doing that. I think I was just like, I was getting sicker and sicker. Like there, there's no maintaining it. Um, plus, like the the schedule of nursing school is like pretty rigorous. Like you have to go to classes and you also have to go to clinicals. So I was showing up at class. Um, I was like snorting a line of perks per caset in my car and like vomiting in the parking lot out of the car, closing it and like putting my stethoscope on and just like going into class and like learning what they had to learn for that day. Um, so long story short, that obviously did not last very long. Um, I got sicker and sicker. I realized I couldn't do it, and I just stopped showing up. Like I don't I don't know how it all like ended or went down. I'm pretty sure they gave me like incompletes in the class. Obviously, you can't just like not show up for the nursing program. They kick you out. Um, I was 21, 22 at this point, so I was young. Um, but yeah, that's that's what happened there. Uh that was another thing that kind of went away because of the opiates, and that's the shit that was taking me down fast. Um yeah, I was in a relationship at this point with somebody uh who was also using opiates. Um we were using pills together. The party house that used to be like the drinking house, like some of us started using percocets, um, and it just kind of became our thing. Uh that shit absolutely destroyed that friend group. Um, and we kind of all went different ways. I got lucky and I was part of the party that ended up escalating to methamphetamines and heroin. So, and then I escalated from eating pills to snorting pills to smoking pills to shooting meth and heroin at the same time all day every day. Um, and that's where the story gets good.

SPEAKER_03 43:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

Thinking um about the time I bought a gun for a drug dealer, and it ended up in the hands of a guy who ended up like going to prison for life because he ended up murdering someone with a shotgun.

SPEAKER_04 43:51

The gun that you bought.

SPEAKER_01 43:52

No, no, but it could like it could have happened, right? It's not yeah. So this was like just part of where it escalated was go back to this person that I was dating. Um, he was awesome. Uh he was definitely somebody who treated me different than anybody else I had ever dated. Uh, he wasn't abusive, he wasn't controlling, he was just like the first person that I fell in love with, um, that I felt like I was really safe with. Um, and we just had that like that thing, like that chemistry. Um, and uh we really sunk into addiction together, and it ended up not so great. But um everything in this part of the story is with this other person. So we're both addicted to pills. We keep trying to quit. Um, it's not working because we get sick. That's what happens is you get sick and then you feel like ass, and then you gotta do what you gotta do to keep going. So um we were maintaining employment until we weren't, we were paying bills until we weren't. Um, we had friends until we didn't, and it was just kind of everything. Um, I had a car at that point, so I was driving around in my grandma's old uh Chevy Monte Carlo. So I would like roll around in this Monte Carlo. Um, and eventually we just like used it to like rob stores and like go pawn things and like just drive drug dealers around and do what we gotta do uh just to get well. But anyways, so we're we're sick, we can't get any pills. Um, and then my friend's girlfriend was like, Well, I mean, I know somebody who, you know, can get some heroin, you know. She was like, uh, I know if you don't want to do it, it's like she's like, I know it's really bad.

SPEAKER_03 45:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 45:49

I'm like, well, I mean, she's like, but if you're sick and you need to feel better, it'll make you feel better. Um, so we were like, I mean, let's just get like 10 bucks worth. Like, we just need to feel better, whatever, it's not that big of a deal. Um got the heroin for the first time, and um I wasn't gonna shoot it up because that was like, I will never do that. That is disgusting. Um, yeah. Uh got the heroin, smoked it, felt better. And I was like, this tastes like shit. I'm never doing this again. Uh and then I was like, it's a lot cheaper than pills. So it became an economical decision. Um that's naturally, yeah, that's like how it kind of escalated to heroin. And then slowly I didn't give a shit about weed, I didn't give a shit about alcohol, I didn't care about doing social activities. Um, I basically just lived to do heroin. Um, at that point, we had a drug dealer who was living in a a seedy motel um in like not it wasn't South Phoenix. It was like kind of like the middle of Phoenix, like where like it's like this stretch of highway called I-17. So like I-17 in northern. He was living at like an extended, say, America, and he had just gotten out of prison. So he was going back and forth between this hotel called the Lodge, and it was just like shitty, like like you pull in, the parking lot's broken, like the gravel hasn't been switched in like forever. It's like one room, and like that's where he lived. That's like, I guess, like part of like the getting out of prison. Like, you have a an address that you can afford, you have to get a job, you have to, whatever his stipulations were. But we met this guy, um, and he was instantly like our best friend. Um, he was funny, we had a lot in common. Like, he kind of became my best friend, and then I ended up like doing like driving for him. So I ended up basically being like his right-hand man in a sense. Um, and then my boyfriend would go out and do crimes, steal things from stores. Um, at one point, he got a hold of a key that was like, you know, like the lockboxes that they put everything in so you don't steal them. Somehow he got a hold of like one of the keys that opened that, which is technically a burglary tool and it's a felony. Um, but he had one of those, he would just go to the stores and open the boxes and just steal the shit that was inside, and we would go pawn things, like uh laptops, cameras, iPad, like all sorts of shit. Like whatever was worth anything, we would steal it and we would pawn it. Um, and then use that money to get drugs, and then sometimes a hotel room. Um, so yeah, that got bad fast. Um, my drug dealer at the time, the guy who's living in the shitty hotel, uh asks me. This is so bad. Oh my god. Um, he asks me if I can buy a gun for him because he's not, and I mean I'm ugh, I was a fucking idiot. Like looking back on that, I was like, yeah, that's fine. He's like, I'll give you a bag if you do this. And I'm like, yeah, that's fine. Like, you're not gonna do anything bad with it, right? He's like, no, it's just for protection. And I was like, okay, that's fine. So we go to this um pawn shop and he picks out a gun, pays for it. I put it in my name. Um, and then here you go. Like, here's a handgun. Like, that's that was like the level of my decision making. Like, I didn't think about consequences, I just I didn't think about like what could go wrong. And then one day he gets arrested. And this other junkie couple that we were friends with, who were also living at a hotel somewhere, um, missing teeth, like whole thing. Uh, end up calling me saying, so-and-so got arrested. Uh, we have your gun. Um, homeboy's walking around with it, meaning the other friend is like, he's just he's carrying it. And I was like, I should probably get this gun. Like, there's some random dude is walking around, like some crazy guy, like is walking around like Central Phoenix, like with a handgun that's like registered to me, and he's

First Heroin, Dealing, Gun in Her Name

SPEAKER_01 50:01

not a good person. So I go there and I'm like, hey, um, I asked the girlfriend first because like I knew that like she needed to say it to him and it wasn't gonna be me. Like, give me the gun. Like, what's gonna happen there? You show up at their house, hey, give me that fucking gun, dude. What fuck you? Like, that's just a normal escalation.

SPEAKER_03 50:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:18

Um, so I tell her, I'm like, uh, hey, so that gun is in my name. I think while homeboy's in jail, that your boyfriend needs to just like give it to me and I hold on to it just because it's in my name, you know what I mean? And she was like, Yeah, you're probably right. Like, I don't want him walking around with that, anyways. I'm like, okay. So I get this gun back, and then I spend the next couple weeks walking around with this gun. Um, and I was also kind of like low-key selling drugs at this point, but I wasn't good at it because I would do all the drugs. Like also, if like somebody was like nice to me that day, I'd be like, here's an extra $10 worth of heroin. Like, I just like it wasn't, I was a horrible drug dealer. So I always ended up not having the money to re-up um walking around with this gun for no reason. Like I wasn't, like I was from Scottsdale. I went to private school. Like, there's no um, but I don't know, it just made me feel like one of the people, I guess. Um, I also bought a car for this guy and put it in my name. He did not have a driver's license. Um, so this guy's like driving around with a gun in a car that's in my name, and he's selling methamphetamines and heroin and like all this other shit. Um, meeting with not like the cartels, but like they're called paisas. So, like that's like the Mexicans in Arizona that you buy your drugs from. It's like I gotta meet my paisa um and then handoff, handoff, whatever. But you have a Mexican plug. Like, that's like normally how it is.

SPEAKER_03 51:39

Right.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

Um, so you know, in the world of all of that, my name is getting used and it's being put on a paper trail and blah, blah, blah. Um, I don't know how nothing ever happened to me there. Um, I never got in trouble for it. This guy drove around with like endless amounts of drugs, guns, doing crime. Uh, and he did get arrested again um someday with my car, with the gun. And he had told me, if I ever get caught, I'll just tell them that I stole it from you. I I was so like out of my mind on drugs too that I was just like, oh, that's cool. Thanks. Um that's how noble of you. Thank you. Um, and uh I had a running tab with this guy too at this point. Like, we had, even though like looking back on it, I'm like, that's kind of fucked up because like my whole life, like I spent just like driving you around, doing your errands, like I was basically a full-time personal assistant, and I was only charging $30 worth of heroin per day. It was like basically like I was I was selling my soul and my services and my body um just to feel baseline, like well. So this guy goes to jail. Um, I get a letter in the mail from the cops uh saying, Hey, we have your your gun in evidence. Um, it's no longer evidence, so you can come get it. And I was like, not falling for that shit.

SPEAKER_03 53:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:06

I was like, hell no. They were like, if you don't come get it in 90 days, we're gonna destroy it. And I was like, get rid of that shit. I don't need it. And I was like, not falling for your bullshit. Right. Um, so this guy's in prison, and there goes my drug dealer, there goes my hustle, uh, and also there goes the car, and there goes the drugs or the the gun. So I'm like, maybe I'll get a new start, maybe I'll try something different. Um, I did not. I ended up we ended up finding different friends who did drugs, and my boyfriend was kind of getting like arrested here and there for like stealing. So he was like meeting people in jail and like getting phone numbers of like new contacts and like whatever. And we were still surviving, like still doing the things that we had to do in order to like get well every day. Um I tried to like maintain employment here and there. Um it never lasted. Like it always ended the same way. It always ended with me either not showing up because I was sick or calling out because I was sick. Um just I was just unreliable. Um it always ended the same way. Yeah, and then I got arrested the first time. That was fucked up.

SPEAKER_04 54:18

What did you get arrested for?

SPEAKER_01 54:20

Uh so what was it?

SPEAKER_04 54:23

Which one did they catch you first?

SPEAKER_01 54:24

Oh god. Um my god, this is so I feel so bad for my aunt who had she would clean my room and she would find like all of these pond slips, and she would find like all of this shit that I was like just getting into. Um and she knew like something was going on at that point. They had found like foils in my room, um like foils with you know, like trails on it that were obviously smoked. And she was like, What is this? Your uncle and I Googled it and the Google says it's heroin. And I was like, it's an arts and crafts project. I don't know what you're talking about. Like caught red-handed, still denying it. Um, so at one of these points, too, we had been pulled over um, like in the middle of the night. So I still had my car, which is like horrible. I wasn't paying the registration on it, I wasn't paying the car insurance. So naturally, when you don't do those things, they suspend your license and they also um like suspend your registration or whatever, obviously. Like you can't drive a car that isn't registered and you don't have a license and isn't insured. So I have drove around like this for months. I don't know how I didn't get busted sooner. But at one point, they pull us over and we were in a different town with some like junkie friends, friends that we had made, um, just picking up whatever to do, whatever. So we get pulled over and it's like like two o'clock in the morning. Um, we had just picked up drugs, we had stopped in a parking lot, shot up, and all like got well in the car. Um, I had like a little bit left, and I made some turn or something, something like triggered them to like pull me over. Maybe they just like ran my plate. I don't know. Um, I don't think the technology was as advanced back then as it is now. Um now it's like surveillance state, but uh so lights turn on, they pull us over. I'm like, oh fuck. And I remember that I had this like little bit of heroin, and I shove it like in into my jail wallet instantly. Um so I'm like, oh shit, they're gonna see me, whatever. Anyways, I shove it like down into my underwear, like where the sun don't shine. Uh, and I also had a cup of water that was in my lap at that point, too. Um, and I spilled it like all over myself. So it looked like I peed myself. And the cops pull me over, everybody gets out of the car. We had drugs, we had spoons, we had like paraphernalia, like needles, like all the whole thing on us. Um, they pull us over, pull us out of the car. Cops was like, What were you reaching for in your waistband? What was that? We saw that, and I was like, I spilled my water. I was like, I I just spilled my water, like it's fine. And they looked down and there's water all over the place, and they were like, Oh, okay.

unknown 57:05

Got lucky.

SPEAKER_01 57:06

I got so lucky. And there were so many sit like instances like where I got lucky in that sense. Um, and this time, the the two people that were in the car with us, I think some I don't know, somebody had a warrant, like someone got arrested. Um, they obviously found our paraphernalia. There was like a random trazodone that was like floating around like in the center console of the car. Um, that's a felony, like a fucking trazodone. Yes, ridiculous. Yes, because they find these like random like pill, whatever. Like they find like my kit with like all of my heroin stuff. Me and my boyfriend, like we had everything combined at this point. Um he said that the pill was his, so he took that charge. Uh, and then they gave us a ticket and let us go. They basically gave it was gave us like a paraphernalia, whatever. I can't remember what they charged me with. They charged me with I think it was they never found the drugs, so it wasn't like drug use. Nobody got arrested. We didn't get arrested. They sent me home with a ticket, and they were like, if you get pulled over again because you have no registration and no whatever, we can't guarantee that you'll not get arrested. Or I was like, that's fine, it's a risk I'm willing to take. So we go home with um like a summons to appear in court for this shit. And uh like three months later, like the alarm goes off. We're like, oh, gotta go to court, like gotta make it down. There's a big important meeting today. Um the alarm goes off at like six in the morning, we're both dope sick, and we just keep hitting snooze. So that is eventually like what led to me getting arrested is because I missed that court date. Um, I just ignored it and I was like, Well, I'm already screwed, so whatever. Um, I kept just like doing what what we were doing. Um, every single day was it was forever, but it was also quick. So spending the entire day just like hustling and trying to get like money to get well, um, to just live

Chipotle Uniform, Car Chase, Arrest

SPEAKER_01 59:01

another day. And then one of those days we were with some some friends who were also users because we didn't really hang out with anybody else at this point. Um, and he was like, Hey, uh, we're sick. If you guys are sick, I have some tools I can pawn, and then um, we'll get you well. We're like, Okay, cool, but I had I was working a job at this point. I was working at Chipotle.

SPEAKER_04 59:22

Oh, yeah. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 59:23

So at this point, um, I'm in my Chipotle uniform. We're like, yeah, bet, no problem. I had just gone off work and we're like, we'll be there. So we go in this car that is no registration still. We pick up our friends, go down to this pawn shop, and it's this pawn shop that's like 24 hours a day, and it's in Central Phoenix, uh, on like 7th Avenue or 7th Street in Indian School. It's called Mo Money Pawn.

SPEAKER_03 59:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:46

That's where everybody goes in the middle of the night to get what you need. Uh so there's a window, and you can see the fucking shotgun sitting right there. The guy basically just like offers you 20 bucks for whatever bullshit you're trying to get rid of, and that's how you get well. Not a good area to be in the middle of the night, probably. Um, so we go down there and I parked at this at the circle K. There's like a circle K that's like right down there, whatever. Um some point, some cops must have noticed. They must have driven by. We pawned the shit, uh, got the money, we're ready to like go like meet the dealer and get well at this point. Um, there was like a there was like a I shouldn't say that. I'm not even gonna say that gang because that's scary. Um, so we would go to this guy's house to get drugs, whatever. That's a whole nother side quest. Um, but uh we go to this circle K so we can get water because you have to have your supplies in order to get well when you get your drugs, right? Um, so we go to this the Circle K. I'm parked there. I see a cop like chilling down whatever. So I like tap my boyfriend. I was like, what's that? What do you think we should do? And they're like, oh fuck. And I was like, fuck them. So they drove like behind my car and they're waiting for me. So we see them like parked waiting, whatever. And we think we're gonna outsmart them. So I'm like, just just just be cool. Like nobody go back to the car. So we just start walking casually, um, play it off. And I'm like, they fucking know, like they they ran like everything, like they know, right? So we wait for the cop to drive away. He drives away. I'm like, go, go, everybody, get in the car, get in the car. We get in the car. I try to like get away. There's another one. There's another cop that was like, they've outsmarted me. I wasn't that smart. Um, so my first instinct is to just floor it. So we're in like we're in Phoenix, like central Phoenix area, where like the side streets, I mean, they're residential. So like the speed limit is like 25. Um, so I'm going like 60 down these like residential side streets in my car. Um, and then I remember hitting the point where I was like, I'm not getting away. Like I had I call it a moment of clarity, a moment of God, like something else like intervening and helping me. But in that moment, I realized whatever I do next, I'm gonna make it worse. I need to just accept and let go. Um, I'm wearing my Chipotle outfit. I was arrested in my Chipotle outfit. Um, but I pulled over, I was like, you guys, they got us like stash your shit, pull over. Um I've never I didn't realize that when like a cop pulls you out of the car that you have the ability to like fly off of the ground. So these cops open my car door. I sail through the air uh in handcuffs, and so does my boyfriend, the the two people that were in the backseat, wait in the car, whatever. Um, they detain us, they put us in the back of the car. I'm in the back of this cop car with my boyfriend at this point. Um, it was just a weird night. Obviously, we had bench warrants, that's what it was. So when you get arrested on a bench warrant, like they can't just like give you a ticket and let you go and say, like, promise, promise you'll come this time. So the bench warrant was in a different county um or a different town over. So we got very lucky. We were arrested in Phoenix. Um, and the cops were getting off that night and headed that way. So they called uh one of the Mesa police department people and they were like, Hey, do you want to like come get your boy? Like uh if you meet us there, or we can just follow you there. So I'm lucky that like a veteran Phoenix police officer drove me to Mesa to get arrested. Um, my car, they were like, I mean, they ran everybody's licenses, everybody's check, whatever. Like, nobody else had a warrant. So I think that's what they were really focused on. Um, they were like, if you want to release your car to your friend, you can do that. I mean, he always has the option to get pulled over and arrested, it's not insured, whatever. He would they were like, but instead of like impounding it, we're fine with that. Um, and I was like, Yeah, do that. And then my friend drives away in the car, and then we're in this SUV cop car waiting for the Mesa police to come pick us up or pick one of us up so they could transport us separately. And the computer on the dash has this guy's like license, my friend, that they had like ran the license, and it just has this like checklist of like all of these charges that he had had been arrested for previously, and he had a wrap sheet that was like it was like six pages, like all like felony. Like he he did like eight years in prison for like stealing shit and like like massive like ring of like stolen goods and like heroin and like selling drugs, like just like the shit, and like I'll never forget this. These two cops look at the computer and I see them like tapping the screen, and then they like turn and they look back at us and they're like what the fuck? And we were like, I don't know. Um, so I go to jail that night, and I lay there on this like hard bench. Um, my boyfriend is, I'm sure, having his own experience too. And I remember that there was this hooker in jail with me. And um, that is is not part of my story yet. Um, I can't ever say that it wouldn't be if I didn't relapse, you know, like the addiction has a way of taking us to ends and means that we have said we would never do, right? So I meet this other lady who's in the midst of her addiction, and we spend the night in jail together, and I'm laying on this hard, like hard, like cold, like bunk, just whimpering. Um, I mean, we were when I got arrested, we were on our way to go get well. So I was still sick at this point, and I was just accepting the fact that like addiction was setting in. Um, and this was it just was what it was, right? Like the jail people come by and they offer you a shitty turkey sandwich at like two in the morning. And it's like I was in such withdrawal that I'm like, I'm not eating that. Like, I couldn't, you can't chew, right? Like you feel so sick that like not putting anything in my mouth. Like, it's not, I just need to wait it out. I had a whole plan. Hopefully, I'm gonna get out. Um, I had to be at work in the morning. So I had to be at work, I think like 11. Like it was either like 10 or 11. Court was at like court was super early, like seven in the morning or some shit. Um, I get pulled in at seven in the morning, my Chipotle outfit. I have no vehicle, I have no nothing, right? Um, they look at me, they're like, Well, first time offender, you've been whatever. I'm gonna release you to your own recognizance and uh don't miss your court date. So I was like, Yes, sir. Yes, thank you. Um, they release me, and I remember hobbling out of this jail wearing my Chipotle uniform, and the shoes that I had were like broken because I would fry the chips, so like the oil was melting my shoes. So this shoe was basically like a it was like a puppet. Like I'm like hobbling out of jail wearing my Chipotle, like guac is extra, and like the fucking shoe is broken. I'm in like severe heroin withdrawal at this point. And I all I could think about was. Getting to my friends because they have my car because I have to go to work. And then it was also payday. So I had money. I had like $300 that was just deposited in my account that morning. So I could take a cab, um, get to their house, get well. Um, because some of that the drugs that they got were mine, right? Because I put in work too. Um, so fuck my boyfriend. I just left him there. I was like, you're on your own, pal. Um I'll send you money for a cab later. I don't know. I'm not waiting. I gotta get well and go to work. So I take a cab ride. I end up at my friend's house. Uh, I get well, get in my car, and I go to work and I show up and I just show up at work that day. So the unmanageability, the chaos. Like, I'm this girl who's like, Hi, do you want brown rice or white rice? Do you want black beans? Would you like what kind of meat would you like? And like behind the scenes, like I'm struggling with this like daily cycle of like dealing with drug dealers and criminals and gang members and like

Shame Spiral — Nothing Left

SPEAKER_01 1:08:01

infection from shooting up and like all this like crazy shit. My family hates me at this point. Like, I have no money, I have no prospects, I'm not in school, I have no friends. Like, everybody they cared about me is like now gone. I don't want to face anyone, I don't want to talk to anyone. Uh, I don't want to reveal to anyone like the nature of what's really happening because I was so embarrassed and so ashamed. But also, that wasn't enough to stop me from doing it.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:28

So was there a what was the catalyst? I mean, I'm sure you were exhausted in the midst of all this, right? It sounds exhausting.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:37

I was exhausted, but I still liked the feeling of getting high. I still I still liked the feeling more. Um, and slowly that went away. So at this point, I'm kind of unraveling. Uh, it wasn't really too far from there that my aunt had found the paper in my room, um, like like a court summons or new. And she was like, What the fuck is this? Uh and I told her, Well, I didn't have insurance on the car, I blah, blah, blah. And then I got pulled over. I made up whatever, so I'm sure I made up some bullshit. Um, I didn't admit to her at that point that it was as serious as it was. Um, because I was also lying to myself to some degree that it was as serious as it was, right? Um, so she got me a lawyer, and I didn't deserve that. Uh, I deserved jail at that point. I deserved some serious like exorcism, but she got me a lawyer and helped me as best she could. And somehow the lawyer was like, Well, when you were arrested, they didn't read you your rights. So anything that you said to those cops isn't admissible in court. So whatever they found in your car, that can be put on the other people in the car. But it's a 50-50 chance on whether you want to take it to trial and roll the dice. And like my little criminal mind, I was like, Yeah, fuck them. They were wrong. Like, absolutely, I'm not a criminal. So I was like, Let's roll the dice, let's try it. Um, I take it to court and we walk in. My lawyer says his his thing, like he interviews the cop that was there because they showed up. He was like, Did you read her her rights? And the cop was like, No. So right after that, the judge was like, case dismissed, like, just gavel, gone. I was done. And I remember too, at that point, I had weighed the lease that I've weighed in my entire life. Um, I was wearing this dress, I was all dressed up for court. I remember putting makeup on like my track marks, um, and I was still hiding it at this point that I was still using. Um, I don't think my aunt knew. I might have like tried somewhere in this story too, comes like outpatient and maybe I need therapy, or maybe I need something, like maybe I need detox. Like the jig was up, and I don't remember like the specifics of of what happened when, but somewhere in there, my aunt had found the foils, which escalated to them like finding needles somewhere, um, and me having a breakdown in my grandma's backyard about how I just like don't know what to do anymore. I need help. Um, I'm still with this boyfriend. We're doing the same thing. He was a big concern of mine um because he didn't have health insurance like I did. He had a very different situation. Um, but it was it was starting to come to light basically in so many ways. I mean, obviously, like looking back at pictures of myself at that point, um, it was evident. Like, there's that's a junkie. Like it's not, you know, I look nothing like I look today. Um I'll send you some pictures too if you want to like blast them up on the screen.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:45

Yeah, sure, sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:48

You can put them up right at this point. Lynn, I'll be like, ding, there.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:54

Um, so the jig was up. I started to experience some consequences, not legally. I don't, I still don't have a criminal record, and I I can only chalk that up to like there's a reason for that. Um, because there's no I deserved it. That's the things that I was doing. Uh, I was stealing, I was stealing time from people I loved. I was just a menace. Um, and I was also justifying it because I didn't feel like I was doing anything wrong. Like I felt like, well, I've been through all this pain in my life. I've been through childhood trauma. Like you'd use two, you would drink too. You would do this too. Um, and I ended up like doing the drugs I swore I would never try. And I ended up trying the drug that my mom liked and the shit that took her down. And I was like, fine with that. And uh I blamed a lot of other people, but yeah, somehow in there, like multiple detoxes in Phoenix that never worked. Um, because I immediately just got right out and went right back to doing what I was doing. Um just more of the same. It was just drug dealers, different drug dealers, different using friends. Who can I use today to get what I need? Who can I do a favor for today to get what I need? Um yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:17

How do you how do you end up in Florida?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:20

So so that that comes to my first like real stint in rehab. Um, so my aunt knew what was going down at that point, uh, knew I needed help. I had tried detox a couple of times in Arizona and it didn't work. Um, we had also tried like an outpatient suboxin program. It didn't work. I couldn't stay sober. Um, I ended up like selling the Suboxan for drugs and whatever. Um, and I remember that doctor was like really mad at me. Like it's it's not funny, but he was, and I remember him telling me too, like when I went in and I couldn't pass a drug test. Um, I remember him telling me in so many words that sometimes when people can't get sober this way, they just need more. And when you get there, you'll feel a sense of relief of like, oh, just take care of me. And I remember him like saying this to me, like he was kind of like trying to sell like inpatient treatment to me. And I can remember thinking, like, bro, I do not want that. Like, I just want to die. Like, so that was like the biggest part of it is like, I just want to die. Like, I was also having feelings of like not wanting to wake up and like it was not fun anymore. Um, but you know, there's always that little voice in the back

Aunt Forces Rehab, Back High Same Day

SPEAKER_01 1:14:31

of your head. So I had tried the detoxes. My aunt made me do one more detox, and she was like, You need to go to rehab this time. Um, so I did it because I I thought that it was gonna like, okay, cool, I'll do a reset. Um, I'll just get off the heroin and I'll kind of be able to like recreationally. Obviously, I didn't tell anyone this, but this was my intention in my head the whole time. I was like, okay, I'll just go back to the way it was where I was just drinking and it was fun and it was party. Um, and like that's who I am. Like, I'll just go back to smoking weed. Um, so I told her I would go to rehab and I ended up coming to Florida. I did like a full 30-day program. Um, and after that, there were there were obviously things that were suggested for me to do that I did not do. Um, because I had things back home that I needed to get back to. I had affairs uh to handle. No, I mean I had this this boy that I was like so in love with. Um, and I had a dog at home, like with it. Like we had our dog, we had our life, we had all these dreams that we were gonna accomplish when we just got sober. He got on Suboxing, so he was gonna be good. There was like a whole thing that we were like really like trying everything that we could together. Um, and they wanted me to do sober living in Florida, and I was like, I have to go back home. Like, this is not gonna work. Like, I have too much at home to stay here. I'm not staying here. Um, so I did what I had to do. I said the things I had to say. I did feel really good and I felt sober and I felt healthy for the first time ever. Um, probably since I had started like drinking as a child. Um, but I did immediately go right back home, and the first thing I wanted to do was just like see my person. Um, so I saw him, and you know, he was still casually using meth. And I was like, I can just hit it a couple times. It's like Adderall, right? It's like popping an addie. It's like not a big deal. So instantly, like, we're like in this motel six room together, like smoking meth. Um, and then he was like, Well, so-and-so is me a favor, like maybe we could just like get a little bit of heroin and like we just do it one time, right? And I was like, Yeah, that's fine. So, like I go from getting home from rehab to being in a motel six, like smoking meth, um talking about like and talking about recovery too, like talking about the things that I had learned about addiction and like it like looking back on it, it's so insane. Like like talking to this person, like trying to like bring what I knew to him, like of like cool, so this is what we're gonna do, and like I got the knowledge now, and like we're gonna be okay. Um, and then we stay up all night, and then we're just you know, like waiting for the drug dealer and we're shooting up heroin again, like pretty quickly. But I pretended that that wasn't going on for quite a while. I was able to like just well, well, it's fine if I only do it once a week, right? Because then I won't become dependent and I won't go into withdrawal. Like I was going through this like real-time experiment of addiction, like right after I got out of rehab. I was still holding on to the things that I thought I could control. Uh, and it just it didn't work. Um, I tried to go to therapy and like do like a 12-step type program, whatever. Um, so I was like still like getting high though, and it was escalating, like it was getting worse. I was like going to some, you know, step recovery meetings and like sharing, like geeked out of my mind, like talking about like you just gotta do this for recovery. And you like I still owe that clubhouse an amends because the only stipulation they had was like, hey, if you've used today, please don't share. And I'm like, right here, buddies. Like it's like that's like the sickness, though. Like that's that's the level of mental illness is it tells us, like, not me, not me. Um, like they're not they're not talking about me. Like, no, like because I have this like head full of recovery and I just went to rehab, like it doesn't matter that I'm using because I still know like I still know quantum physics, even if I'm not practicing it. You know what I mean? Like, so like that's right. That's like where I was at mentally. Um, and I was hiding it from my family for a little bit, and I remember really holding on to the fact that I like I wanted to do better for them, and I just wanted them to be proud of me. Um, my grandma was getting sicker at this point, and like she's like old as shit at this point. So she's like probably not gonna be around for much longer. I was staying at her house, tried to get jobs, my boyfriend tried to get jobs. We were able to like work a little bit and like just main maintain a little bit, but it just it just not it didn't work. Nothing worked, nothing of my own accord worked. Um, and we would just, you know, go off and do our thing and be like laying on the ground in a park, like looking up at the stars, talking about how like we just want to have a normal life and how we just want to be able to like get married and have kids and and just like do normal shit together, like make dinner, buy groceries, go to work, have like a one-bedroom apartment, and just like be in love and just like experience like what it means to be human and like all these like just normal things. Um, and we were just never able to do that. Um, so long story short, there it escalated quickly. Um, once the jig was up to like obviously, like I couldn't hide that I was using forever. My aunt started to see the same signs and symptoms. Um eventually I crashed my car at like two in the morning. Um, we were trying to, we were driving around a drug dealer who was gonna give us some drugs to get well. Um, I had a TV in the back of the car that he had like bought from somebody. It was like in my trunk, whatever. So there was like a red light. Like it ended up being a no fault accident because I think the other guy was drunk, um, which is interesting, right? Like two like crashing trains like passing in the middle of the night.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:29

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:29

Um, but I look up, the light turns yellow, and I was going left. So I go. He's going really fast. He goes. Um, I get T-boned at like two in the morning. Cops are there. There's like paraphernalia all over my car, like everywhere, um, glass everywhere. Somehow, uh, the drug dealer who's sitting in the backseat gets taken to the hospital. We send his little junky girlfriend off with him, and then we grab the TV and they investigate, nobody finds anything, nobody charges us with anything, and then we're off on foot. So slowly, like one thing after another, we call somebody for a ride, we sell the TV, get some drugs, get well. That was the only thing that we could think of. Sneak into my grandma's house um and just sleep it off. And I wake up with like glass in my hair. Like I remember waking up and being like, and just shaking glass off, like onto the table next to me. And my aunt shows up, and she is a force to be reckoned with. I tell you what. Where's the fucking car? I was like, I crashed it. Or what did I say? I said, I think I lied. I think I lied instantly about it. I was like, someone's borrowing it, it's fine. I said, Don't worry about it. Like Captain Gaslighter here, like, where the fuck is the car? Don't worry about it. Like, you worry too much. And it's just like, Jesus. Um, so slowly things started going away. I crashed the car. Uh, within a couple weeks, my dog ended up getting sick. She was old, she died. Um, we had to put her to sleep, which was like horrifying. Um, so it's just more loss and more grief. I had nothing, I had no vehicle. Um, I wasn't about to like take the bus to like steal from GameStop and then fucking go sell it at a ponch. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not gonna not gonna do any of that. Uh the the one by one, everything was just going away. I was losing more and more. Physically, I was getting sicker. I wasn't getting high at this point. Like, like my downfall, like I wasn't getting high. Like, it was no longer I I couldn't numb myself out to forget about the way I felt. It was like I was getting well-ish, still kind of sick. I couldn't hit a vein anymore. Like all my veins were collapsing. Um, it's just I had run out of all the spots. I had run out of everything. Um, it's to the point where like after a long day of hustling to just get well, I wouldn't even try to hit a vein. I would just stab it into a muscle and call it a day. Didn't feel anything. I just felt empty. I felt completely empty as a person, and I'm looking around at my life and this like person that I love so much that I like just want a life with. Um, and I'm just like, I I I don't know if I had the full realization at that point, but I'm like, I cannot get sober in this situation. Like, I'm gonna die. He's gonna die, I'm gonna die, like we're all gonna fucking die. Uh, people are getting arrested. Like that seems to be like the only place it ends up is like people either get arrested, they end up in jail, they die, or they get sober. So my aunt had shown up at the house and she had circled a date on the calendar, and she was like, if you're not out of here and either in rehab by this point, I never want to see your fucking face again. I never want to talk to you again. Don't call me, don't ask me for anything. And the feeling, I knew she was serious. There's like something about it, there's something spiritual, like from like one person to another. Um, and I started crying. And I remember her making fun of me crying. Like she was like mimicking me and like, you poor thing, like, oh, poor you, it's always you. Like, and I remember thinking, how heartless can you be? Like, how how cold can you be? Um and looking back on that now, I know that that's not what that was at all. Uh, that's I don't no nobody could reach me. Nobody, right, nobody could like reach through all of the drugs and sickness and shaved head and like just everything, and like actually like awaken me. Like they were trying to wake me up. Um, she tells me this, she still talks about this story about how she shows up at the house. I'm living in a junky bedroom, there's shit everywhere, like old like Coke cans and like clothing everywhere, and like whatever. Um, I had like barricaded the door, um, and she's knocking on it and like trying to see if I'm awake or alive. Like, that's what she was really worried about. Um, and she busts her way in. And I can remember too that like I had just finally like hit a vein after like trying for hours, and I had fallen asleep and I was like fully naked, and I'm just like sprawled out, skinny. I look like a skeleton at this point. I'm sprawled out of my bed, like after having just shut up. She opens the door, she screams. It wakes me up out of this high. And the first thing I think of was, How dare you? Like, I was pissed that she woke me up. That was what it was, and she's she's horrified thinking I'm dead. And my first thought is like, fuck you, go away. Like, that's that's addiction.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:29

Damn right.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:30

So that date circles

Second Rehab — For Real This Time

SPEAKER_01 1:25:31

on the calendar. You're getting the fuck out of here by that point. Um I knew I knew it was happening. I was also ready too. Uh, my never's had kind of gone out the window. Um, I was at the point where I just wanted to feel better and I just wanted to feel like the real me again. I wanted to make my family proud. I wanted them to like be proud of me and love me again. Um, so I get everything going, ready for the day. Um, I hug my boyfriend and he rides off on his bicycle. I give him a kiss and I'm like, I'll be back in six months. I have to do sober living this time. Have to. Uh I go to rehab again. Um I sit down and I talk to my therapist, and I just I was just so full of shame because like I obviously like didn't I didn't listen to any of the the follow-through suggestions last time. And I just had it in my head. I was like, I just know he's gonna be so disappointed in me. Um, and I just like don't want to hear it, you know. So as soon as I sit with him, I muster up all my bravery, and he looks me in the eyes and he's like, I'm glad you're back. And like that, that was really nice uh to hear. And then as soon as he said that, I was like, Do you just give me the paper for sober living? I'll sign it right now. I don't care. Like, give me the paper for Iop. And I I just started residential. Like, it's like, give me the paper for everything, I'll sign it. Whatever you need, I'll sign it. I don't care. I'm done. So it took what it took, and I needed all of it. Um I was like super willing. And somewhere in that journey, uh my boyfriend who was also like gonna, you know, like work on getting sober at his on his side of the street, and then we were gonna like come up with our plan and we were gonna do it all. Um, I had a conversation with him, and he was talking about how he went to a concert. That's awesome, we love doing that, whatever. Like, cool, you're doing things again. Like, that's awesome. Um, and he talked about having a drink. And it was just like the disconnect between his understanding of sobriety and my understanding of sobriety, but also like it's a very personal journey, right? So, like for me, knowing that I couldn't just like drink, knowing that I couldn't, that's not that wasn't gonna work for me. Um, because I had tried it. I tried it so many ways. I tried just detox, just outpatient, like just all that shit. Uh, and I just knew, but I also knew that he didn't understand that that's the really the only thing that it was gonna work. Um so I kind of at that point like knew that it just wasn't it wasn't gonna work. Um, so I detached, I think, a little bit and we tried to stay friends for a little bit. We talked uh for a while. I broke up with him. Uh, we were both a little bit heartbroken, but you know, we kind of went our separate ways and then slowly we lost contact. Um, and eventually he died from this disease. So yeah, you know, fast forward in recovery. I'm sitting in bed with my husband. Uh he was either right after we just got married, so like four years, I want to say four years ago, right after we got married, I I get a call or a message on Instagram from his brother. Um, and he said that he finally passed. So he had had his own, and I just broke down like instantly. Like I just started sobbing. Um it's like when one of us goes, it it feels like all of us, you know. Yeah. Just like, why me? The survivor skill, like, why me and not him, you know, like Uh I don't know. You know, he had some some choices there. And one of the when I talked to him the last time, he had said, I'm ready to meet my maker. That was like one of the last things I said. And I can remember thinking, like, how sad. Like so the world lost another amazing person to addiction.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:18

But that's not an uncommon experience either. And I think Haley had a similar experience.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:23

Uh she did. She did. And you know what? The another thing about recovery too is that I was able to be completely honest with my husband about where my feelings were at. Um, and none of it was wrong. It was all okay. I can still talk about him to this day if I want to or need to. Um, and my husband is just like, wow, he sounds like he was an awesome guy. And I'm like, he was, dude. Like, he really was. Um, because I didn't leave him because I didn't love him. You know, I left because I needed to get sober and I needed to love myself more. And on that journey, I I just I did it all. I did recovery, I did all the IOPs, I did all the P's, all the all the shit. And slowly I started to get things back. Um I just did it all. Like I just became that person that's like the annoying kid in class that that asks all the questions and is afraid of getting in trouble. And I just like I laser focused my vision and I I made my world very small. Um, I just did whatever the professionals told me to do, and I hung out with other people that were trying to stay sober too. Um, and that's where I met your wife.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:30

Yeah, and we're still friends. So few of us and I've been, you know, I've relapsed multiple times since you've known me, right? And and so few of us make it. I mean, what would you say? Because I know a lot of people watch these like sobriety podcasts and and things like that that are are still using, right? To get to get hope. I'm surprised at some of the comments I see, not on mine, but on the other ones. Um, like what would you say to somebody who just doesn't understand how you go from you know heroin to almost 12 years of sobriety? Like, what is what's the what's the the nugget?

SPEAKER_01 1:31:04

It's not linear. It's yeah, it's like the the recovery is not linear. So, and that's also something that I kind of came to the realization like within the last few years. So, you know, I feel like when I first got sobered like this last time, I was very like kept in like whatever you tell me to do, kept in 12-step recovery program, like kept in like whatever. And I saw people doing things that weren't necessarily that. Um, and I I struggled to like accept that like maybe that could work for them, right? Like, there's all sorts of stuff in like the field of like recovery and like addiction medicine and like just all of it, like rehab. Um, it's just not like one size fits all. So I tried like so many different ways. I tried it A, B, C, A, B, A, B, C, X, Y, Z. Like, I just I tried it all the ways that didn't work until I finally found something that worked. Um, and my first exposure to like going to a detox and like knowing I had a problem was not the first time I got sober, you know, like my first full rehab wasn't the time I got sober. Um, I could still relapse today if I stopped taking care of myself. Like it's I don't know. I used to be, I think, very fearful of the people, especially when I was in early recovery, that had like maybe relapsed or, you know, weren't doing all of the things that I thought had to be done and went into like a recovery. But that was just my own fear and my own like bias. Um it was just because I was afraid. Like, that's it. Um, I I looked at the world so black and white, and I just wanted things to like hold on to because it makes me feel safe when things fit into my understanding of the world.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:47

Um totally. And I mean that's true for everyone.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:50

It's true, and now it's not like that. Like now, and I work in treatment, so I get to like help a lot of people. Um, I get to like give what I have, but I also have like slowly learned

Life Today — 12 Years Sober

SPEAKER_01 1:33:02

through the years that like there's no judgment, like there can't be judgment. Like it's my story is different than your story, but we're the same, you know. Um, the the details are different, but how we get here is different. What we experience along the way is different. Um, and it's not just like, oh, I just can't get high anymore. There's like, how do I show up for life and like be a good husband, a good wife? Like, how do I be a parent? How do I be a good employee? Like, there's so many things. And like ultimately, like this underlying thing about it is that I still have a condition that can easily go back to the way it was if I don't take care of myself. Um, but it's not linear at all. Like there are people that relapse is part of their story. There's people that relapse is not part of their story. Um, I've, you know, even for myself too. Like I've been totally sober and I've felt full on suicidal. Like I've sought therapy, I've sought couples therapy, marriage therapy in sobriety. Like, there's all of these things that I've gone through. Like, life has gotten lifey and I've stayed sober. I haven't always handled it perfectly. Um, but it's it's just one foot in front of the other. Like it's it's the same thing in childhood, though. Like, I don't know what it was. Like I had all these, like, all these blows, like abuse and trauma and like rape and like just like all these like fucked up words. But like the reality, like looking back on it, was that like I had a lot of trauma. Um and somehow like this little person kept getting up every day and showing up. Um, I made it through life. Like, I just like I dragged the dead weight of my trauma behind me and I showed up. And I found coping skills along the way. Some of those coping skills were not that great. I found other coping skills in sobriety. I just I found what works. Um, I think the biggest thing though is like whatever it is, it's okay. Um, it's just it's okay. My shame, my guilt, the the judgment of myself of like I'm not good enough. I'm not where I need to be in recovery, I'm not the daughter I need to be, I'm not the wife I need to be, I'm I could be better. How do I have these icky human feelings of like fear and jealousy and like feeling uncomfortable in my own skin? But like it's okay. It's okay. Um, yeah, it's just everybody has their journey. It's not linear. You know, one day I can wake up and I can be a total fucking asshole and like cuss somebody out in traffic, and then the next day I can be like king guru yogi, like I'm gonna meditate, you know, like it is never the same. I have a full-on caffeine addiction too at this point.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:37

So same girl.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:39

So at least I drink at least one five-hour energy a day. That's all I got left.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:44

Man, Nicole, that was an absolute heater. Thank you so much for for telling your story. I really, really appreciate it. And uh yeah, first for anyone listening, thanks for tuning in. My name's Austin. We'll catch you on the next episode. Take care.