Drug and alcohol addiction and abuse. Recognition. Prevention. Treatment
20/20 Parenting. Recognizing and mitigating early vulnerabilities and risk factors.
Letters to Kerry
Stories of Victory, Struggle, Tragedy, & Workplace Concerns
August 6, 2006:
I read your story in the Vancouver Courier and I felt compelled to write and see if there is any way I can be of service. I feel overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude for my life and a responsibility to give back. Your story of your son Ryan parallels my own story of crystal meth addiction. I too was addicted to meth for 10 months when I tried to take my life on March 31, 2001.
My single mother, who loved me and felt utterly helpless, had to come to the squat I was living in to take me to the hospital because the other addicts I was living with did not want any police around. I was psychotic, and I had been for months, and I had completely lost the will to live. I spent over a month in St. Paul's and I was diagnosed with bi-polar and schizophrenia. Long-term treatment at Riverview was suggested, yet I too was able to "pull it together" for short periods and I convinced the community board that such steps were unnecessary, despite my mother's desperate argument.
I claimed that now that I was medicated properly I would be "fine" and did not need the drugs. It was a manipulative lie that I told to prevent further commitment. It worked. When I left the psyc ward I was still suicidal and I was completely dysfunctional. I was terrified to use meth again (because I didn't want to get "locked up" again). I was terrified to try and kill myself again because I felt like I was so incompetent that I couldn't even do it right the first time and I just might fail again and end up in Riverview permanently. Yet, I couldn't function at all without meth.
I was unable to get out of my living place to meet a worker because showering seemed so overwhelming, because I would get side-tracked by a million irrelevant "tasks". I was filled with terror, an indescribable self-loathing and self-hatred, intense guilt and shame for existing and putting my single mother, who loved me and raised me well, through such pain. I had no hope. My mum had no hope. Everybody, including my mum to some degree, had given up on there being any sort of future for me that did not involve the streets, death or institutionalization.
And, then, a miracle happened. A family friend of my mum's came to visit me at exactly the right moment, and said my mum was still willing to send me to a private dual-diagnosis treatment center. This had been offered to me numerous times before and every time I had declined (often in anger/rage at the suggestion). For whatever reason, this time I said yes.
If there is a parent who is helplessly watching their child destroy themselves beyond recognition, I want them to know that there is hope. There is hope. I was 23 years old, barely 90lbs at 5 foot 8. I was completely psychotic, had open wounds all over my body and face, and I had shaved my head (I am female) right before I attempted suicide. My kidneys were not working properly. People did not understand what I was saying because I was talking in "word-soup"(gibberish). The nurses at the hospital had told my mum to organize my funeral because it was likely that I would die in the very near future. I was completely resistant to treatment and just wanted people to leave me alone so that I could die.
And, over 5 years later, here I am - very much alive, sane, excited about my life, incredibly healthy, happy and grateful to have been miraculously saved from the living hell of crystal meth addiction. I am a student at Simon Fraser University. I am on the Dean's Honor roll with a 4.2GPA (between an "A" and "A+" average). My relationship with my mum, which had been severely damaged in my addiction due to my insanity and rage, has healed and never been better. I have healthy friends. I have not taken a drink or a drug since May 15, 2001.
Neither my mum nor I believed that I would ever have a sane, normal, happy life again. Yet here I am. I am writing because I want to offer hope. Everybody, including my mum, medical professionals and even many of the staff at the treatment facility I attended, had doubts that I could ever function independently again. Yet here I am. I do not have bi-polar. I do not have schizophrenia. I do not need to take psychotropic medication or live in an institution or a group home or anything of the sort. I live independently and I am enjoying and excelling in my life - nobody is more amazed at this than myself. If I did not have people in my life who have watched this transformation I would not believe it was true. I would think I had dreamt it, or was lying for dramatic effect. But this miracle is not a dream, nor a lie.
This transformation was not instant, though. I have been extremely lucky in all the help and support I have received. I am extremely lucky that my mum, although she is a single mum, has an education and a good paying job. I needed to go to the private treatment center I went to because it was open-ended and longer that most programs. I needed that because the psychosis from my crystal meth addiction did not go away right when I stopped using. I was in treatment for over 5 months and I needed to be. I was still nuts after 30 days of treatment and would have probably used again, or attempted suicide again, had I attended a typical 28-day program.
I was incapable of working or going to school for the first year and a half of my recovery. I was on disability and I needed to be. The treatment center I went to follows a 12-step approach and I am grateful for that. When I was still incapable of being a functioning member of society I was able to go to 12 step meetings daily and feel as though I had a purpose and could contribute and as though, maybe, my life had value.
Treatment was discovery and a much needed time where I could get strong enough and sane enough and just enough hope, so that my will to live and heal and grow would return. It did. 12 step meetings have been instrumental in taking me from a clean and sober dysfunctional girl on disability to a functional, sane, contributing member of society who loves life, is excited by the possibilities of the future and is a self-supporting young adult who attends university.
I want to offer hope to the parents of addicts and whatever help I can. I caused my mum so much pain and treated her so poorly in my addiction. I can never take that away. Yet, not only can I give love and thanks to her now, but I can also make myself available to other parents who are in the position she was in, or who have been. That is what I want to do. If there is any way that I can be of service to this organization I would like to be.
I also want you to know that many of us in recovery pray daily for your children-the drug addicts and alcoholics who are still suffering. I know many people prayed for me; both family and strangers; both people who believed in the idea of prayer and those who did not. And so everyday I send love and prayers to the hundreds of kids, just like me, whose spirits are broken and hurting from the effects of drugs and alcohol. I pray that they too get a miracle so that they can heal and feel joy and happiness again and so that the people who love them no longer have to live in constant worry. Any requests from your organization are welcome.
Love, Hope and Blessings
Gen
