Speak Up

Ok, so when I was 16 years old my parents had me picked up and taken to an 8 week wilderness course, from there I went to a lock down residential treatment facility in Utah for 13 months, after that I went to North Idaho to finish my senior year in high school. I was there for about 9 months before I graduated high school and finally went home at 18. Right after my 19th birthday I started dating a guy I had known for a long time, even though I knew he had a history with meth addiction. He had just gotten out of prison after 4 years and never wanted to touch the stuff again, or so I thought. After like 3 months he began smoking again, I had no interest in it at all, until one day about a month later I decided to try it "just once". I didn't stop doing it until 3 years later. In that 3 years I don't remember a whole lot other than smoking, fighting, doing stupid illegal things, being arrested, and some other not good things. I was homeless for almost 2 of those years, I ended up with MRSA and staph infections. Looking back there are so many times I should have died, and almost as many times I wished I would. In April of 2012 a friend was murdered then in May I was arrested twice in one week, that is when I had had enough. I went to rehab for 30 days and when I came back I wasn't even clean for 2 weeks. That relapse proved to me that addiction is patient, but it wants to kill you, and it will keep trying, forever. At that point in time I lost everything. Literally. My car broke down, I got kicked out, I was raped (again), my purse and phone were stolen. I had nothing. That was on July 11, 2012. Today is December 10, 2012. Tomorrow I will have 5 months clean and sober. I have never been so proud of myself.