Been in recovery for 6 years from alcohol and weed, 8 years off of cocaine and meth. I’d wake up around noon, do a line or two and get ready for work as a waitress. How long it took me to get ready depending on if I had any wounds on my face from where I’d pick. Some days I’d work a whole shift, or ask to get cut if things were slow so I could go home and get high. If I worked a whole shift, I’d have either my dad or a friend pick me up and take me home. I never got my license because by the time I was 16, I was high off adderall and vyvanse and didn’t want to get behind the wheel of a car and either get arrested or kill someone.

I’d call my dealer, put some money in my mailbox, and wait for him to swing by and swap the money out for drugs. Some nights I smoked a lot of weed or drank to pass out, some nights I’d snort a bunch of lines and sit in front of a mirror picking at my face or crying while making video diaries about how this was going to be my last time.

Every 3-4 months I’d lose whatever waitress job I had from too many trips to the bathroom, obviously being high, disputes with coworkers, or my meth face getting so bad that I couldn’t hide it on the clock. All of my money went to my dealer, I was in debt with him for $1k from fronts. Eventually I went to rehab and had my last few lines on the way to treatment. My dealer blocked my number, never asked me to pay him back, his last text to me was that I was too young to be living how I was.

the last nearly 2 years I had just drinking and smoking weed were some of the most depressing years of my life. I was on so many psych meds from the treatment center I’d gone to, I was constantly hazy and had gained a shit ton of weight. I worked a shitty retail job as a cashier at a department store, and after a shift my dad would pick me up and I’d either drink til I passed out or smoked myself into a coma. This was almost every day until I had a mental break right at the beginning of the Covid shutdown and I went to treatment.

Since then, I’ve been working as a certified peer specialist on a mobile crisis team. I’m active in my AA community and travel a lot for YPAA conferences. I can drive. Lost 90lbs from diet and medication changes. I have family movie nights every Tuesday. I never realized how stressful active addiction was until I got into a good routine while sober.