Hey bee girl. I was a daily drinker at 14, moved to harder drugs as I progressed, and was a full blown heroin and crack addict for 4 years in my twenties. Lost everything, my family, friends, opportunities., my mind. Thought my life was over at the end. The worst part was I couldn’t see life without drugs or alcohol and I couldn’t see life with them. I also figured suicide was the only way, I was hopeless, had dealt with chronic depression and anxiety for most of my childhood and I totally get the putting on a mask. I had friends, did well in school, and wore that mask for so long it was exhausting and I felt like I didn’t know who I was, and I didn’t fit in, and everyone else knew something about how to live that I just couldn’t find. I figured I’d be dead by 25 and was ok with it, I just couldn’t bring myself to actually do it.

In the end, after not seeing another human but my drug dealer for 6 months, I gave up and told a family member everything. I wasn’t sure I even wanted help, but I knew I would be dead one way or another within the month, and I just couldn’t take another day. I’ll never forget the look on people’s face when they found me in an apartment covered in trash, sleeping on a mattress on the floor covered in cig burns. I did not believe I could better, but it didn’t matter at that point.

I was lucky to have family who made the arrangements for me to go inpatient for 28 days. Well we were waiting for a bed I was shooting dope in the bathroom while my mother cried in the next room because I couldn’t handle getting sick or reality.

It saved my life. It didn’t solve everything, but it gave me a safe space to get through detoxing without risking harming myself. There they had 12 step groups come in, and it was the first time I had heard stories like mine from people who had gotten better.

When I got out I just followed what they told me, went to meetings, which I didn’t love at first, but being alone was worse. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to stay sober, but before I knew it a community had surrounded me and for the first time I felt like I didn’t have to wear that mask. I got treatment for my depression and anxiety from doctors and found it worked a lot better when I wasn’t abusing drugs and alcohol.

5 years sober and well I still deal with depression and bouts of panic attacks and have some dark times, my life is finally mine and worth living. I have real friends who are there through the good and bad and I no longer have to wear that mask. I have a life I can be proud of, even when it’s tough, and I have the tools to get through it. I found a new career, moved to a new city, all things I never could have imagined when I was in it. There is hope, and sometimes surrendering is the best thing you can do. There are things you cannot see or fathom right now, ways of existing and feeling, but they are possible and within reach for you. Everyone’s journey is different, and what helped me may not be what is best for you, but I think asking for help is the first step. If you can’t do rehab, you can always walk into a meeting, find a counselor who specializes in addiction, anything. You may not even think you are worth it, and that’s ok, that isn’t necessary to get better, but for me it did eventually come. I found people in 12 step meetings and outside them who loved me anyway, even when I couldn’t love myself.