Monsters in the closet: how drug addiction took over my life

I was the girl that nobody expected. The nerdy little girl who always smiled and laughed, but always kept to herself. I did not go out. I did not celebrate. I didn’t do the normal teenage things that get in trouble. Even when he sneaked out at night, it was to go to Sonic or McDonald’s. It was boring, but drug addiction doesn’t care about being boring. They don’t care about your personality, your friends or you.

The point is, did you know about addiction before you started using. Both of my parents were drug addicts and I had seen my family destroyed over and over again. He had seen the need for drugs take over his need to eat, to have power in the house, to spend time with me. I watched my parents become different people since I was 10 years old. Finally, I got mad.

I was mad at drugs for molding my parents into these creatures I didn’t know. I was angry that my parents would rather spend money on drugs than feed me and my siblings. I was angry because at the age of 15, I had already been so traumatized that even now I have nightmares. My anxiety and depression soared through the roof. I could not eat. I could not sleep. My grades in school went down. I just wanted to know: why?

What made this drug so good that it was worth separating my family? What made it so great that given the choice between me and meth, they would always choose meth? I tried to push the thoughts out of my mind, but they kept coming back, forcing themselves into my brain to the point that no matter what I did, I couldn’t get rid of the question. Why? Why? Because ?! I had to know. I had to try it at least once, just to find out what exactly was so fantastic about this substance.

So I did it. And everything stopped.

The Depression. The anxiety. The feeling that it could never be good enough. Everything was gone. My mind raced, then slowed, then raced and went blank. Did I feel normal or did I feel not at all? My adrenaline surged. I had to go. Do something. So I cleaned the house for 8 hours before going to school.

I didn’t sleep for two days and when I crashed, I slept almost 20 hours. At least now I get it. The worst part was that he wanted more.

I did a quick spiral and became a regular user. He didn’t need to sleep. He did not need food. All I needed was this drug, the one I saw my parents destroy. Now, I was watching him destroy myself, but I didn’t care. It made the pain stop, at least for a while.

I ended up weighing 65 pounds in the hospital for severe malnutrition and a nasty infection before quitting. The retreats were horrible, but I don’t remember much except about three months later. Look, what they don’t tell you about being a regular user is that after a while, it redirects your brain. So now sometimes I hear things and I see things that don’t exist. I have incredible paranoia and after I quit smoking my depression and anxiety increased tenfold.

The physical pain was much worse. Broken bones, fractured ribs, and a host of illnesses before and after I quit smoking have given me the bone and muscle structure of someone in their 40s rather than 20 years.

I have been clean for over two years and I never plan to go back. God, however, do cravings ever stop?