Letters from Crystal Meth Users

• Jan
  21

  The Story Behing My Habit

  I spent about 2 hours reading these letters and am amazed at the openness of the content. It was like I was reading my life story in some of them. I started using Crystal Meth when I was 17. At age 15, I had moved from California to Texas and was thrown into culture shock. The town was small and I soon found out that since there was nothing to do in a town that small, everyone experimented with drugs. My parents seemed to really "bond" with this new group of friends that was coming over. I figured they were really good friends because I would go to sleep at night, and find every one of them would be in the same chairs, in the same positions in the morning. I was naive, but I wasn't stupid. I knew they were doing some sort of drugs. When confronted, my parents would look at me like I was crazy and blew it off.

  It wasn't until one day, when I was waiting for Mom to make a pot of coffee, that I was first introduced to crystal meth. Apparently my mom had slipped it into my coffee cup, because she wanted me to clean the house, and knew I had a friend over for a sleepover, and did not want to clean. I didn't know where the energy came from but I was a cleaning machine! All of a sudden I had the best communicating skills and loved it. You see, I never fit in my Texas high school and had a big problem with adjusting and also had self-esteem issues.

  A few days later, I had stayed up practically all night "now being a part of the group". Feeling like a friend instead of a daughter, which I loved because it was the only place I felt halfway connected to someone. I looked at the time and had like 45 minutes until I would normally wake up for school. I panicked because I already had too many absences and knew I would be expelled if I missed another day. SO, my mom told me that what I had in my coffee the other day was crystal meth and that if I did a line, I would be good at least until school was over. I had heard that it burned real bad and was scared. My mom assured me it wouldn't burn bad and that it was totally worth it. So, I trusted my mom and took the straw from her and did my first line. She had lied. My nose was on fire! The part behind my ear burned so bad, but she was also right, it was totally worth it! I was on top of the world, I went to school with confidence, and had the best school day of my life.

  I was solely hanging out with my parents and the young guys that would come over all the time. I was finally part of a group. I tried a few other drugs over time, (crack, weed, acid, etc.) But I never wanted to try Heroine or shooting up, because I know that sometimes it only takes one time to get physically addicted to them. My mother and I would have many talks about the ingredients contained in them, and she told me of her biker days when she was running the stuff. I remember her saying that coke was physically addicting, but crank was mentally addicting. And so I reasoned with myself and figured that I would notice if I was addicted and would immediately stop once I realize it. Of course I trusted myself, because I was so scared of becoming addicted, surly I would notice.

  I continued to shove this 'white miracle' up my nose and eventually graduated high school. I was excited at the thought of being able to tweak all day at home and not worry about people noticing, which was a scary thought and that is why I wasn't doing too much then. Maybe 3 lines before I went to school and as soon as I got home, instead of an afternoon snack that most kids ate when they got home from school, I would go to my mom's room and re-amp.

  My parents were selling a little weed to pay for their habit, so we had a lot of people over all the time. People from my school, people who had walked past me every day in class and never acknowledged the fact that I existed, were calling MY house, looking for MY mom! The coolest mom ever, so much better than when we lived in California when my parents were really strict and into church. The feelings I was feeling were very addicting. This went on for a while, and in that time I had started dating one of the popular guys from high school that had graduated a year ahead of me. We were always speeding. Life was awesome that way. We had the best sex in the world, and life couldn't get any better!

  Thanksgiving, 1997, we had decided we were going to have our usual crowd come over and we were going to play poker and just go wild. Everyone chipped in 100 bucks and we had gotten several 8 balls. We had a new addition to the group, a father of one of the guys. He was a tweaker too, and added to the pot. He kind of took over lining up the rails and doling it out. He made huge ass rails, bigger than I had ever seen. And we would take turns doing our rails in between games of poker. I know you know what how much we all smoke at those times too. I was chain smoking in between discussing important issues that we all seemed to have epiphanies on.

  I noticed that the guy doling out the lines was making bigger and more frequent lines. We had all chipped in money and he just kept lining them out and we didn't want to lose our money's worth so we tried to keep up with him. We had been at the kitchen table about 4 days now, minus the people who had to go to and from work and returned later. I wasn't feeling very well. I went outside to get a breath of fresh air and ended up vomiting... a lot. (Dry heaves of course) Another one of our friends had quite a scare. His heart was beating so hard you could practically hear it and it really scared him. He went home after that and we continued on our thanksgiving binge. Later that night, the same thing happened to my mom. Her heart was beating very hard and she felt herself losing consciousness and told us to tell the ambulance that she had overdosed on meth. Nobody wanted that to happen, so it was a good thing that she came out of it before we made the call. My mom has never touched the stuff since.

  I on the other hand, found other friends to speed with. I had to hide it from my parents now, because they had stopped, and had urged me to stop. I moved out to my first apartment and had a guy who gave me all the free meth I wanted as long as he could sell out of my apartment. Of course I agreed, and sure enough, every time I walked into my room, this guy would have these long rails on my large mirror we used. I had it made.

  I got engaged and then married to the popular guy I was dating. The day of my wedding, we both had been up for 8 days, and said our vows and partied later, staying up another 4 days after that. I didn't realize how paranoid I was. I thought this lady I worked with was going to try and kill me because she found out that I had called crime-stoppers on her for running over a black man and killing him, which no one really cared about in this racist, close-minded southern town.

  Driven by fear and skitzing out from being up almost 2 weeks, my new husband and I packed all of our stuff in the middle of the night and declared to my mom that we had to go before we got killed. She of course called me on being fucked up and told me that if anyone looked for me, she would tell them where we were. I screamed and pleaded with her and then left in a paranoid panic. We were off to Houston where we would be safe at his dad's house. In the car on the way there I was looking at my wedding pictures and suddenly my eyes were open! I saw how skinny I was, how lifeless I appeared, and I said, "That's' it! We cannot do this anymore; it's going to kill us!!" And with that, I threw the remainder of my stash, almost a gram, out the car window.

  Houston was a whole different world. Things we're VERY fast paced there, Everyone is in a hurry. I was not adjusting well. My aunt lived in Houston and knew I was detoxing and was trying to keep me busy during the day. She would wake me up at the ass-crack of dawn and kept our day very full. I was not used to being that mobile without my drugs, but tried for her sake. We only had one car at the time, so I was getting up at like 5 am, to drop him off at work and I proceeded to job hunt. I found a waitressing gig at one of the crab shacks. My training shift would start at around 6 and then I would work until about 11. It was wearing on me. The training for that restaurant was extremely hard and I wasn't grasping a word they would say. When we had to take a test for the training, we were seated outside and I was surrounded by chatting wait staff. I asked them several times to be quiet , and finally I couldn't concentrate because of what my brain was going through at the time, so I told the manager I couldn't do it, and left.

  Now, by this time, we were just moved into an apartment, and I forgot where it was! I got lost and panicked after a while, because we had not hooked up our phone yet. I found myself going the wrong way down a one-way road (which I had never seen before) All saw were lights coming toward me and I just honked the horn a million time and made everyone stop. They probably thought I was all cracked out. Anyway, I was so shaken up by it, that I couldn't drive any more. I had given up hope of ever finding the apartment complex and just cried and cried. A thuggish looking guy came to the car and asked me how he could help; he later informed me that the complex I was looking for was the next one down. I went home and balled myself up in a corner and cried uncontrollably. I was having panic attacks every time I got in the car, because I was afraid of driving in the big city.

  I decided that I needed to see my mom and find out what was wrong with me. As children, we never went to the doctor or dentist, because we never had money. She always diagnosed us according to our symptoms at the time. I was so paranoid about the woman I possibly seeing that woman that wanted toon my moon that by the time I got back to the house, I was having another panic attack, and was so tired, and was bitching at my younger sister to get out and mom yelled at me, and basically told me to get the hell out of her house until I was sober.

  So I went back to Houston and was getting more scared. I didn't know what was wrong with me, and the only one who COULD, kicked me out of her house. I still had everything in boxes because I couldn't get started. Every time I would try and unpack, my mind would shift and I never got around to it. Didn't have a bed yet, and even though I had been off the meth for 5 days, I hadn't eaten or slept yet. I couldn't! Every time I would close my eyes and try and will myself to go to sleep, my eyes would pop back open, wide as ever. I was so frustrated. I was hearing voices, (things or phrases people had said to me throughout my life was going through my head, about 4 at the same time) I thought I was going crazy. I tried to eat, but got sidetracked every time, and I was basically wasting away. I had laid down and after three more days with no luck, I basically gave up, and didn't move, didn't do anything. I was going to starve to death and I had accepted it.

  My husband pleaded with me to 'snap out if it'. He didn't have the same experience, so he didn't know how to help me. Finally, my uncle came over another 2 days later, and I was yelling, agitated, bitching, and not making any sense. He finally got in my face and pushed me down and made me listen to him. He told me he was where I was once. He was strung out, and had lost his family and home, and was living out of a camper and was giving up like I was. Then someone had helped him and told him that if you think too far ahead in the future, then yes, it would be too overwhelming. He said he basically had to take it one minute at a time, making himself eat and rest his body,(he too could not fall asleep) He told me exactly how I was feeling and exactly what to expect in the coming weeks. And after I finally knew what was wrong with me, I started to relax. I took it minute by minute and then day by day. Soon, I was able to function, even though I looked like a walking dead person at age 20. My husband and I realized that we did not know each other, that the whole time we were involved, we were in a drug-induced state. We separated and I moved on with my life. Every time I smell ether, or another chemical that was in crystal meth, I would be amazed at how it instantly brought it back and I would think of the fond times I had.

  I had been clean for about three years and met my now husband. He is in the military and we moved to Hawaii who has a huge 'ice' epidemic. I was working at a gentlemen's club and didn't see a lot of drug use until about 9 months ago. I had heard that people on the islands smoked it. I didn't know that you could smoke ice. I had talked with my mom about it and she had never heard that either. I would talk to customers who were in the military and would talk about their drug days and apparently Hawaii is not the only place where smoking it occurred. I don't know why, but I was intrigued, you could say.

  One night, I had done a few lap dances for a guy and he said for the last dance he would give me a bag of coke for payment. I agreed, because I could do coke no problem. When I brought the bag home, it didn't look powdery like coke is supposed to be and I figured out it was ice. I showed it to my husband and decided we would save it for his leave, because I wasn't going to do it, and he was always asking what it was like. So, one night we were talking and he said he wanted to see me take a hit first because he was scared. So I did. After 3 years of not touching the stuff, I had snorted a relatively small line. It didn't feel like I remembered, although I am sure that it had a few different ingredients than the Texas stuff I was used to. So, I stayed up for 2 1/2 days playing internet poker and that was it.

  It seemed that everywhere I looked, someone was either talking about ice or selling it and I always happened to be around. One night I was in the restroom and saw a cloud of kind of clear smoke coming from the stall. The smoker verified who I was and asked if I wanted a hit. I had never done it before, so I obliged. It was definitely different. In the past, I would judge whether it was good or not by how much of a burn I would get behind my ears. This didn't burn. Even better, (I used to have a lot of nose bleeds and a raw nose) I took a few hits and went about my night. At the end of the night, I drove home and proceeded to stay up all night.

  I had school the next day, so I called the girl and met up with her for a fix. I remember what I looked like before and figured I would do it just that day and that's it. But it didn't stop there. Somehow I had her purse in my car and found the pipe and smoke...quite a bit. It started out little by little. Then a customer of mine who was on leave wanted to smoke, so we got hooked up with a 1/2 gram and smoked for 12 hours straight on it. I had the black soot all over my clothes and my face was really breaking out. I have a horrible habit of picking my face for hours, and so I had to cover them up with a lot of makeup to hide it from my husband. I couldn't let him know I had slipped. Besides, I was just going to do it that last time.....

  A couple days later, we got another 1/2 gram and then another and every time I did it I would say to myself, "This is it, no more!" I had to let my scabs heal before my mother flies into town. I gave myself 3 weeks to heal up. Then I would slip... so I then had 2 weeks... then one week. She is flying in in 3 days, and I look horrible. I weighed myself and found that I have lost 11 lbs. already. My mother would be so disappointed with me if she finds out. She could always take one look at me and be able to tell. My husband keeps asking me why I am awake, because I usually go to bed after work from being exhausted. I wasn't going to do any more like 5 days ago, and I happened to walk in the bathroom and there it was, faithful as ever. I wouldn't even think I would smoke a little and hope it wore off by closing time. And when it didn't, because I knew who the dealer was, I would end up asking about a bag. I told the person I only wanted like 10 bucks worth, to get me through the next day, and they only sold it in 1/2 grams, so I would have a lot and it has been a cycle and I don't know what to do. I would like to say I am not addicted, but it is hard to say no. I smoke now and then think about the consequences later.

  My husband is being deployed to Iraq and I am afraid that I will do more, because I won't have to worry about hiding it. Please pray for me. Today, I still have about 15 dollars' worth, and haven't been to sleep in 3 days. I had to force Thanksgiving dinner down, and have been on the computer all night. I am going to do the last of the bag because I have a 2 year anniversary dinner my husband planned special to me. I am done after that. I already told the dealer not to sell me anymore, and I have a co-worker who doesn't do speed and shared with her my story and she vowed to be me 'buddy' through this. So, I will be back to normal in a few days. I can do it!
  
  Hayley

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  Posted on January 21st, 2011

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