Sunday Stories - Tattoo Dee

Hi! I'm an alcoholic and drug addict and my name is Dee. I am hoping that by telling my story today there might be a woman out there that hears what she needs to hear and most of all that you will hear a message of HOPE.

I started using drugs at a very early age. I was raised in Europe up until the age of 5 and things are a little different over there. From there my family moved to Longboat Key, Florida. Which is actually an island, and the kids there were referred to as 'Island Kids'. By the time I was 12, I was drinking and smoking pot, which quickly lead to using LSD. I either needed to be the best of the best or the baddest of the bad! At 14, I didn't just run away from home, but managed to hitch hike across country to California. This was right at the end of the whole hippie movement, so instead of love beads I was met by junkies and became a heroin addict. 

It didn't take long to get arrested for possession. I was in the LA county jail, 5'11" tall, about 90 lbs, white as a sheet, malnourished with track marks.  Since I was a juvenile, they called my parents, who sent a plane ticket to fly me back to Florida. There I went into a Juvenile home for 6 weeks or so, but as soon as I was released, I was right back at it. My parents tried the geographical relocation to help me stop. But I would steal booze, pills, anything to get high and end up in jail. We moved again, and I met my first husband. A guy who drank and drugged just as much as I did. At 16 I had my first son, had another, then the marriage broke up. My ex-husband took the kids and I did not see them for over 10 years. I was married again, to another man who drank and drugged, divorced and married again. I was charged with drunk and disorderly conduct, ended up in a psych ward, had numerous blackouts and DUI's. I was court ordered to attend meetings. Everyone saw that I had a problem but me.

That was the start of a 30 year period of going to meetings, getting a sponsor, being sober for a while, and going right back to it for no reason at all. Relapse has been a big part of my sobriety, but I was told 'No matter how many times you fall down, you CAN get back up and try again'. Towards the end, I was mixing alcohol with heroin, I would get drunk/high, go to sleep and hope I would just not wake up. I was just tired of living that way. Then one day, I found myself with no job, no apartment, no money and no gas in the car. I was 56 years old - how did this happen?

I felt lost! I didn't know who I was. I had no identity. I'm DONE, I've had it! All I felt was hopelessness and dispair. It felt like a HUGE hole in my chest that kept opening and opening until Dee wasn't there anymore. I was a black hole!

After 3 days of doing nothing but sitting on the couch feeling like nothing, a friend called. I was so broken that I couldn't put two coherent thoughts together. I had never been like that and was scared to death. She asked if I had eaten anything, and I said no. She told me to eat, then call her back. So I did. Then she told me to shower and call her back. I had no choice but to do what she said. She continued this for 3 days, and finally got me to a meeting. It was in those rooms that I first heard people talking about doing some of the same things I had done. I had never talked about a lot of it, because I was ashamed and thought I was the only one.

I moved to a half way house and managed to stay sober for just over a year. I found myself with no job and no possessions. I had lost all of my stuff on the outside, but on the inside stuff started to come back. I started to reconstruct myself from the inside out! I went to every 'A' meeting available - AA, CA and NA. I did a lot of listening, got a sponsor and worked the steps. What I really had a hard time with was feelings. One ex-husband hung himself due to addiction and another died in a boating accident.In the past, I had done everything possible to cover them up in the past to avoid feeling any. My sponsor assured me that they were just feelings and the only way to get through tings was to walk through them. 

I started rebuilding relationships. I had given up a child to adoption between my first and second husband with the condition that he was told about me when he turned 18. As it turns out, his adopted father was an undercover narcotics detective. He actually found me when he was 17! We have met and I am looking forward to spending a few days with him here soon.  I made amends with my family. But the most important relationship I have now is with GOD.

The one thing I do the most now is tell my story. It's not because I like talking about me, but maybe I can help just one other person that has no hope. I didn't either until I worked the 12 steps. I try to help people as much as I can. 

I have had to learn how to let go and forgive myself for things I did while using. My disease of addiction was stronger than anything! Stronger than the love for my children, stronger than any hopes or dreams I had. Stronger than any relationship. Now it is NOT! 

So, no matter what you think you've done that is so bad, there's somebody out there that's done it too, or even something worse.

It can be done! There is HOPE!