My Story

[Guest RachaelAnn]

This will be a rather long story. So I ope you have time to read.

When I was 18, I shipped out to the Marines. I got an early discharge later that year. My childhood dream was ruined. I was completely screwed up. I was depressed, hated myself, felt like a loser, couldn't even make eye contact with people, you get the picture.

While I was in, I had written a letter to my father saying that when I got home I wanted the 2 of us to take one day and just disappear. Not tell anyone where we were going, what were we were doing, or when we would be back. He had just bought a new fishing boat so it was decided we would spend that day fishing.

He had written me a letter while I was in, and tole me he was so proud of me that he was walking around like the father of a new baby, bragging to everyone.

When I got my discharge I got home on a tuesday. He died thursday. We were ste to go fishing friday.

There's the important background for this story.

I was the one that found his body when he died. As a result, I just snapped. I couldn't handle losing my father and getting kicked out of the Marines in the same week. So I started getting high.

At first it was just grass and shrooms. Then I started getting into harder stuff. I got into acid pretty quick. After a while that didn't cut it, so I started doing coke and X. I was getting high a couple times a day. I would hang out with my best friend at the time, at this crack house and we would just sit in and pass stuff around the group. Pills, powders, liquids, needles, you name it. I even tried meth a couple times and heroin once. If you have checked my poetry in my blog, the poem The Puppeteer, is about my heroin trip. Luckilly I hated meth and heroin. The scary thing is that I did some things that to this day I don't even know what they were.

I lost over 2 years of my life to this junk. Over 2 years that I can never get back.

I bet you're wondering how I got clean? Simple: fear.

It was my best friend. We were hanging out gettine high. I was sitting on the couch, he was standing in front of me talking to me. Then suddenly he got this weird look on his face and dropped like lead to the floor. He died where he was standing. Just like that. Him dropping dead like thqat scared me so bad that I quit cold turkey. But believe me it wasn't easy. The thing that kept me from going back was the image of him dropping. For years after he died, I wouldn't even take legal over the counter meds, like aspirin, if I had a headache. I was terrified of medication.

For those of you that are having trouble getting clean, I hope this story will hit a nerve for you. Because if you keep getting high, this can and will happen to you sooner or later. And it may not be a friend you see drop dead. It may be you that dies.

So good luck getting clean, and god bless.

Rachael

[MaryEllen]

Thank you for sharing that with us, Rachael. Hopefully your story will be an inspiration to those who are having problems with drugs.

MaryEllen

[JenniferB]

Wow Rachael, that is really sad. It's a shame that often it takes tragedies like this to wake a person up. For some reason you were spared and given another chance. Let this be a lesson to all of us.

Love Jenny

[Guest RachaelAnn]

I was nervous about posting this. I thought people may look down on me if they found out about my past drug use. But then I decided that, that was a chance I was willing to take, if my story could help someone else get clean.

Rachael

[Guest sarah f]

Thank You Rachael for sharing this. If it helps just one person than it was worth it. This was a very brave thing you did by coming out here in this post. By the way, I would never judge someone from their past usage. You are a wonderful woman and that is all that matters to me.

[Guest Donna Jean]

I was nervous about posting this. I thought people may look down on me if they found out about my past drug use. But then I decided that, that was a chance I was willing to take, if my story could help someone else get clean.

Rachael

Rachael....

Honey. Putting that up here took guts. That was very caring and brave of you.

And everyone thinks more of you, not less!

Listen, Honey...we all have skeletons in our closet...

And it's not the fact that we have them, it's what we do after the fact that counts...

You are a very brave girl.....

LOVE

Donna Jean

[Guest Opal]

Yes, Rachael, thank you for sharing with us. My heart and thoughts go out to you.

Big Huggs,

Opal

[Guest Chandra]

Dear Rachael,

Life can be so not fair, but I would like to commend you for sharing your story with us.

I would never look down on you, just the opposite, I respect you for reasoning how precious every second of life is.

You put people first by trying to help everyone with your experiences. Helping people is the the most wonderful thing we could ever do, and this was your intent.

Thank you very much for your generosity of life's most precious gift.

Love, Chandra