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Drug abuse and negative choices in lifestyle


Guest Zayden

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Guest Zayden

Hi all,

I was addicted to pills at one point. I regularly overdosed on various over the counter and prescription painkillers. This went on for 1-2 years on a daily basis.

I have had 6 sexual partners and at least 3 were unprotected.

I am BEGGING that those who are just a little younger than I but in similar situations to please stop. I now must be tested for HIV and Hep B along with other liver related conditions. ( I realize I posted about this elsewhere but I want more to see it)

Our past always catches up when we least expect it. Don't make the same mistakes I did. I've wanted to end my life for so long and with my psych meds now I finally want to live but may have done permanent damage.

Matt

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  • Forum Moderator

Thank you for sharing Matt. I remember days when i would take whatever was given to me and sleep with anyone who wanted to join in. I was fortunate that those days ender before aides and hepatitis came to light. I hope your message can help others to be more careful as our actions can certainly come back to haunt us.

Hugs,

Charlize

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Hi, Matt

You and I are in the same boat, I'm also being tested for HIV. My final bloodtest is next month. I know what emotions you're probably going through right now. Life is crazy in how things like this will sneak up on us when we're finally doing well. But we gotta stay strong. I'll keep you in my thoughts and prayers.

It's so important for young people to acknowledge the real dangers out there. Thanks for posting

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  • Forum Moderator

One thing that life has taught me is that you never get away with anything. It catches up in some way eventually.

I got lucky as far as liver damage-was shocked when my last test came out good because I have done some really negative things in the past and also have to be on a high dose of Ibuprofen daily for life because of medical conditions. But other things catch up and cause challenges.

The thing is at the time I thought I didn't care and there was no way out or good ahead. I was wrong. There is always the potential for life to be good-for it to work out. And that what you do will be something you deeply regret.

But the other thing is that while I regret what I did and would change it if I could I am not going to let remorse and past misery take any more happiness and life from me. It is what it is and I will accept that I made mistakes in the past but am different now. Accept the situation as it is and then forgive yourself-let the guilt and remorse go and live the best you can today. Human make mistakes and sometimes bad ones. They do not define you unless you make them the focus-it is what you do next and how you live that matters.

Sounds cliche but it is perhaps the most absolute truth in life-you are in charge of your life and what kind of life it is. And you can make it good because whether a life is good or not comes from attitude-and you are in control of that.

I've known people who had everything anyone could want-fame money power and love but were miserable. And people who struggled to get enough to eat every day who were happy. And in the end I pitied the former and envied the latter. Controlling attitude is habit and force of will but you can learn to do it. Maybe not perfectly-which is why I envy those who do-or all the time but enough to make the difference in what kind of life you have.

Johnny

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  • 2 months later...

Many transgenders turn to drugs and booze to cope with an impossible situation, and I'm certainly in that group. For me, the turning point was when the music teacher told me she wanted me to sing BASS in her choir. To me that sounded like "I sentence you to life in solitary confinement without the possibility of parole". I had just learned about Christine Jorgensen, had heard about the movie Myra Breckenridge, and discovered that sex changes really were possible. But being a BASS left me believing that I would never be able to pass.

I started hanging out with the druggies, the "freaks", and I grew my hair out long. I soon spent at least two nights per week-end drinking a half a pint of brandy, have a gallon of wine, half a case of beer, half an ounce of pot, and then I'd take clor-tremiton because the weed gave me hay fever. I regularly went into black-outs and would usually be found in the coat room with my head between someone's thighs. I don't know how I managed to avoid AIDS, three of my closest friends in high school were among the first fatalities.

I think the main reason I survived was because I got clean and sober when I was relatively young. When my dad went into a treatment program, the family program suggested I go to some Al-anon meetings. When I went to Al-Anon meetings, many of the things the drunks did sounded familiar, so they suggested I go to AA meetings. When I went to AA meetings I was laughing during the meeting. Afterword they asked me what was so funnny, and I said "I've done so many of those things myself". They said "If it looks like a duck, quacks, and waddles, what might it be?". I came kicking and screaming but I came. I had some serious relapses, one landed me in a psych ward, then half-way house and out-patient program. They suggested I try 30 days of controlled drinking and before the 30 days was up I ended up with a belly full of booze, a nose full of white dust, and a quarter pound of glass shards and ground class in my stomach. I didn't tell anyone for 4 days. I kept hoping it was only a matter of time before I died.

When I finally did admit what I had done, and how long I hadn't told anyone, people were freaking. When they tried to "get to the core issue", I told them straight out "I want to be a girl", but they told me I couldn't even talk about that, not in group or with anyone else. In the 6 months prior, my fiance dumped me, my parents divorced, my brother joined the army and tried to kill himself, and my sister got pregant and had an abortion - and I was a drug addict and alcoholic. I decided to stay sober and start going to more AA meetings. I became a "90 day wonder", getting 90 days, then having the dumbest relapses (a glass of champaigne, a bottle of beer,...) with the most horrible consequences (getting robbed at gunpoint, getting thrown out of my apartment, losing a job, a car accident... I finally got it - God was trying to tell me something.

I started looking for a sponsor, and at one of the meetings this guy said "How are you Rex", I said "Fine" (more like "F.I.N.E.".) He said "--Censored Word-- get honest". I was a transsexual and a, drug addict as well as a drunk, I really thought I was unconstitutionally capable of being honest with myself let alone anybody else. Every breath out of my mouth was a lie, I started the lies the second I looked in the mirror. So I said "OK, I will if you'll help me". He became my sponsor.

The good thing about this guy is that he was also an addict and asked me to help start the 2nd and 3rd NA meetings in the Denver area. He had also funded his habit by turning tricks on the steps of the state capital, so he knew something about my issues. He also didn't give me a lot of time. He reminded me that I usually relapsed between 90 days and 6 months, and I was already at 5 1/2 months. We didn't spend a lot of time on first step, he'd heard my story and we both knew I was an alcoholic and addict. The came to believe was a bit trickier. I'd seen hundreds of people turn their lives around in amazing ways in the period from my first meeting in May of 1977 to my last drink/drug in May of 1980, and even more in the 5 months that followed. I said "I know God has the power to restore me to sanity, but he seems to have a really sick sense of humor". I was shocked at his response. He said "You need to FIRE THAT GOD!". It didn't make much sense at that moment, but it would become a turning point.

After reading the Chapter to the Agnostic and considering "God is Everything or he's Nothing", I realized it really was a "No-brainer". I wasn't sure how God and I would resolve this gender issue, but I was willing to trust that it would happen.

After a few weeks of procrastination, my sponsor told me "If you don't want to do your 4th step, you should get another sponsor. You have two days to give me at least 5 pages, but before you make up your mind, take a peek at your medicine cabinet".

That night, I went home to my apartment. My girlfriend was dressed and ready to play. As I was shaving to get ready for her, I looked at the medicine cabinet, and opened both sides. My side was pretty easy, a bottle of aspirin and some Tums. Her side on the other hand... Darvon, Percuset, and others I didn't even know about. She had torn carteledge under her knee-cap, and at times the pain was unbearable. I cancelled the night of wild and kinky sex and started writing. Before the night was over, I had over 85 pages filled, and that was less than half the work. My wife never forgave me for canceling the "date", and if I had known the impact I might have considered waiting, but I'm not sure I would have survived if I had.

I still had to do the "cross-examination". I'd put down who I was mad at, what they had down, and how each of the 5 areas of my life had been threatened. But I still hadn't looked at the other side yet. More importantly, my sponsor began to notice a pattern. Areas where my sex life should clearly have been threatened, it wasn't. And I glossed over the part where the boys called me sissy and threw rocks at me and beat me up. The reality was that I got physically assaulted by 10-12 boys, 3-4 times per day for 8 years, but I tried to gloss over that, claiming that it didn't affect me that much.

When we got to the end of the inventory, including the sex inventory, I tore out the last page, the part about wanting to be a girl. When he read it, he finished and said "What? No pink elephants? WHERE ARE THE PINK ELEPHANTS!". I must have looked like the kid caught with my hand in the cookie jar when I handed him the page I'd torn out. He laughed, looked at it, started reading, and suddenly he went from a smile to an almost panicked look.

He looked at me; "You're living with a girl aren't you?"

"Yes, I probably should have waited the year, but we started out as just room-mates, then it changed".

He said "Does she know?".

I nodded "About the dressing"

You need to be as honest as you can with her.

We talked. I didn't want to lose her, and she didn't want to lose me. We were like the two hulls of a catamaran. Bound together, we could stand against amazing things, but each alone would be swamped quickly - and we both knew it.

I completed the inventory and had completed all 12 steps before speaking at my 1 year anniversary. After the meeting he said "There was a pool on how soon you'd relapse, you just made me rich". I wonder what kind of odds he would have gotten on 34 years.

I did manage to survive. I went on to work the 12 steps every year, at least once a year. At 8 years clean and sober, I met a new sponsor. Actually, I had taken him through the steps, and realized I needed his brand of honesty. The kind you get from someone who knows the streets.

This time, I didn't hold back. I wrote several pages on being a "Sissy", on wanting to be a girl, on how the boys hurt me, on how everyone thought I was gay because I was so effeminate. I even wrote about the abuse my wife was giving me for being so effeminate.

This sponsor, Mike, said the strangest thing "I want you to write a new inventory, but I want you to do it while your dressed as a girl".

I didn't understand, but I wrote. It was really strange. The handwriting was beautiful, the words flowed onto the page, and the feelings came out as well as the facts. The resentments weren't focused on anger either, I wrote about things that brought back feelings of shame, guilt, dispair, and even happiness, with the regret of having lost them.

I brought him the result, and he could see the difference. It wasn't multiple personalities, but it was like parts of my personality that had been repressed as Rex came flowing out when I was dressed.

Mike asked "Does she have a name?".

How strange a question. I had never given her a name? I said "No, She's never needed one".

He said "I want you to think about a name. It doesn't have to be a name your parents would have chosen, it should be your choice".

I couldn't believe how hard that simple task was. I didn't want an unusual name, I already had one. If we started talking about Rex and Veronica, it would be too easy to associate the two. Besides, I could never find key chains and tokens and charms for Rex. Maybe if I picked a girls name, that was more common, I'd be able to find them.

A few days later, Mike asked "Have you come up with a name yet?". I shook my head.

He said "Think about some of the girls and women that you've known growing up. Is there a name that jumps out as one that usually belonged to someone you liked?

In a moment I thought of a dozen girls named Debbie, all of whom were close personal friends, one was a lover, and all had fun and wonderful personalities. I spoke it "Debbie", and smiled. I had a name - the REAL ME had a NAME!

The next request really shocked me "I want DEBBIE to read me the inventory".

I did a double-take. He said "We'll meet in a park that's private, you will need to be dressed as DEBBIE, and I want you to read this aloud".

When I told him I'd never been out. He said "Let's start small, change in your car and drive 4 blocks, then you can change back".

When I changed, it was in an abandoned road, I was terrified, but once I was changed, I couldn't believe how much better I felt!

I drove for almost an hour, before reluctantly changing back.

I told Mike I would read him the inventory.

I changed on the abandoned road, drove to the meeting place, and as promised, it was private and secluded. A car would drive by every 20 minutes or so. I didn't need to worry about being caught.

Reading the inventory was an experience as well. I was sharing FEELINGS!

I wasn't just coldly sharing facts, what happened, in a detached way, like it had happened to another kid in class,

I shared it as MY experience, with MY feelings, and MY hurts.

I started crying, and Mike hugged me full and close, like a man would hug a woman. It felt really good.

He told me to go ahead and change back into Rex in the car. No traffic, off the road. Only he would know.

When I came out of the car, it was like I died and went to hell.

I was numb. I was in pain. I felt so tired. I could have just gone to sleep in the car right then and there.

I'd only tasted freedom for one hour, but suddenly the thought of going back home, going to work the next day, being Rex, just hurt.

He could see the dispair coming back.

He looked over and said "So when are WE going to meet Debbie?".

I said "You just did! and it was amazing".

He smiled and said "Yes it was, and now I want to know when the rest of your friends will get to meet this wonderful girl!".

Panick. It was the end of August, could I possibly get up the nerve? "Halloween!?" Almost a question rather than an answer?

He nodded "That's a good start".

Then he smiled "And what are you going to wear for the NEXT 3 DAYS?".

I started looking like a goldfish.

He said "I just met this beautiful young lady, and I can't wait for all my friends to meet her, they will love her, but they need to know it's not just a costume, so make sure you have at least 3 more outfits to wear at each of the next 3 meetings. We'll decided after that how much more you need.

Halloween came. I made my own Maid's costume, out of bridal satin, size 22. Even with a corset I was huge. At the Halloween dance, a dozen women asked to dance with me, and one even wanted to take me home that night. In the days that followed, I went to those early meetings as Debbie, and found many new friends. Women suddenly wanted to be my friend, and bikers admired my courage. A world opened up. A new dawn. I came to life.

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  • Forum Moderator

Debbie thank you so much for posting. Your story and mine match in many ways. I first admitted dressing with my sponsor but he wasn't nearly as helpful. It took 5 years of sobriety for me to go to my home group dressed. Sobriety has brought me a chance to be honest and that means i'm finally able to live as myself and accept what my HP has given me.

I'm glad you have posted here and suggest that you post at the introduction forum as well. We have a chat meeting here on chat Sundays at 9 eastern and i've also discovered some Skype trans meetings.

Again Greetings

Hugs,

Charlize

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Such a beautiful ending, Debbie. Thank you for sharing.

Since then I have started attending Addictions Anon meetings here and there. I also made a pact with my younger sister that we'd both get clean from self harm, drugs and alcohol. She is currently in a boarding school to help her with this. I wish that I could help her more; my heart hurts for her.

I have been clean from most things. I do smoke some green occasionally but it has never been anything that I have had an issue with and I decline it more times than I say yes to it. The self harm is the hardest one. Alcohol I am trying to find a happy medium with... I am going to see if it's possible for me to drink occasionally and then stop but I'll have to see. I remember not too long ago when I had a drink and it left me craving more. I think though it was less the alcohol and more that I was having such a good time.

We'll see.

Matt

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  • 2 months later...

hi

i am on the other side of the story where it did catch up with me.im hiv have had and cured hep c, abused pain killers for 20 years on and off. been on suicide watch more than once and can write a book on depression. i tell anyone who is starting on such paths to think long and hard about it. some acts give pleasure for a few moments and follow you for life. hep c treatment is hell on earth for 48 weeks. but i also say its not the end of the world. i have got through it and im growing stronger through it. i do wish i could undo it all but thats imposible the only way is to not do it in the first place. sometimes life is a compramise and you have to be prepared that you may not get all you want so you have to be happy with what you can have. for most of us our gender becomes our ruling thing in our lives. if you set out your course it will develop well without much trouble providing your gooals are reasonable.soon it becomes a secondary thing as other things in life become slightly more mportant.

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