I want to tell you about my life with addiction. My mom, two brothers, and two sisters are all addicts. My youngest sister, myself, and my dad are the only ones in the family who are clean. Do you want to know my anti-drug? Watching the lives of my loved ones detoriate all over the span of three years. Presently, my parents are losing their home after my mom has spent all of my dad's paychecks on gambling and meth. Now he has no job because he couldn't even have gas money to get back and forth to work. Beating his ass everyday as a truck driver while my mom smoked her dope everyday at home with her two sons. I just had my third baby, and my mom won't even come over to see her thinking she'll miss out on some dope from my brother. Out of revenge, she has turned my two sisters in, causing their kids to be taken away. I feel they are better off where they are now, even though I can't see them. In three years I have lost being in the presence of my three nephews, and three nieces, I have lost the greatest sister relationship with my younger sister, I have lost the role model I looked up to in my oldest sister, and the security of my two oldest brothers. But most of all I have lost my MOM to Meth. I feel as if I'm the one on drugs. How low and depressed I have been! And how ashamed I have felt. I feel so f***ed up that my mom is basically throwing it in my face everyday that she doesn't give a shit about me. That she doesn't care if I lose her to meth. She once told me it was her life--so what? I thought I was her life. I have three little girls of my own. I made an oath the day they were born that I would never make a joke of their lives, like mine has been made of. I thought drug addicts felt like outcasts...wrong...I feel like one in a family of addicts. I've shown enough concern, sitting up all night finding rehabs my little sister could possibly go to if I talked to her about them and took her there. I miss her so bad. We used to play around with each other, and hang out together, and I used to call her every morning over a cup of coffee and a cigarette. We used to take our only daughters to the playground and sit and talk. She was the only one who could do my daughter's hair without my daughter complaining. And now I need her so bad to get through this and I can't find her. I don't even know where she is tonight. I just know she's sitting somewhere tweaking, and if something happened to her I wouldn't be able to be by her side. I'm so sad the people I loved the most didn't have the happiness and contentment to keep them going through life, I'm sorry they don't feel right around me, their own sister/daughter. METH has become my worst enemy. And like the addict, I feel my life slipping away also. I don't think I'll win this war before one of them ends up dying. And I can't control anything. At least they can stop when they’re ready to leave the addiction and cravings, and depression, and failure. I, on the other hand, can't do a damn thing but to have my hands tied back being forced to watch that Son of a B**ch called Meth kill my MOM, SISTERS, AND BROTHERS. I don't think my family will ever get better, so this year, I've decided to make sure they understand how much I love them, at least they will take one true thing to the grave with them. That is when I'll have defeated METH.
--Becky

   So ya’ll wanna hear a story about Meth..... Three years ago I met this girl on an online game and it turns out she lived near me and was also the same age. Little did I know that she was what I could call a significant other, because if there were a female version of me she would be a flawless copy. We spent the summer together becoming inseperable, but to my discovery she was involved with a guy that at that time was living in Virginia. She told me that they used to do Meth together and stay up all night having sex and he played music. This was very interesting to me, for when I met her I was just starting with weed and I had no clue there was a drug that kept you awake. Well, first thing I did was go to my cousin who’s boyfriend was the village idiot, and he knew where to get the gofast glass pizo and soon enough I was introduced to the theives guild. It started on a snowy day on Patterson Hill. We drove for about three minutes up a winding road near the summit and came to a rustic old shack with no power or water. This was not where the drugs were, but a mere cover for the trailer behind the shack is where the action is. The three of us knocked on the camper and heard inside a faint noise.. Knock again and someone spouted the word BAWK and one of my friends replied, "We got $200 out here, let us in." The door swung open and appearing in the darkness was this amazing 14-year-old blonde beauty that totally broke my heart. She motioned toward the person behind her and he stood up, a very large older man around the age of 25 and he invited us in. The man and my friend seemed to be old friends and they spent hours reconciling past memories... While I was getting high as s**t on 50 bucks a hit. Well, not to bore you anymore with the aquaintance, imagine this introduction progressing for a year and then slowly settling the destination right down the road from my house. See the 'dealer' and I quickly became inseperable friends and his little girlfriend developed a crush on me which sent my life into hell because I later found out that she planned to ruin me and wanted me to be another hopeless dope mess. My friend went to jail awhile back leaving his girlfriend unattended and she saw this and took advantage before I could say "bawk." She had me doing things I could never imagine and now I could never blame karma because I’ve made old ladies cry and probably even ruined children. He was in jail for a whole summer and me and his girl spent an awful lot of time together. One day I realised that I had a girl on the internet and I had completely ditched her and it broke me inside. How I didn’t ever think of her or maybe I couldn’t even remember her. All I could remember was what she said she did with her boyfriend but I forgot that she broke up with that boyfriend the day she met me.. well, when my friend got out of jail he took it out on me not in person but he affected everyone around me. Everyone I met after him became a secret enemy and they used anything they could against me. I couldn’t even run back to my internet friend in fear that somehow they would reach her or somehting would get in the way. Well, the moral of this overdrawn story is that you can waste more time getting what you already have and forgetting what you always wanted when you insist on being with people that want you to help them get dope. I want my girl on the internet one time and I can never have that, but dope is an endless progression of wanting. The 14-year-old girl never resisted it and will never live a normal life which is sad because she has the face of an angel but her perfect body is only because of dope.
--Love, Joey

   I have been reading all the letters on your site for about an hour now. I too, have a meth story as it is beginning to seem like everyone nowadays has. I have been married to Thomas for three years. I was dating him for three years prior getting married. Up until Sept. 2000, I thought I had the perfect man. He is 17 years older than me, he was handsome, big, strong, had a successful painting business, sweet, adored me and my two children from a previous marriage. We had a beautiful home, rental units, new cars- everything one could want. What I valued most was that we always spent time together as a family, H*ll, we were the next best thing to the Cleavers! I started noticing changes in Thomas about two years ago and at the time I chalked it up to mid-life crisis, some kind of depression, anything but what it was. A 47-year-old man, to my way of thinking, was not a prime suspect for meth use. As it turns out, some of his employees did speed and introduced him to it, convincing him that they could work longer and harder if they all used. Thomas had done cocaine many years before but, like alot of people at that time had "grown up and grown out of it". First, was the money unaccounted for. $50 here, $75 there. I kept the books for the business so I always knew where money had went before. Then the hot check notices in the mail on the business account began to show up. To speed up the story, in a matter of nine months the business was gone. He hocked over $10,000 worth of equipment and some of it not even paid for yet. Then I noticed that his "employees" were getting trashier and more low life. As our shop was sitting at the front of the same property that our house was on, I noticed more and more traffic in and out of there. Thomas started working out there later and later at night. Soon he stopped painting all together and started buying truckloads of junk. Stuff that the normal person would consider an eyesore. He had the whole place looking like Sanford and Son within a month. His big "goldmine" was gonna be working the flea markets! We has a business that earned over $75000.00 a year and he was gonna have GARAGE SALES?!?!? WHAT IN THE HELL WAS WRONG WITH HIM?!? I still had not quite caught on. I thought the "trailer trash" people had brainwashed him or something. Not the people, but the meth they brought around did. I never saw so many lowlifes in my life and they were all right there paraded in front of me no mater how mad I got or how much I cried. When I griped about the trashy bastards, I got told that I was snobby and that they were "good people" and even once I found out that they were nothing but junkies, I was still told that I was crazy and that I needed to shut up--it was his house, too. By then he was enraged with everything I did or said to him. He had not contributed to the household bills in over nine months but he was-- always screaming that he did not want to hear about the bills, that he was under too much pressure! What kind of pressure could hanging out at flea markets with low-lifes have?!?! I had sooo much anger and contempt for these people and him and I cannot even describe the frustration of watching the man you dearly love transform into someone totally different who you can’t talk to, reason with, or at some points even look at. He went from a well groomed, handsome man to a slovenly, dirty, wild looking animal with bad teeth and sunken eyes in a matter of two years. No matter how hard I tried or how supportive I tried to be or mad I tried to get, nothing helped. Up until October, Thomas was away from home more that he was here--Out chasing his demons. He would show up parked in the driveway, sleeping in whatever vehicle he could find, wanting to come in. Whenever he did, all he wanted to do is to sleep. Two or three days of his irritability in the middle of a 7 -8 hour sleep and eventually I would be accused of bitching all the time and he would leave telling the kids that the reason he didn't come around much is because Mom bitched too much and if she would just stop griping he would stay. To my 8-year-old son who had grown to worship his Daddy, this was heart breaking. Thomas would call and say that he was gonna come and see him at a certain time and he would never show up. This boy would sit at the end of our driveway and watch the road for hours after his Dad said he would be there. I watched that little boy from the window with tears just running down my face, wondering how in the hell I was going to explain it this time...was this ever gonna end? Am I ever going to see the man that I married again? Are the kids ever gonna be able to respect him again? By now I have told them why Dad is gone alot and not to take what he says while he is here to heart. But..hurtful words and actions cut first and ask questions later. These poor kids have been so confused and hurt and this a**hole is out having a good time living in the gutter or where ever a crankhead will let him tweak for a few days! Then to top it off..he accuses me of having affairs all the time. I am working two jobs taking care of a house and now three kids and he is out for days or weeks at a time with no contact and I am the one being accused?? I don't have an answer for the problem. I can't tell anyone what to do to stop using or being hurt by someone who uses. Either way I think the hurt from addiction never totally goes away. If an addict recovers, the call of the drug is always there in the back of their mind-- whispering–or so I am told. The trust of friends and family is never totally repaired. The damage you have done to them is never totally fixed. The scars you left on everyone you toched with your addiction is never really healed. Something is always left behind. If you give up on an addict and chose to save yourself, the hurt of letting them go is always there. The thought of "What if I could have done more?" haunts you. The only description for this stuff is evil. Pure evil. Nothing short of evil could so totally destroy such large amounts of love and security. What else but evil could tear a man from a family that loved his so and a warm home that offered everything a sane person could ever want? I feel like the Thomas I married is dead. I am grieving every day for him. This scraggly, mean, theiving, lying, underhanded, junkie is not my husband. I don't know or love this person. I miss my husband.........
--Susan

   In the summer of my graduation year, I met my boyfriend that I had known and adored for years. I knew he had a past with speed, and after a childhood of my brothers being drug addicts I knew it was the last thing I wanted for my life. I told him on the very first night we got together "I know your past, if you have plans, or want to still do this I will be gone tonight" he assured me this would never be a problem in his life again. Two months later he had a court date that had been set several months before we were together for possession. He was sentenced to ninety days in County. I stuck it through, feeling that he was done, and I loved him so very much. He spent his time, he got home and things were fine for that year. New Year’s Eve we were out partying, when an old "friend" showed up at the party that my boyfriend knew. They were hanging out, I knew right away he was "OFF" That night. He offered to take us home, I went into the house, and he said he was going to say good-bye, and he did, good-bye to me, and took off. Five days later he called from another state. He said, come out here, we will be fine, we'll start over. So the day of our one year anniversary I flew over to see him. Within three months of us being there, the day we moved into our first apartment together, I looked in his back pack and found all his paraphanalia, and tons of dope. He had been selling it. I knew to some extent what was going on, but kept denying that he was up all night, I'd wake up and he had constanly disapeared, money missing, couldn't pay rent etc. Then, I found out I was pregnant. We were in the middle of getting evicted with no place to go and I was hundreds of miles away from home. I called my mom and she drove and picked me up, I was ready for a life of single mother-hood. Two weeks later he called in a jam, desperate, he had lost everything, he showed up at my mom's the next week. He stayed there and we worked on things. Our first son was born... when he was eight weeks old, he was gone again. This time I was really done! But there was still so much love inside me for this man that had this huge problem! We would run into each other and most of the time he was this angry freaked-out fool that was so spun he couldn't hold a conversation, job, he was publically unfit! For my birthday we went on a trip, wouldn't you know it, after I got home, I found out I was pregnant again. I tracked him down in the most God-awful place I couldn't even imagine until I actually saw it. He said, of course, the baby wasn't his. I knew it was! My entire pregnany he really was never involved, he never paid one dime of child support, and never cared. It was very hard for me raising a child, working full time and being pregnant, hurting until I felt my heart would burst. He was living in a flop house with three other guys, and all they did was get wasted from the time they woke up (if they ever slept). Beer, booze, x, lsd...you name it they did it. It was constant brawls, seeing him beat up, ripping people off, losing all his real friends. Three days before I went into labor, he broke into my house and stole my last $100.00 to my name that I would have used to feed me and my son with for the week. The morning I went into labor, I didn't even know where he was, I went to the hospital and had my daughter. He called and asked if he could come to see us. I said "no way!" When she was three days old he showed up at my door crying wanting to see her, I let him in, after 10 minutes I told him he needed to leave, he needed serious help, and he would never be a part of any of our lives if he didn't. That week he checked himself into rehab, a Christian-based men’s home for six months. He came home clean, we got married and had another baby the next year. When she was two months old, he was gone again, this time left me and three kids. I had no job, drained the bank account, took our only car, and bailed leaving us to fend for ourselves. Another two week run landed him in jail, awaiting a three year prison sentence. By the grace of God he was spared and only spent two months. If he screws up agin, he will be gone for three years. Now, one year almost from the date, we have moved into our dream home, we have nice cars, healthly, three beautiful children, great jobs, active in our church....... and I am starting to see the warning signs again. This will be the last time he gets with me, endless heartbreak, forever suspicious, as much as I love him and he says he loves me, it will be over! Do you think he would chance lossing everything he has worked so hard for again????? I don't know, I hope not! For all those wives, brothers, mothers, children and friends to have had this experience...learn, be strong, know it’s not your fault, it has nothing to do with what we do, how much love we give them, the trust, the guilt, the love, hate, fights, it’s none of those things that drives them to do what they do, it’s only that F------ drug that drives them to do what they do! Sometimes, I have seen these addicted people need to go all the way to the bottom of the pit of hell to clean up. I thought he had already been there several times, maybe this time he will leave his family for good and spend three years in prison... I hope not. Please pray for me and my family that we are not destroyed again!
 

   Hi. I'm a 33 year old female. I used meth very, very heavily for about 6 months. Once I think I came close to overdosing. I had a mental "meltdown". I've been clean for about four years. After I quit using, I had a lot of trouble with processing my thoughts into action, constant fear that someone was following or watching me, doing things without realizing what I was doing, and severe depression. I have taken an anti-depressant since then, and I am doing much better with that, but it was about twp years before the paranoia and my thoughts being unfocused finally went away. I don't know if it is related, but I just found out I have nerve damage in one of my arms and Carpal Tunnel syndrome. I also have difficulty comprehending what I read or lengthy conversations. I really think all this is related to the drug use. This drug is so dangerous.
   It didn't take me long to lose everything I had. Meth is powerful! Took me six months in 1984. I owe my life to my friend JC of Texas who recognized my addition and headed me in the direction of recovery. Thanks JC!
--Terry from Ohio

  Hi my name is Dustin. I am 23-years-old and I started using meth my senior year in high school. everyone was doing it so I thought I had to do it myself. The first time I did it felt like I was on top of the world--nobody could touch me! I didn’t get paronoid unil my 5th or 6th time using it. I was at a party and just did a 40 unit shot of meth. I was fine for about ten minutes, then I started thinking my friends were after me. I made my g/f undress because I thought she was wearing a wire and I had everyone lock the doors an turn off the lights cause I thought that they were cops and had the place surrounded. That is just a short story into my life with meth. I have been clean for four years now an have a lot of things in life that I wouldn’t have if I was still using. I take my life one day at a time and always think of the past and my life now. I am enjoying every minute of being clean. I pray for all the addicts still suffering and hope they can find the right track of being clean and doing right in life.
--Dustin

   I'm a 19-year-old from the state of New Hampshire. I met the meth monster back in October, and now with such a mere time away from it (6 days) I can actually say I had been high ever since then. There's not a lot of meth around here, or glass which I was hung up on. There's only a mere three or four sources where I got my juice. I befriended the biggest glass dealer around here, and I got my fix in whatever way I could. I have to say it was the most unimaginable nightmare I can't quite recall, if that makes any sense. My emotions went into a twist, I couldn't seperate reality from that which wasn't. I lived a life of hallucinations. Five days awake, three asleep. I almost lost my job and everything else. Most importantly, I almost lost my best friend. He got popped for running the biggest crack dealing ring in this part of the hemisphere, and somehow, someway, he got a chance to be free. But by the time he got popped, we weren't even speaking. But the both of us were so addicted to glass we didn't even care, we just kept going. He used it so he wouldn't smoke crack, and I used it to lose weight. Fourty-seven pounds to be exact. It is The skinniest I've ever been in my life. To be honest, I haven't gained any back. The reason I kept using it was the same as the latter, I wanted to get rid of the ugly pounds that haunted me since I was a baby. With my best friend’s release, and both of us dead sober for the first time together in eight years, we stood there and cried. But then we looked at each other speechless in angst...where do we go from here? The only person that would undoubtingly re-accept us was God, and we found him together. After being an Anti-Christ for five years myself, I let myself give him a place to live in my heart. I vowed to not regain the weight, and I've done well so far. I started yoga and pilates, exercizing, reading the Bible, a member of Crystal Meth Anonymous, and spending time with my best friend who I love more then anything in the world. My face has regained color, my breath can be heard, my teeth...white. My hair is regaining its luster that it lost. Glass dulled my skin, my teeth, my hair, my heart, and my friendship. It made me angry, it made me emotionless, it made me cold, and it made me hate. It made me cry, and it made me addicted. It made me a slave to it, and now I'll take the whipping. I let it hate me, but I won't let it throw everything back in my face. All I remember is the pain and the burn when it went up my nose. Almost crashing after being up for five days and seeing signs walking, legs, waving and smiling at me. I had sores in my nose, but everyday I did it. I did a big huge rail, faithfully. I keep finding empty bags, razor blades, rolled up bills, papers, everywhere. It’s all in your mind, and you can do it. Let me say this: Life can make you a prisoner, and put you in shackles. But love can set you free. Thanks Homeboy, I love you....

   This letter is to all the sober women out there living with a man addicted to crank. I've been in your shoes. For the last three years of our 18-year marriage, my ex was highly addicted. He'd used other drugs, but this was the one that destroyed him and nearly did me too. He went from smoking to the needle - something he said he'd never do. Of course he once said 'until death do you part.' Luckily, I got out before he kept that promise. I know the helplessness you're feeling. You leave the house everyday praying that this is the day he either straightens up or goes to jail. How can a good woman wish for that? It's called tough love and soon that'll be all the love that's left because you will come to hate this man before it's all over. I know the guilt he piles on your head when you're the only one working and you insist it's more important to spend your paycheck on food and bills. "Just let me have $250 today. I promise I'll bring you at least $500 tomorrow." You know what he's going to do with the money; you know you'll never see it again except on its way up his nose, and yet you give it to him anyway because if you don't he'll get pissed and tell you what a miserable piece of worthless shit you are. What you must realize is when he says that he's actually saying it to the face he sees in the mirror. I've felt your pain when he chokes you and slaps you and threatens to kill you. I've seen that look of disbelief on your face too when he wakes up the next day saying you're crazy and it never happened. I've watched you work your ass off cleaning up his mess only to come home to a hellhole that's twice as bad as the day before. I've heard you reason with him when he's delusional. I know you try to do whatever you can to convince him nobody's out there and to keep him quiet so the neighbors don't call the cops. Even though you want him gone, that's just too humiliating. And if the cops were to come here, my God, they would take one look at how you're living, take you to jail with this pitiful sack of shit and send your kids to a foster home. Keep in mind though that if you don't do something soon, there will be no kids to take away because the drugs will eventually lead him to seriously hurt or kill not only you but them, too. I know that's not what you want. All you want is for him to get help. All you want is peace. All you want is your life back - the normal life you used to have before someone you used to love decided they could 'handle it.' Nobody really wants to be on crank. It's like that commercial of the little kid saying 'when I grow up, I want to be a drug dealer.' It just doesn't happen. That doesn't mean that we should put up with it. Yes, they're sick, but it's a sickness they CHOSE to suffer. It's not your sickness; it's his. What you need to remember is it's not your problem; therefore, you can't fix it. I do not know what makes a person turn to drugs. I've lived through your same hell and I never touched the stuff. You haven't maybe because, like me, you have incredible willpower. It is that inner strength that will help you make through the darkness and on to a brighter tomorrow. Lean on your strength and follow these steps: Get out. Run as fast as you can. Go to a shelter, a friend, your church, or your family. There is no humiliation in saving yourself and your children. If you're still with him today, you've stayed one day too long. And don't leave and then go back because he promises to change. Don't even go back if he does change. "Once an addict, always an addict." If they're placed in the same surroundings as before, they will return to the same habits. You are those surroundings. You are comfort. You are stability. You are his enabler, his co-dependent, his "rock." Save yourself and maybe he'll do the same. If not, at least you'll have your life back. God never meant for any of us to live in misery. Don't disappoint Him. I have been free of this madness for almost two years, and it has been the best two years of my adult life. I'm happy. My kids are happy. The first step is the hardest, but each one after that gets so much easier. Please, be free. I'll be praying for you...LoriI'm not the one on meth, but I might as well be. I love her so much that I cried when I read what the permanent damage is. For some reason I'm the one in the wrong because I want her to stop. I'm the one with the problem because I care and don't want to see her like this anymore. She's been my best friend for 11 years, I've always taken pride in our friendship. But now I'm ashamed to have someone like her near me. She has no money for crank so you wonder how she gets it. Yeah that's right she gives her body away just so she can get high. But she can't do that when she's sober, she has to take a couple bars of Xanax, a shot of whiskey, then get a ride to see that nasty ass dealer. I heard he has VD. I think it's true. Another way she gets it is doing other druggies’ school work, they pay her in dope. I can't deal with it anymore, so I've given up on her. I tell her she needs to stop. She can't even remember a conversation we had two minutes ago. She lies to her dad and says were going to a movie even though I'm nowhere in sight, goes out with her "friends" (I use that term lightly) gets messed up and comes home. It makes me look even worse to her dad cause he thinks she's with me and I'm probably in on it. And if he doesn't know she's doing it then he's just as big of an idiot as her. I was talking to a friend the other night about how I should tell her dad and step-mom what's going on before I move away to California, and he said he thought it would be a good idea. That's as far as our conversation went. He told his girlfriend who just happens to be the one "SHE" gets her drugs from and told "HER" what we discussed. She called me up yelling and cussing me out, calling me everything in the book and then hung up on me. That's why I'm leaving I can't take her anymore I can't watch her destroy her life even though it wasn't that great to begin with, but why make it worse? I come from a drug family, you name it I've seen it done. She doesn't, her family is as far away from drugs as possible. So why is it that I have to save her?! I love you but you're ruining your life along with mine. I've done my best but I can't suffer from this anymore.
--A.B.A

   My story starts like a lot of others... my girlfriend and I have a long history. We dated when we were teens then we went our seperate ways and married different people. It didn’t work out and low and behold we ran into each other and it felt like we never stopped being together. We moved into together everything was good until I had this bright idea to start selling it--not big-time, just enough to have some for us and that was the beginning of the end. My girlfriend just started doing too much. Bills weren't getting paid and I was giving her my pay checks whitch should of covered all the bills not counting what she was suppose to be making. To make a long story short--I moved out thinking it was for the best due to my influence. Now, fast forward to five years later--she's really gone over the deep end. She's graduated to smoking it like that’s her life! She’s lost her job,car,and now she’s lost her "so-called" soul mate but she can care less because now she’s got a new soulmate, which around here they call the "glass dick." If any of you fellas out there are going through a simlar situation and your trying to save her--forget it, she’s a slave to it, and she’s never coming back.

   Okay, this is the first time I have ever visited this site and, boy, am I glad I did. I am a 24-year-old female and I am addicted to meth. It took me a while to realize that my use was not just social but abusive. I know that what I am doing is wrong, but the power of this horrible drug takes over. Mind over Matter-that's what some say, but what happens when the addiction overrides your mind? That is what is happening to me right now. I started out just smoking pot back in high school and it slowly progressed to "other" drugs, first CAT, then acid, next ‘shrooms, cocaine was not far behind and finally Meth. I am currently on probabtion for a DUI charge and am court ordered to take Drug/Alochol Intervention Classes at a local counseling center. I attend those classes three times a week for two hours. It has really helped me with my drinking, but that is not what I need help for. I am so dependent on this nasty curse that I will smoke right up until I have to go to class. I know that meth stays in your sysytem for up to 72 hours, but I still insist on pulling it to the limit. I will attend class high, nervous, and restless due to paranoia. Recently we were submitted to a random drug screen, which as you can guess I FAILED. So now my probabtion officer was notified. By some small miracle I gave them a bogus story about an over the couner medication I had taken, and after checking, sure enough the medication I "took" does register on a urinalysis as Amphetmanies. So no probation violation or punishment was ever handed down. Okay the kicker of this, I have a beautiful eight-year-old daughter and a gorgeous three-year-old son who depend on me. If I were to get violated for this I would do six months to one year in jail. But for some strange reason I guess I think I am invinceable—Well, I'm not! I am just another ordinary person who has a problem and is not strong enough to pull myself out from underneath alone. The thing is, only a handful of my friends do not use meth. Majority of my surroundings are just a bad as me, if not worse. I have watched the evil substance ruin friendships, end marriages, cost friends’ employment, but yet it still appeals to my HEAD. Every time I do this now, I am not doing it because I want to get high (tolerance is to high to get HI), I am doing it to avoid the inevitable withdrawl that I know is going to be the hardest thing I will probably ever face. I have not told my family of my PROBLEM, all my life I have be screwing up and my family picks up the pieces. I do not have the courage or strength to face my mother and father and grandmother and tell them that I have an addiction to crystal meth. I do not think I could handle the disapproving look in their eyes. Because then I would just want to go get high to numb those emotions. So, I guess my question is to whoever reads this, if you have any words of widsom, courage and advice, please feel free to share. I have not hit rock bottem yet, but I am hoping to get this under control before my children bury me or visit me in an oragne jumpsuit.
--Roxy
 

   Does anyone really think they will become addicted to drugs? I sure as hell didn't. I had experimented with different drugs thoughout school and never felt dependent on any of them. About five years ago I was introduced to a little thing known as speed, tweek, crank, whatever you want to call it and at 20 years old, I can say my life will never be the same. I don't have the stereotypical story of a speedfreak junkie. I’ve now been a daily user for years and not one family member of mine knows. Sure, it started off as a weekend drug. Get a hotel and a bag and just live it up. Crank became a daily thing to me at age 17. My boyfriend at the time was slinging and it was like second nature to me. I would wake up, eat breakfast, smoke a cigarette, and then smoke about three bowls of glass before I could even bring myself to shower. This has been my life for the last three years. I did try and kick it. Many times. I've never been looked at as a weak person, either. I work two jobs and am a full time student. I use that as an excuse a lot of the time, too. I go though about a quarter oz. of dope a week. To tell you the truth I'm not even getting high anymore. No one can convince you to stay away from drugs. I had all the DARE classes like the rest of them did and a loving family. I did have a great boyfriend, too, until yesterday he found out I have been lying to him for the last six months and broke things off with me. I am still using drugs and I hope to God that I can one day win my battle before it kills me. I am 20 years old and I have experienced multiple kidney infections, heart trouble, an ulcer, not to mention teeth troubles, headaches if i go longer than twenty-four hours without it in my system and a constant reminder of the one thing I loved (other than dope)that had moved on without me. People don't want to have junkies in thier lives. I don’t care where you come from or how hidden you keep it. Speed will make you into a junkie, and it will eventually take your life in one way or another.
--Anonymous

   Im 23-years-old - I used to use drugs - exacty pot, acid, k, coke - I loved going to raves and chilling with my friends in what would seem this wonderful world away from the norm - I’m 5' 7" - and when I went from 130 to 80 pounds and what was a "weekend thing" got to be everyday life for me, no job anymore - just parties and after parties - my mom would cry daily, beg me to go to rehab - told me time and time again that I had a problem - you'd think I would quit, you'd think I could look at my ribs bulging and know that the days of pumping nothing but drugs into my body was wrong - after DENIAL, DENIAL, DENIAL, depression and hitting absolute rock bottom I decided that I needed to make a change - and thank God I did - He's the only one that brought me out of it - my mom couldn't do it - I couldn't do it - and even though I haven't stepped foot in a church since I was really young - and was not living a very "Christian" lifestyle - I started praying - and praying and praying and praying - and I know that I had many loved ones praying for me too - He heard me - and instead of me drowning in self-pity, denial and drugs - I started breathing again - big breaths of LIFE - it was time for me to take hold of it before I lost it - I had to cut everything off - friends - places I loved to go - the club scene - everything that I did for days on end for years had to change - it wasn't easy - by no means was it easy - I would cry for days and weeks and months it seemed - so many times I wanted to pick right back up and go hang out - I still love all those people - I just hated what we did - I hated what it did to me - now in my small town some of my friends didn't make it out in time - a new drug came in after I left the scene and completely took over - "crank", "ice", "meth", "fuel" whatever you want to call it - "shit" is a better word to me. If you touch it that's what your life seems to become - now all my friends are paranoid schitzophrenics - all of them look way worse than I did at 80 pounds - the majority who have been longtime friends are straight up stabbing each other in the back - some of the girls I used to know who were "good girls"--even on all those drugs that we used to do together are sharing their bodies with the world to get a little fuel these days. I saw this drug come between families, friends and couples - most all are in denial - they don't know what I’m talking about when I try to help or convince them to get help - more than half have come to me at different times saying that they are being followed, people are chasing them, a few have said that they think someone is trying to kill them and they think that someone’s been in their house - planting drugs and video cameras - but yet they DON'T HAVE A DRUG PROBLEM. I don't think they are honestly being hunted - I don't believe there are spy-cams in the living room - I just don't know how they continue to ingest this horrible shit when it makes them feel this way and think these things - they are going crazy - I have read some of these letters about people losing loved ones and people actually dying from the use of this drug and my heart goes out to them - and thank God again that that has not happened to anyone I know but I’m sure the days are going to soon run out - if the meth does not kill them I’m afraid they will take their own lives or have to live in an asylum until the end of time - all I can do is pray and maybe soon I'll be answered again.
--Stephanie - from Georgia

   Hey, my name’s Andrea im 16-years-old now. I was introduced to "shit" (aka crystal) last year of December during my sophmore year at fifteen. My friend introduced me to this guy named Vince. It was winterbreak and I was staying with her since me and my mom had gotten into this huge fight. Well, anyways, the whole winterbreak my friend and I hung out with Vince and his friends. I remember the first night we hung out, we were all in this room and I was sitting on the carpet floor and I saw Vince pull out this glass pipe, and I was wondering what the hell it was. He had asked me if I do this and I was like, "Huh? Do what?" Never had I seen anything like it. and I was a completely naive and innocent girl at the time. I had many things going on for me. ANYWAYS, Vince had asked if i wanted to "hit it" (refering to taking a puff out of the pipe). I refused, not knowing what they were still doing, I had no clue that it was meth nor that it was "that bad." I started going out with Vince and we became a couple. I had a lot of drama in my life at the time so I was down for "whatever." Well, towards the last night of our winterbreak my friend had called our guy friend because she wanted to try smoking "shit" (aka meth). He came over and he served us our first hit. I had my first session. I didn’t really feel much--maybe because I did it wrong. Afterwards it was back to school. Then one weekend when we were hanging out in early January, he had a pipe and I tried it again and this time I "hit it" right. I was really high off my ass. I felt sooooooooooooooo damn good. All his friends were looking at me like "there goes another victim to meth." They all knew damn well what was happening to me and none of them had warned me before I signed my soul away! At this time I thought all of his "tweaker friends" cared about me. Later on I found out they were all trying to take advantage of me by using my money or using me for sex. I never gave in with the sex. but with the money, yeah I gave in. I started smoking shit more and more. Next thing you know I was always cutting school to go to Vince’s house and buy shit and wait for hours to get it. I started noticing how bad things got. This little fairy tale of never ending highs was getting to me. I always had this issue with how I looked, and when I was high off of shit I felt like a goddess. I got real real skinny–I was beautiful. it became the only reason why I kept doing it. I started getting mad at myself for using too much. I hated being up all night, I hated writing all night later on realizing when I was burning out that I was wasting my damn time on NOTHING--On shit that was getting me nowhere. Vince started becoming a real bitch. He started begging me for money. I thought it was freakin’ pathetic. He started stealing money from me and blamed it on his brother--that his brother was the one stealing it. He started hurting me so much. He'd care less if was sad or if I was crying endless tears of sorrow for being so depressed. He'd scream at me for being a "drama queen." He couldnt see that it was serious. He was this BIG MONSTER. I hated him for all the things he did to me. I was sexually abused by him. When he would be high and he wanted to have sex, he'd ask me if I wanted to f**k and when I didn’t want to--he'd lay back and be like, "ok" and then next thing you know he tries having sex with me. He’s begging and pulling down my pants and putting it in disrespectfully after I told him "NO!" I hate him! He made do things to him that I didnt want to. But still I stayed with him. During the summer in June, Vince and I were hanging out with his friend Fred and we were looking for more shit. We were all burning out and I started screaming at him and we got in a fight. I found myself so depressed. He had pushed me so far for being so frustrated. Anyways, I was put in a mental ward that afternoon--when I came home I got loud with my mom and w/my mom being so fed up w/my behavior she called the cops and told them I was trying to commit suicide. They told me that they’d take me to talk to a few conselors and then I’d come back home. Next thing you know, I’m in this mental ward in Berkeley. I can’t believe it. This was reality. With no shit to smoke there, I was really irritable. I got out the next day. After I came home I kept using. Vince was an asshole. My family was falling apart because of my habit. My mom didn’t know exactly what was I doing but she had an idea. Life at home got so bad that everytime I was home or came home my mom would beat me and she'd be crying because she was so mad of why I was turning into this different person. I can’t explain. I deserved being hit by my mom after all the pain I caused her. Anyways, school was coming up during the ending of AUGUST of this summer, and I vowed to quit smoking crystal. And I’m happy to say that till this day since August I’ve been clean. I did it. I can’t believe it. I’ve completely straightened up and turned everything around. My mom and I are the best now. I’ve kicked the habit. I had the strength and power to do it all by myself ALL ON MY OWN. Seriously, I had no help at at all. I made it. If I could, then anyone can, too. All you have to do is get your mind together.........and do it. Take yourself away from the environment--cut all those people off from you. You have the will to do it. Do you really want to end up like that? I know that no one does. Think about it. This is my story. Though there is so much more in between, this is all a short summary. God bless. I hope you all accomplish your goal. Later.
--Andrea