Trapped: Memoirs of an Ex-Meth Addict and Her Recovery out of the Insanity of It All

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my daughter, Jessica, whom I love and miss with all my heart.And to all those who suffer from abuse, whether it be drug, alcohol, physical, or mental abuse. To Monty Riggs, without him, this book would not have been possible.To the two Steves my sponsor, and everyone who has helped me in my recovery. To Debbie and Danny Trejo. Thank you for all your help, and for being such a great inspiration to me. And to all the ladies of the Ribbons of Life Breast Cancer Foundation who have taught me that, Together we CAN make a difference.

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Epilogue

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Recovery

My Recovery

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Acknowledgements

Very special thanks to Robert S. Nahas for his writing work and editorial input with this written work. I had a strong belief from the very beginning that he was the right writer to help me tell my story. His literary knowledge, expertise, and strong sense of caring was invaluable to this project. And his ability to use certain words in certain combinations to depict real life calls up feelings and emotions from the deepest levels of the soul.

Epilogue

From the ugliness so apparent, I hope you come to realize the greatness that is buried beneath; a greatness that is in you and everyone who has the courage to claw at it, choosing to hold on to life by a silk strand, never giving up.

— Lori L. Stephens

Prologue

I was thirty one years in active drug addiction; trapped in a world of drug abuse that created severe physical and mental agony and disability. I am not a professional writer; what I am is a drug addict in recovery. And at the time of completing this book, I have six years clean. The essence of the miracle of beating addiction has firmly taken hold of solid ground and grows stronger with each passing day. As you will come to see from the pages within, I am living proof that recovery is possible for anyone who wants it.

I cannot say that recovery was easy for me. In the beginning it was very difficult. However, I can tell you that today I have no desire to use drugs.

When I first started my recovery, I was trapped – physically and mentally – in my addiction. I honestly felt that my addiction was a life sentence. But after being inspired by the true stories told to me by other addicts, who had overcome and escaped, I realized that my life of addiction was similar to theirs in many ways, yet they were freed from the shackles of active addiction. They were happy and living great lives. I realized I was not alone and became hopeful – slowly but surely. I wanted recovery more than I had ever wanted anything in my life, because I knew that if I did not quit using, I was going to die.

After reading this book, I hope that you too will see that you are not alone in whatever entraps you – whether it be drugs, alcohol, domestic abuse or any number of uncontrolled obsessions. If you are reading this book, chances are you or someone you love is a drug addict seeking recovery or in recovery. I pray that this book is an inspiration and gives hope to those who read it.

In this book are my personal experiences with drug abuse and recovery. Everything is true and written exactly how I remember it. However, the names of any unfavorable people have been changed. As you will notice while reading this book,with some people I did not use names at all. This is to protect their privacy.

You might hate me. You might despise the way I lived or be disgusted at my dependencies and weaknesses. If you’re a drug addict, you might empathize with me and know exactly what I went through. You are going to hear about the many horrible things I did, because I’m going to admit to them: a literary confession, you might call it.

But you have to respect me. You have to respect me for telling the truth, having the guts to face my fears, to face all that was the worst of me.

In a different way, you may feel better about yourself. You might see that you’re not alone in your woes and difficulties. And you may realize that there’s hope for the imperfections (or disasters) in your life.

Just as much, you may hopefully come to respect me for changing from the person I was to someone more compatible with the world. I just may be an inspiration to you by the time you see things come full-circle.

Chapter 1

February 12, 1984; 6:42 a.m.

The kitchen floor was cold. It seems the cheek is more sensitive to temperature than other areas of the body. The linoleum didn’t feel as hard as other times I’d met with it face-to-face. But the drops of blood looked as it always did, sticky and dark. Cracked blood and bruises on my face. Maybe my face had become calloused from all the scar tissue, as my beatings got worse, or maybe I was still too fucked up to feel anything as solid as the ground.

My spinning head started to slow down. I felt like I’d just stepped off the Tilt-a-Whirl at the carnival. No point of reference, nothing around me staying in one place, everything changing shape. My eyes slowly focused, filtering out the fuzzy, indiscernible shapes in the surrounding environment.

Local sounds still seemed off in the distance, coupled with a cave-like ringing sound in my ears. My body, numb and lax, felt like it vibrated, so much that it hummed from the inside out. Though I lay motionless, I could feel every cell in my body vacillating in frantic horror, trying to keep my organs in play and everything going according to the master plan. It was mass chaos without the coordinated efforts of my brain, which was off-line and useless at the time.

With the toxic concoction that had flown through my body for the past, well, I can’t even say how many hours, or should I say days since I had gotten any sleep. There was a cellular panic of a different order. The desperate urge for more drugs was well heard by the incumbent resident. My insatiable body scorned the exhausted liver and kidneys for robbing the precious poison, while they approached total shutdown. And like every other time, the voices, in unison, grew louder and louder with each pump of my heart: MORE METH!... MORE METH!... MORE METH!... MORE METH! Like in the final mile of a marathon, my heart struggled to thrust yet one more time.

My mental anguish, like a sleeping giant, began to awaken. The world and all its confusion, terror, and loathing sneers, slowly became recognizable, again. That moment of truth where I realized I had to live through another day became an enforced reality, and I lay there in total contention, and fear, of the whole world, Glen, and all of life itself.

Every ounce of my being was struggling to keep me from going back into a comatose state, or even better – dying. I didn’t have the nerve to kill myself, but I didn’t care much if it happened. I just knew one day Glen would exceed at doing it for me. Still, all areas of my body continued to scream like an angry, frantic mob, More Meth! More Meth! More Meth!

As I rolled my head to face the ceiling, the saliva slid down my face and neck and into my left ear. The repulsive feeling allowed me to silently feel more humiliation ever so deservingly. I lay flat on my back, unable to lift my head. After a while I sat up; I began to remember who I was. I don’t think I ever felt more disgusted with anyone as I did at those moments of waking from near death.

I don’t think I hated anyone more than the sorry little bitch at ground-zero. I loathed being trapped in my own skin. If I could vacate, I would. But then again, I was – unbeknownst to me – working hard at getting out of Dodge.

As the millions of dead cells floated aimlessly through my body, I sat, like every morning of this kind, thinking..., thinking..., always thinking about the past..., about the things...all of the bad things that had happened to me, how bad life was.

Chapter 2

January 1968; 8:15 a.m.

The floor was exceptionally cold this morning when I stepped out of bed. But as a five-year-old I wasn’t very fond of clothes, especially socks. I’d only wear them when my mother made me. Even then, they’d always seem to slide their way off my tootsies all by themselves.

I looked through the doorway at a motionless kitchen. I listened hard for any predators. It was so peaceful at this time of day. No one was up yet to stir the calm that sort of hovered everywhere. A streak of powerful golden light sliced past the edge of the drawn shade. Dust floated freely through it with no restraints, no rules, no controls, making the beam seem solid. Thousands of them glittered brightly and then disappeared out of the other side never to be seen again. Time passed with no consideration on my part as the light beam slowly moved across the floor. The house was quiet, peaceful, and faintly filled with the warmth that only a rising sun could ever provide.

I suddenly snapped out of the pleasurable moment, realizing that my mother would be getting up soon. And just as quickly, the beauty that I saw had vanished. Like changing a scene in a play, it was replaced with mental images that felt bad and caused fear to rise from my chest.

The TV room was through, to the other side of the large kitchen. Seemingly a short trek to the unwary eye, it was a journey filled with danger from the inhabitants who potentially lurked around every corner.

I started tip-toeing across the room, nervously picking up my pace. The hum of the refrigerator helped hide my steps. I thought I was virtually undetectable. A few feet from the TV room’s doorway the teakettle began to rumble. My heart began to race as a familiar sickening feeling began to swirl in my stomach. Someone was up. A few hastened steps later, the pot started to hiss out a feeble whistle, which quickly got stronger and louder until it started screeching at full capacity.

I started to run to the doorway when coming from the other direction was my mother. I jammed on the brakes, stopping on a dime. I thanked God I didn’t have my socks on. I would have certainly slid right into her. My natural instinct was to put my arms up to protect my face. This was all that was needed to set her off. She grabbed my arm like a vice. I looked up at her as I tried to create as much space between us as possible. She had her normal face on: tight lips, gripping teeth, squinting eyes beaming disdain, and a firm face chiseled with disgust.

Wasn’t gonna hit you.

And just as quickly as she said this, she slapped me across the face.

And she pushed me off into the TV room. This time, the less appealing sunlight pierced my eyes as I lay on the floor. My arm throbbed, my face stung. Any pleasing thoughts felt earlier were wiped out and filled with a concoction of pain, sadness and anger.

The screaming teapot came back into her scope and she stopped her pursuit of me. She pointed at me with her speechless look of warning and turned angrily and went to beat up on the utensils.

I tried to stay out of her way, but that was hard since we lived in the same hellhole. I still hadn’t figured out what wouldn’t set her off. It seemed no matter what I did, she’d find something wrong with it, something that made corporal punishment and mental torment very reasonable to her.

I moved over to my spot between the wall and my dad’s old reclining chair. He no longer lived with us; he came home one day and found my mother playing parents with another man. I felt some safety behind his recliner. I never thought my mother would kill me or anything, but she just liked to hit us; not that my dad would ever stop her.

My dad was the one who gave us love and affection. That is what I told myself, but it wasn’t true. I tried to find affinity, but it only existed vaguely in my mind, more like a yearning, for the people around me showed nothing of this trait. Love, affinity, caring...these things were completely absent in my life.

Chapter 3

It’s hard to comprehend how life can start out so sweet and simple, and get messed up so quickly. When I was born in Oxnard, California, was there something different about me? Did the doctor or nurses know that I would have such a twisted life of misery? Or did I look like all the other babies, pure and innocent, with the promise of hope, happiness, and love?

I was my parents’ fifth child, with two older brothers and two older sisters. When I was two years old, my parents split up. My dad met a beautiful woman named Glenda who had two young girls, ages three and four, from a previous marriage. He loved Glenda, but for his own children’s sake, my father decided to give my mom another chance and came back home.

At the time, he was not aware that Glenda was pregnant with his child. And while he was home, he got my mother pregnant for the sixth time. Now he had two women pregnant at the same time, and he had to make a choice.

He made the right decision by divorcing my mother and marrying my stepmother, Glenda. I say it was the right choice because it was obvious that Glenda was the love of his life. They were very happy together. I don’t know if my parents were ever happy together.

My two youngest sisters, having different mothers, were born a few months apart. I was three at the time. With two stepsisters and one half-sister, I now had two brothers and six sisters in all.

My mother never remarried, but she had a couple of boyfriends over the years. When I was six, she got pregnant. I have no memory of her pregnancy. She wanted to hide it from us because she was not planning to keep the baby. I remember her going somewhere for a few days. Her sister, my aunt Ellen, babysat us. When my mom came home, she was alone, with no baby in her arms. We found out years later, when we were grown, through my oldest brother, Joe, that she had a baby and had given the baby, a little boy, up for adoption.

When I asked my mother about it, she told me she did it because the child would have looked different from the six of us kids since it had a different father, and that she was afraid we would tease him about it, so she gave him up. It was typical for my mother to place blame elsewhere. You kids... always worked just fine if there were no one else around to rank on.

I have never met my half-brother, the one she gave away. I have no idea where he is, although someday I would love to find him. I imagine he had a better life than what he would have had living with my mother. It’s interesting what you do with the cards you’re dealt.

As I was growing up, my mother’s sister and her three kids would move in with us from time to time. During those times, there were nine kids in a 1400-square-foot house, along with my mother and aunt.

We didn’t have much supervision. Maybe my mom felt that if she ignored us, we would disappear. My cousin and I were two weeks apart in age; I was older. We had our cribs tied together like one big playpen. She was much bigger than me. She would pull my hair and beat on me. Nobody seemed to care.

When I was three I climbed a tree in our front yard and got my knee stuck in the branches. My mother had to call the fire department to get me down. Oak View was a small town back then and the people from the newspaper came to our house. I had my picture in the paper. That was the first time my name was in the news. It was a much more innocent story than all that would follow in the years to come.

I’m sure it was hard on my mom, raising six kids by herself and working every day to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. That is probably why she was so angry all the time.

My mother told me I was going to start kindergarten. I was petrified. I told my mom I didn’t want to go. No matter how many times I begged not to go, no matter how hard I cried, or puffed out my lower lip and pouted, she explained nothing, nor showed any sympathy.

It didn't matter that I was her daughter. She thought her life sucked and her only source of contentment was to know that others were pulled down into equal wretchedness as well. I know this now, but I was too young then to understand why I was made to suffer needlessly.

When we pulled up in front of the kindergarten school, I wondered what went on inside. My mom simply said that kids had to go. What do they do to little kids in there? I wondered. My sister went to the same school, but having never seen the inside of it, it was still scary. At least I knew that Sandy came home at the end of the day. My young imagination took over, to the level of The Boogieman and the dark.

The unknown is a child’s worst fear. And though experts might say that a child’s mind is undeveloped, their imaginations certainly do not lack three-dimensional, full-color creativity that mixes up what is real with what is make believe. No matter how many times you tell a child that monsters don’t exist, they still want you to leave a light on and check under the bed and in the closet before they feel safe. Truth is, I think something is as real as one believes it to be.

I was terrified to walk into that school and I pleaded with my mother to take me home. I promised her that I’d be good from now on and wouldn’t make her angry. Through my tears, I saw my mother’s hand come sweeping from the side. She slapped me so hard that I was stunned silly.

At that point, I became more afraid of what she would do to me if I didn’t go inside, so I put my chances on kindergarten. As I walked, she pulled me along with a tight grip on my wrist. My cheek was stinging and a handprint began to welt on my face. It was there for days. I was so embarrassed. Some of the other kids teased me. I felt certain that I was a bad kid and that I deserved this and all the other lessons I got.

My mom used to tell all of us that she hated us and we were the worst kids in the world. Of course, I believed it. It became her habit to slap me in the face.If she walked by me and I flinched, she would stop and say, I wasn’t going to hit you. She would look at me like she hated my guts and she would slap me for flinching. She was always telling me, Wipe that look off your face before I wipe it off for you!!

My life was damned if I do, damned if I don’t. No matter what I did, or didn’t do, my mother was very disappointed in me. I can’t recall kind words from her, a smile, or a comforting touch at bedtime. I don’t remember a lot from my childhood; maybe because it was the shortest period of my life, or maybe I just trained myself not to remember.

The best times that I can remember were when my dad picked us up on Sundays.

Chapter 4

My oldest brother, Joe, moved in with our dad when he was twelve, I was six. The only thing I can remember about Joe living with us was the trouble he caused. He and my other brother, Tom, and my cousins fought all the time. And I mean fighting like wild dogs, throwing punches and pummeling each other. They were really crazy and would really hurt each other.

Joe and my oldest sister, Terry, were busted by my mother for stealing from JC Penney. I remember them coming home wearing brand new striped hip huggers. Which were very popular in the sixties. My mom came home and grilled them as to where they got the pants. She drug them back to the store and made them return the pants. They were about eleven and twelve then. Shortly after that, was when my brother Joe moved to my dad’s house.

I envied Joe. I desperately wanted to live with my dad. I really loved him. We had a lot of fun on our weekly outings, with my three other sisters, and the hate I felt at my mom’s would disappear when I was with my dad.

My father was a heavy drinker back then, definitely an alcoholic. I didn’t realize it and I wouldn’t have cared. He was not mean and we could get away with a lot of things that my mother would not let us do. My dad allowed us to relax and just be kids.

My dad was close with his mother, my grandmother. She was a drinker too. Some Sundays, we’d go to Oak View where she lived, and have barbecues. Imagine two adults and nine kids all piling into one car. Even with a big Lincoln Continental, there wasn’t nearly enough room for eleven. That didn’t stop my dad; he had a good solution to that. He made good use of all that trunk space those cars offered by putting a few of us in the trunk and driving us over like that. Problem solved! he’d say. The bumper would scrape as we left the driveway, the car was so low to the ground.

We kids didn’t care in the slightest. In fact, we thought it was a blast. Sometimes we’d roll around as we turned a corner. I think my dad went a little faster on purpose just to give us a thrill. You could hear the tires begin to lightly squeal. He wasn’t trying to hurt us. He just didn’t realize how dangerous it was. Luckily, no one got hurt and it lives in my memory as a happy adventure.

In those days, adults weren’t concerned about a lot of things that we worry about today. There were no car seats and seatbelts were things that found their way beneath seat