As some of you might imagine, I get a lot of hate mail through this site, and it’s oh so hateful! However, I get a good amount of mail from people who agree as well. The following is from a woman who changed her substance use habits without treatment or recovery groups. I had to share it, because I think these are some of the most important stories. If only people knew that it was possible to change on their own, then they could avoid so much trouble in the recovery culture. I asked Jessie if I could reprint her story, and she said yes. Enjoy:
I am a 30 year old female and I used to be a drug addict. I use the past tense because I am no longer using drugs, therefore, I am no longer an addict. During the early years of my 20’s I was a successful advertising professional steadily climbing the corporate ladder.
However, due to a long-term extremely unhealthy relationship with an alcoholic, I was profoundly unhappy. I finally decided to make a change and ended my 7 year relationship. Once I was “free” from the confines of a controlling, emotionally draining man I thought I had nowhere to go but up, boy was I wrong.
Initially I started snorting/smoking OxyContin and doing lines of cocaine, but when that became cost prohibitive I began using heroin and crack. At the peak of my addiction I was using $200 per day of heroin and $200+ per day of crack, which obviously destroyed my savings and eventually cost me my job of 6 years. Then, through one of my seedy drug buddies I met a man who’s father owned a motel in the downtown area of our city and decided to moved in with him. I still had a car, valuable items to pawn and a few quick money making schemes that fueled our drug binge for the next few months.
Then, one day, I woke up. Dope sick, penniless, weighing 95lbs and the bank coming after my car, I decided enough was enough. The man I thought I was “in love with” was using me as a means to an end and I had been letting him. I looked like hell, I was unhappy and I wanted out. So, I called my sister and told her everything. She called my father and I was told that I was being given a small window of opportunity to move back to my parents house and sober up.
When I arrived at my parents house my dad was livid. He was going to let me stay there but I had to follow a strict set of rules.
- 1) get up every morning by 8
- 2) find a job within 1 week or move out
- 3) submit to random drug tests given by him
- 4) keep my room and bathroom spotless.
If I broke these rules I was out on the street, and my father does not make idle threats.
Even though I was experiencing nasty withdrawals, I had work to do and my old man wasn’t about to cut me any slack. When I brought up the possibility of attending NA meetings my father sat me down and said “NO”. He had watched two of his brothers try to work programs for 20 years with no success and he hated the “recovery culture”. As he explained all of this he said one thing that stuck with me, he told me I was not diseased, I was a product of my own bad choices but I had the power to make good choices and turn my life around.
The power to make good choices. I got up everyday and made my bed, I found a job, I started running, I cooked meals for my family, I read books, I started sewing, I felt good.
Fast forward 2 years. I’m in the process of buying a home with a wonderful man that I love. I’m still gainfully employed, I exercise and eat right and I am blissfully happy. I have no desire to use heroine or crack, I drink alcohol in moderation and it is all because my dad told me I have the power to choose.
I appreciate what your site teaches and I am thankful I never went to any NA meetings, my friends that are working those programs are miserable and, well, powerless. Not me, I have the power to choose.
Thank you for spreading your message,
Jessie
Qdos to Jessie’s father and Jessie. If only we there were more people with the belief of choice and empowerment to aid the reduction of substance abuse issues in todays world.
And thank you Steven!
Lizzi
What about people who don’t have parents? You wouldn’t have done it without family, lots of people don’t have that same support.
I did it on my own too. I am a heroin and crack cocaine addict for a good 7 years now. I went to rehab and in rehab I had to attend the meetings. I sat through the NA meetings in silence, hated every single second of the bullshit shares and the fake nice attitudes the people put on. I hate the fake spirituality and them telling you over and over again that you are powerless and wridden with disease!
NO YOU AREN’T. I relapsed while I was INSIDE rehab, drinking and using drugs like I would on the outside and I even punched the owner of the rehab for trying to tell me off!
Well I got out and went to stay at my parent’s and I got caught shooting up and they threw me onto the streets. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH I said and I quit the next day, got on a Buprenorphine script and I have not used in over a year now. I don’t need rooms, I don’t need rehab. SOME PEOPLE ARE STRONG ENOUGH TO DO IT ON OUR OWN!
Keep in there guys, the fight is inside of you. Nobody can tell you what’s best for your recovery. NA is a cult, a nasty sadistic cult where old ex-junky males prey on vulnerable young females entering the rooms. It’s filled to the brim with scum. I left my email here when I posted this message, if anybody wants support from me, I don’t care who you are, I WILL HELP YOU if I can. No NA bullshit, no 12 steps, just you vs the addict inside you. It can be done, like this story and mine, we can do it.
Thanks for posting this story, bought a tear to my eye because it is so close to hhome. Really proud of this woman and I hope she has stayed off the drugs! Fuck the drugs and fuck NA too guys! Let’s tackle addiction!
I’ve been in the rooms for three years, I have been dope free for over a year and let me tell you, leaving the rooms was the best thing for me. I just recently quit going, but honestly the rooms suck. I’m a 23 year old girl and men always prayed upon me. After a relapse a man from the room offered me a ride to a meeting and took advantage of me. Men there will act like they want to hug me and then hold onto me. I’ve even had someone pull me onto their lap. The women are judgmental, and when I got my first sponsor, she made me swear with one hand raised that “I will not be no NA hoe.” And it’s not like I was just chilling in one room, I’ve been all over the metroplex and the STATE with assholes that judge and tell you you’re doing it all wrong. It was just really horrible. Finally I found a SMART recovery handbook and read through it. I realized that I had a bad habit, made bad decisions, and had a bad judge of character. Ever since then I’ve been able to live better then I’ve ever lived before. Even better than life before the drugs. I’m really relieved to find this site and to read this. I understand people that were so corrupted by the dope that they need to stay straight edge because they lost the sense of who they are, but that just wasn’t my story. I had the support of family and people who really loved me. I really feel like NA is a cult. I drink moderately and I’m content with life. So anyone out there that feels like an outsider and doesnt belong to NA, AA, CA, DA,MA, whatever, you are not alone and you are not helpless. You can do it without the judgement of others, the awkward control of a GOD or HIGHER POWER. Dont believe the bullshit, You CAN do it.
This was a nice little read I stumbled on. While I was googling about quitting NA. My story I’ve been clean from heroin 10 years, 95% of that time I spent in NA being fed the Kool Aid. A few years ago I was dating a girl that would have a few drinks every night. She was so responsible with it, rarely got drunk, never let it interfere with her life, and then I started feeling like I could do that to. However everything I was taught in NA told me if I did I would be shooting heroin again, or I’d become a hopeless drunk.
Anyway one day I decided why not, I took that first drink, and for a few years now I have been able to drink with success. I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve been drunk since… In fact it’s was only once that I went past the point of buzzed. I’ve been able to manage it, and not allow it to control me. I’ve also been through multiple surgerys, with pain medication. Never once was I tempted to go shoot some drugs.
I learned that I am not in fact powerless, but that I have the power, I know what drugs can do to me, so I choose not to do them. People have told me I’m not a real addict then, which I find funny because the lows my addiction took me to were lower than most.
While I have a great appreciation for the 12 steps and what they helped me to learn about myself, who wants to live in a church basement reliving the same stuff like ground hog day?