two months and going strong

september ninth 2011.

it was the day i gave up crack. it was - by most - the hardest day of my life. im nineteen going on twenty, and i had been snorting crack since i was seventeen. it landed me in rehab, the hospital, and almost killed me on two occasions. it was when i saw my aunt's grave that really shook me, the same aunt that had cared for me when my mom was in the hospital getting her stomach pumped thanks to food poisoning. i didn't know, but she had been a crack addict for less than twelve months, and it killed her before she could even ask for help.

my aunt died the day before i had started snorting cocaine.

my mom hadn't told me she had died, but had been in a slump for most of my addiction. i faced two interventions and rehab. rehab isn't fun, you sit in a circle and you tell your deepest darkest secrets to a bunch of strangers that you'll never see again in your life, and then you sit there and you analyze every possible reason why this could have happened, and how you could have stopped it from happening, and how it's going to change you once you're clean.

it was the hardest thing for me to go through, because i do not like asking for help. i rarely ever ask for help, unless my hand is being forced. the only reason i was in rehab was so i could stay in school and graduate.

i dont think any of you believe me. fine, don't. i have nothing to prove to you. but you'll never understand depression, desperation, dependency and disappointment the same way until you've become an addict. i will never go back to being that way ever again, and i will flourish in my environment, i will not let addiction bring me down again.

november 21/2011 - two months and 12 days.