My cause for addiction is not for the faint-hearted but it's honest and it is my story. I wanted to share this because of the news of Matthew Perry's death and for some insane coincidence my first Uni assignment is about addiction so before I let my thoughts consume me I'm going to open the box, once and for all.
After everything crashed around me at 16, I found myself drinking and smoking weed. I needed to feel numb, I was the shame of my family, the black sheep, the disappointment of my mother - her actual words along with whore, slag, filthy, dirty - so I blocked out the pain and drank and smoked like it was my last weekend alive. I was still at school doing my GCSE's and working but I used to sneak bottles of Archer's and lemonade in a Sprite bottle to school. A few of us did it because we were so obviously idiots.
When I turned 18, the snap came. I had gotten into a relationship with someone extremely toxic. I had changed weed to ecstasy and I didn't care. I still worked, I still saw friends, but every weekend I was doing Class A drugs to escape my thoughts.
Those who know me know I'm an overly affectionate person - people mistake my honest kindness as flirting. I truly love people when they catch my attention and if I see something fascinating in you I long to learn, but the toxic ex would accuse me of flirting openly. That's when my 1-2 pills to vibe in the evening changed to 4-7 pills so I could put my life in danger by going home with random men, call a spade a spade and it will become one soon enough. The more I acted this way the more I disassociated myself. I created my alter ego at this point: her name is CeCe, and the name I gave to authorities in the 90's was Christine Chapman so when I met new people I wasn't Jo. I was CeCe, a woman who did as she liked and used men the way she had been used. She refused to grow attached to anyone, never more than once, always loved DeNiro and Pacino from a young age, so my Sugar Daddies provided me with the comfort and love I needed without strings. They provided the funds for clothing and drugs and I slept with randoms, that's what addiction will do to you.
I was drinking and taking drugs when I met one of the nicest men, he was so sweet and kind, and we even got engaged, but I couldn't let go, I couldn't be who I wanted to be and instead of doing the right thing I cheated and then ghosted him, old habits my friends, old habits.
At 20, I met him indoors and from the moment he walked into my life my entire world shifted. I was ready to change for this man, I was ready to go all in and I did, until 2019 when he started working away. I had already had 3 major surgeries and I was diagnosed with muscular atrophy. I was always in pain and started on Paracetamol, which was the normal dosage. When he started working away during the week I'd take 3-4 Co-Codamol at night to knock me out. I simply couldn't sleep without him there, no sleep, travelling for work, the constant arguments, the tablets stopped being for numbing my physical pain and instead allowing me to be feel numb from all the emotions I was going through. It was great that I'd just had a total abdominal hysterectomy so I was a mess hormonally as it was, added to this my Borderline Personality Disorder and I felt myself about to snap again. I was taking about 25 tablets a day - for someone that's had a gastric sleeve I'm so beyond damaged internally it's shocking my body hasn't just given in.
After a while they weren't so numbing, they wouldn't work. I almost became immune to them and the darkness swallowed me. I was too in love with him to cheat, although I did try, nothing physical, I sent a message to a friend of his but I ended up admitting to it the next day. That wasn't who I was and if we couldn't be whole I didn't want to be there. Everywhere I looked I saw my life as a failure. I was weak, my addiction made me believe that, seeing as I relied on my husband to make me whole, made me weak.
November 8th 2019 I took an overdose to end my life. I wrote a letter and everything. All that was in there was me being sorry for being a failure and weak - seeing a theme? I'd been dragged into a familiar black hole and I saw no escape.
The thing about addiction is that it's used to numb something. We lack something and instead of talking to ourselves deeply we find a destructive coping mechanism. We think we have everything under control but we have absolutely nothing in control. The addiction has control. We are just a slave and it's kill or be killed when it comes to addictions.
November 8th 2023 I will have been sober from opiates and alcohol and it's not been easy. The images of my kids faces when they saw me and his face at the hospital. He nearly had security remove him because I refused to let him see me. His face, that will forever haunt my dreams and remind me to keep strong, it made me quit cold turkey. I've said it before but that was the moment I realised I was meant to do something with my gift and that's why I trained to be a Counsellor and Therapist. This is why I study every additional course I can because I want to understand and help people escape from where I've been. It's not a nice place and if you allow it to hold you for too long you'll be trapped forever.
It's not easy seeking help for addiction. The stigma behind it is shocking, the belief that addicts are less somehow, we are seen as weak. We are not, we just don't know how to find the strength to climb out.
I sometimes forget how hard I've worked to be 4 years clean. I have moments where I want the numb feeling again but I allow the pain now. The pain reminds me I'm alive and I'm still moving forwards. Whatever pain we try to numb with shopping, drugs, alcohol, smoking, food, working out or gambling, it puts us on pause. We don't move forward from that pain and we can't move forward until we face it. Trying to ignore it feeds the darkness even more.
The person I am now is not the same person I was 4 years ago and that's the best reward. 4 added years of memories.
Peace and love my dudes,
Jo xx