Introduction to Brittney

I am 21 years of age, a former addict and newly a mother. At the age of 16 I began to experiment with everything I could possibly get my hands on. Unfortunately in the town I lived in that meant pretty much everything. I tried meth, herion, cocaine, and a number of prescription drugs (xanax, methadone, adderall, oxycontin, etc.) all in the same week. I met a man who distributed a number of things and decided to latch on to him, we began to spend all our time together and made sure we were never sober. I very quickly stopped going to school all together, my parents were never big on authority and accepted this. Looking back I'm not even sure what the thrill was, I decided downers were my favorite and I was spending much of my time vomiting and sleeping as my body attempted to reject all these new things. The man I had started seeing would offer me drugs in return for staying put while he went out and letting him take my phone, computer, and any other device I may be able to contact people on. I accepted this because I was already so dependent on the drugs. After about 6 months of heavy heroin use I began to have extreme pain in the right side of my body. I could on lift my arm a few inches and walking was more challenging every day. I went to the emergency room but assumming I was looking for pain killers they always quickly dismissed me. After a few weeks and 3 dismissed visits I woke up one day and when I went to step out of my bed I collapsed. My right leg was in an immense amount of pain and I could no longer stand. My mom took me to the hospital one more time and I pleaded to my doctor to look in to it, i knew it wasn't in my head. So finally an mri was done. They found abscesses deep in my muscles in my arm and my leg. They were brought on by shooting up heroine in unclean conditions. I had no recollection of ever banging it, only snorting it. However I also took large amounts of xanax daily which obliterated much of my memory. I still to this day don't know if I injected it myself or if my "boyfriend" had been doing it while i slept to keep me out. They scheduled me for surgery and I attempted to call my boyfriend, sure that he would be there immediately to comfort me. But he wasn't. He wouldn't talk to me. Wouldn't come see me. Then he went off to a music festival for the weekend. I was in the hospital for a few days and it turns out they don't ween teenagers off of drugs so i experienced intense withdrawls. It was like the flu with a horrible twist and much more anger. Hot, then cold, hot then cold, sweat pouring, non stop vomiting and anger at everyone and everything. I felt like dying i was so alone and helpless. My parents we're so angry and my boyfriend had eliminated all my friends. When I got out my boyfriend was there to greet me, eager to get my fix I took him back with open arms. I went back to doing everything I had been doing except for the heroin, i was pretty scared at that point. After seeing how quick my boyfriend had left my side I felt that i needed to go back to school, atleast do that for myself. So my junior year I went back, i missed a lot of school and came in high but I was smart kid and I managed to pass enough classes to not be behind. My senior year after turning 18 I got a job and moved out with my boyfriend. At this time meth and adderall became my drug of choice because it kept me going and able to finish my school work and still make it to my job. My boyfriend didn't have a job, as i said before he distributed things. So with all his free time he'd constantly check up on me and make sure I was where I claimed to be. He became very paranoid and violent from our meth use and also from his own dishonest actions. A month from me graduating high school he declared t o me that he had met someone else and I needed to find a place to live. I was devastated and confused. I didn't know what to do. My math teacher noticing how distant and absent i had been reached out to me. I opened up to her and she helped me find an apartment, move all my furniture in, and she gave me rides to school the rest of the year and encouraged and helped me sign up for college. I felt so positive with him out of my life and powerful for supporting myself at just 18. I slowly stopped my drug use and was clean when I began college. But the classes we're tough, and I wasn't used to showing up to school everyday and putting in 100% so I was stressed beyond belief and extremely overwhelmed. I began drinking to cope with it, and within a month a was drinking all day every day, missing school and blacking out. I dropped out. I had been receiving financial aide to pay for it so I now owed thousands of dollars which was even more stress. I began abusing drugs again and met another man. After a year with this man I became pregnant and that's when things began to finally turn around. After getting the news I quit everything cold turkey. I was moody and had the worst migraines of my life but stuck to it. Now that my son is here I have continued my sobriety and have been blessed in being able to breastfeed him exclusively. To my surprise my boyfriend also got clean and stuck to it for the good of our son. We don't go to special meetings or church groups to keep us clean, our amazing son is our daily motivation. I've made it over a year now and I don't plan on ever going back.