Your Stories

My Mind was not its Own

One boring day in my youth my friend and I decided on a whim to raid the liquor cabinet and try some of that stuff our parents drank that made them so happy, joyous and free. Creme De Cocoa smelled great, my drink of choice, I downed a couple gulps and it tasted awful. A few seconds if that it started, the burning sensation in my stomach which transferred up my body to my brain, WOW! this stuff is great. The sense of well being fell over me and I was hooked. Little did I know just how hooked I would become over time. Parents did it, they had fun when they drank, less critical, more easy going so what could it hurt for me to drink and have fun, enjoy life more just like the grownups.

Social drinking was the norm, drank at parties, then before parties, then starting sneaking booze in our house and others, thought about it a great deal, my life started to revolve around my new friend. I hung around with the rich and famous, rode horses professionally, hunters and jumpers, played polo, enjoyed two homes, one in Palm Beach Florida and one in Michigan where I grew up. This lifestyle was a far cry from my beginnings in a flat in Detroit, no money and a serious lack of food. We were poor but had each other, my parents and me and that was all I knew or cared about, being loved and protected.

The move to the suburbs started it all, we had the nice house on the corner lot with the white picket fence, a dog named Duke, we were coming up in the world. My Mother was from Virginia, grew up on a plantation with lots of animals and she wanted me to experience that lifestyle. Riding horses was my new life, mew idol, every waking minute I thought about riding, hanging out at the stables, the smells of the barn, those huge animals that I could ride, my life was going great except for school. I hated school, asked many questions which I never received answers to, loved to laugh, be the class clown,which never went over well with my teachers. The battle lines were drawn between me and the establishment, those stuck up teachers and their starchy, staid personalities who thought they were a cut above everyone else.

My life was great, I excelled at everything I liked, riding, tennis, swimming, making friends, making money, hanging out with the right people. Looking back this was a grand time in my life, little did I know it would all come crashing down through my use and abuse.

Completed high school in 1964 at the bottom of my class, went to college in Palm beach and Michigan, basically a party all the time, freedom from the parents, out on my own with plenty of time to drink and enjoy life. Quit college, joined the Navy during Vietnam, became a Hospital Corpsman with unhindered access to drugs and that chapter of my addiction started. I was like a kid in a candy store experimenting with tranquilizers, amphetamines dabbling in pain killers and drinking. Honorably discharged in less than two years for health related reasons.

Back home nothing really changed, the drugs were not available as readily so I went right back to my drug of choice, alcohol, tried a few jobs, fired from a few jobs, had many failed relationships with girls, my life was a mess and I had n idea just how bad it was getting. Horses, riding, teaching and training were my fall back, went back into teaching, loved it but even that was flawed now with my constant abuse of alcohol.

The severe downward spiral was escalating at an accelerated rate, blackouts, divorce, bankruptcy, no friends, parents disowned me, no more jobs and little or no money. My world had fallen apart, I was abandoned by everyone, the lifestyle I enjoyed was gone, I was a sick, lonely, tired, paranoid, insecure mess, hooked and totally addicted to drugs and alcohol which kept telling me I was all right with no evidence to support that.

Blown up in a residential gas explosion suffering third degree burns over 40 % of my body, close to deaths door, miraculously survived. Car wrecks, overdoses, hospitalizations, attempted suicides, trouble with the law, tried a couple treatment centers to no avail, did not need those places I was not that sick, yet or so I thought.

I was in a black out at my parents home in Michigan and the next thing I knew the police were storming the house, guns drawn, tear gas filling the air, the door busted down with battering rams, shots fired, I place the .38 in my mouth and pulled the trigger. The following day I woke up in the local jail in my orange jumpsuit, cut up, hung over, no memory of the pervious night. Cuffed and shackled clanking and dragging my chains into the courtroom, facing the judge, lots of police presence, they looked very upset and angry. The judge asked me if I knew why I was there, my reply stunned him and the courtroom, I had no idea. The charges could be two counts of attempted murder, illegal use of a firearm, discharging that firearm, resisting arrest and the list went on and on. The judge deferred my formal sentencing by sending me to the local County jail for ten days at the request of my new court appointed attorney and my two AA sponsors.

Upon arriving in the County jail which was filled to over capacity, sharing a small cell with eight others, the toilet in the middle with no curtain, hard steel racks attached to the wall, everyone seemed to know me and know why I was there except me. I shared what I new of my story which was very little when one older man approached me with a book in his hand asking if I would read to me from that book because he could not read or write. The book was very familiar to me. the AA Big Book, he was there for killing his wife while in a drunken rage. That night I placed the book on my stomach in the hard steel rack and finally gave up, let go and asked God to take over what was left of my life, whatever that was, I was finally completely defeated, alone and scared to death. God answered my prayer February 20, 1976. made a vow to God, if you help me, if you are truly there then I will devote the rest of my life to you and carrying the message of HOPE to the lengths of the earth and tell them all about you, share al my life with anyone that will listen, give back the love you have so freely given me. I have been keeping that promise the past (35) years plus.

My book, "My Mind Has A Mind Of Its Own," tells the whole story, goes into greater detail and has helped bring HOPE to addicts. Suffice to say I did not serve a great deal of time, the charges were all dropped, I served two years on probation, my record is completely clean today as a direct result of God intervening in my crazy, mixed up life on that fateful day and has blessed me with more miracles and gifts then I can possibly recount at this writing. I suffered from a very fatal disease know as addiction, I have an addictive personality, my disease is the fold, mental, spiritual and physical, only a huge miracle could stop the insanity and bring me back full circle to sanity, peace of mind and freedom.

Written By: Gordon Rouston, Author / Speaker/ Voice Over Talent

Check out his book, My Mind Has A Mind Of Its Own, on Amazon.com

My Secret Shame

Part One:

I have shared a host of addictions in my past. These would include alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual addiction, codependent relationships, love addiction, tobacco addiction, compulsive shopping, workaholism, caffeine addiction, sugar addiction. The list could probably go on. That's enough for now!

Gratefully, some of these addictions such as alcohol and drug abuse are no longer issues within my life. 

From some others, I am seeking recovery. I may never recover from some. Fortunately there are only a few that are truly life-threatening. I keep my focus on recovery from the greater of “the evils.”

What I've come to learn is that I cannot work on all of them at once. That is what the perfectionist who lurks in my brain would like me to do. It's also a recipe for failure. I am like everyone else. I'm not perfect; I am only human.

I have once heard it said that to be human is to be addicted. I believe this to be true. It seems that it's the human condition to expect something or someone to make us happy rather than to look for  happiness within ourselves. That only works for awhile until we feel the aching longing within ourselves once again. As for me, only spirit can fill that gaping hole of need.

It seems to me that so much of our unfulfilled needs come from the materially-driven society in which we live. What happened to me in my past was that I became so consumed by my wants instead of  focused upon my needs. I certainly have had a tendency to try to fill myself up with things outside of myself in order to make me feel better. That's only worked for the time I had been engaged in those addictions, attachments, or compulsive behaviors. After the thrills wore off, I was just as lonely and needy as before.

It was my first and primary addiction that fueled something even more toxic. That was my secret shame which would ultimately lead me back into this addiction following more shame, emptiness, apathy, or despair. For many years I fooled myself by justifying my sexual behaviors. So many gay men were leading promiscuous lives in the 1970's and 80's. For many that ended with the fear of illness and death connected to AIDS. For many of those who survived, AIDS had become the wake up call for them to have made changes in their sexual behavior. Unfortunately that didn't work for me. I was addicted to sex.

Part Two:

I don't need to put any chemicals into my body to get high. Such is the case with any process addiction such as that of sex. As for my sexual addiction, I would experience “a high” during my sexual acting out that was more potent than any substance I'd ever put into my body. I have since learned about the altered body chemistry that's activated while under the influence of the addiction.

My sexual behavior was not a moral issue as I'd wrongly believed. I had been absolutely unable to stop my compulsive behavior even knowing that I was doing something that went against my personal values. That only increased my shame.

During that experience of powerlessness, I would often engage in behaviors that I would have never dreamed to have been possible for me. I would end up feeling so ashamed. That would only serve to drive me back into the addiction in order to try to make myself feel better. It never worked.

I would continue to engage in inappropriate and unsafe behaviors which would exacerbate my shame. As time wore on, I began to experience more and more unpleasant consequences. In addition to relationship problems, I experienced debilitating depressions and suicide attempts, sexually transmitted diseases, robbery, serious threats of bodily harm, and apprehension by law enforcement to name a few. None of that stopped me; that is, not until I hit a bottom connected to pure despair. That's when I found my way to a twelve-step recovery program named Sex Addicts Anonymous.  

What I came to learn once I had come into recovery was just how devious the addiction is. As with all addictions, the behavior is simply a symptom of a deeper distress. Coming to terms with accepting my feelings and dealing with life's problems instead of running away from them would become the greatest challenge of my life.

Part Three: 

As with any addiction, sexual addiction and its accompanying shame is indeed as much a physical as well as mental and spiritual disease. It had its roots in my early life. That's when I learned to cope by soothing myself with sex whenever I became troubled. That's how I survived. What was my amazing discovery was that the addiction didn't have anything to do with sex per se. I simply wanted to be loved. I just didn't know how to appropriately find that love from others or from myself.

Unfortunately my sexual soothing became very dysfunctional for me when I became an adult and tried to maintain a semblance of a healthy relationship. I didn't have the tools to do that because I discovered that I truly didn't love myself. That made it impossible for me to develop an open and honest relationship in which I could give freely of myself. What's more, I didn't even really know who I was. I'd been running from myself for all of my life.

What happened instead was that I'd developed a double life. In what seemed like my normal life, I pretended to be a well-adjusted person. I'd go through the motions of life while using my double life as a sex addict as a means with which to cope with whatever feelings were uncomfortable. By uncomfortable feelings, I'm talking about feelings such as worthlessness, loneliness, anxiety, sadness, self-pity, anger, and resentfulness to name but a few. This would translate into basically any feeling that had a negative charge to it.

I would also invariably turn to my addiction whenever I felt elated. Then I would use sex as a reward. Ultimately I didn't know how to take care of myself at an emotional level. Additionally I would find myself turning to my addiction during times when I wasn't taking adequate care of my physical self; for instance, when I was hungry, tired, or feeling sick.

I couldn't remain faithful to my short-term wife or my first male partner for any substantial period of time no matter how hard I tried. On those occasions when he learned about my behaviors, I would tearfully promise that I would never cheat on them again. Unfortunately, when it comes to addictions, promises are meant to be broken. I wrongly thought that I should be able to control my behaviors. That mistaken thought only added to my shame whenever I would slip back into lifelong behaviors which only continued to cause my partners and myself more pain.

Over the years, my behaviors became even more frequent and outrageous. Consequently my life became more and more unmanageable. Following many years of devastating and often suicidal depressions, I finally reached out for help. This came on the heels of a suicide attempt, a break up in my long-term relationship, and recovery from alcoholism during which my sexual behaviors escalated. I came to realize that I was totally out of control. For me, it became a matter of life and death. I didn't think that I would be able to survive another suicidal depression.

Part Four:

I could tell you a long story about how the seeds of addiction and shame were planted in my childhood, how I suffered from some traumatic experiences, my feelings of inadequacy, my early sexual memories and behaviors which escalated once I began to explore gay sex as a young man. By that time, I had become a full blown sex addict. It would take me several more years before I could accept that fact. It would take me another decade before I came into recovery for the first time.

Perhaps I will tell you that story some day. I have indeed written my autobiography. Writing the book was an exercise in trying to piece together a very fragmented life in order to look at the light and dark sides of myself. It became a cathartic experience during which I sought to become whole. I hope to have my memoirs published at some point in the future. For now I will tell you about my experience in recovery.

As I had implied, my journey toward recovery began after I joined Alcoholics Anonymous. Within the course of the next year, I finally found the courage to seek help from Sex Addicts Anonymous also known as SAA. As crazy as it may sound, I didn't know how I would be able to explain what I perceived as my perverted behaviors to another human being. I didn't stop to consider that people in that program might have experienced behaviors that were similar to my own.

I was horribly nervous when I met with two men at a Ground Round restaurant. They shared their personal experiences of addiction with me while telling me how the program worked. I couldn't believe that I was meeting in a public place while having such a discussion. What struck me as particularly odd was that these two fellows didn't seem to have any shame in talking about their pasts during our meeting.

This was to be the meeting before the meeting. Out of respect for the other group members, prospective members were always met in a public place before the new members were allowed to attend a meeting. This served two purposes. It created a feeling of safety for the current members and it also gave the new member an idea of what was about to happen. I will never forget that day.

I arrived at the actual meeting to discover to my horror that I was the only gay man there. What only served to make matters worse were that there were two women in the group. I had no idea how I would ever be able to talk about my “degrading homosexual experiences” with a group of straight men and women.

I quickly learned that, while many of us engaged in different compulsive behaviors, the underlying feelings were the same for us all. I quickly formed bonds with these men and women who spoke intimately about their own experiences in a way that quickly disarmed me. I didn't know what to make the attitudes of the longer-term members as they discussed their experiences. Many of them seemed to be happy. I decided that whatever they had was something I wanted for myself. I did my best to do what they told me had worked for them.

Part Five:

I got myself a sponsor and I began to work the steps. The first step was to admit that I was powerless over my addictive sexual behavior and that it had made my life unmanageable. I didn't have any problem accepting that in theory. Even so, it was difficult to let go of an addiction that had, at one point, been my friend.

I began to focus on staying abstinent from toxic and inappropriate behaviors one day at a time. During many points, I had to cut that down to an hour or even a minute at a time. Sometimes I simply felt as if I was coming out of my skin. Whenever I could put together a few days or weeks of abstinence, I would feel as if God had worked a miracle within my life.

Then I would find myself allowing myself to fall back into the addiction. Recovery wasn't going to be easy and no one made that promise to me. Even so, I kept going to meetings. I felt as if my emotional life depended upon it. Truth be told, I always felt better after I'd gone to a meeting even though it often felt like pulling teeth in order to get myself to attend in the first place.

Within a few months, I gave a formal first step presentation to the group. I talked intimately and honestly about my sexual behaviors and how they had made my life unmanageable. It truly helped me  understand how powerless I was over the addiction at that point in my recovery.

I felt a tremendous weight lifted off me following my presentation. I was told by the other members that they loved me and could relate to my experience. They told me how honored they were that I honestly shared my story with them. It was such a cathartic experience as years of shame seemed to melt away.

Unfortunately, as is often the case with newly recovering people, I went out of the program a year and a half later during a difficult period in my life. The subsequent shame of not coming back only kept me away that much longer.

I went back into my addiction with a sense of sad resignation. I became apathetic and managed to let go of my guilt toward cheating on my partner since we had stopped becoming sexual with each other. I rationalized my outside sexual behaviors as acceptable since I deserved to have sex.

Truth be told, I was the one who had stopped that part of our relationship. Unable to allow or know what intimacy was, I preferred to have sex with others. It would be a long time before another bottom finally brought me back into recovery. That happened twelve years later.

Part Six:

I was back in the trenches of addiction as I continued my “field research.” What did I find that was different? The answer was nothing! The addiction only continued to escalate as I became more and more out of control. On some days, I would have sex with ten or more partners. It was such an easy thing to do in those places where both gay and straight men sought to have sex with other men.

I practiced unsafe sex almost exclusively as I continued to put myself at risk of HIV infection. Having not acquired it, I was under the delusion that I was invulnerable. The truth is that no one is. At some level, I must not have cared if I remained alive. Addiction is a terminal illness for those who continue to pursue it with all its inherent risks. How I managed to survive only spoke to one truth. I remained alive in order to tell my story.

My symptoms of active mental illness were now being controlled by medication after I had finally been properly diagnosed. That's another story I will share with you in another article - I'm sharing these different aspects of my life with you in a piecemeal fashion in order for you to absorb them according to each subject. Otherwise you would need to read a long book. The larger story will be told another time and in another way.

After twelve years of slowly destroying my spirit and my relationship of over twenty years, my partner confronted me. He'd found a bottle of Viagra which I had come to need in order to sexually perform - My guilt and shame had had a psychological effect with which I had needed physical help. He gave me an ultimatum. I could either go to couple's therapy or my partner said he would leave me. I felt trapped, but I didn't want to lose the relationship that I had thought would last me for the rest of my life.

Part Seven:

Kicking and screaming on the inside, off to therapy with him I went. As soon as I got there, I realized I would need to work on the addiction. The only thing that made sense to me was to go back to SAA. I also realized that the only way that the program would work for me would be if I was to do it for myself. To do it in order to save the relationship would hopefully be the end result. Only time would tell.

I also realized I would need to do personal therapy in order to deal with “the demons” of my past. Shame haunted me from the core and it had infected me from so many sources. These would include: childhood sexual and emotional trauma; the thought that I needed to please others in order to earn their love; and my other secret childhood shame that I might be gay and therefore unworthy of love from my family or even from God.

I returned to SAA filled with shame, though I was quickly reminded that I was no different than any of the other members. I was only doing what had become an ingrained pattern. I was only seeking to survive my pain. Yet, once again,  I was reminded that there was another and better way. They loved until I learned to love myself and give that unconditional love to others.

I worked the program with a diligence. I attended four to five meetings per week. I obtained a sponsor and I practiced abstinence from my toxic sexual behaviors one day at a time. I couldn't possibly imagine myself being free for a lifetime after so many years of being in bondage to lust. Practicing freedom in small doses made my life more manageable and helped free me from perfectionist thinking. That would remain a challenge for me as is still the case.

I learned to recognize and deal with my feelings in a healthy way. I stayed connected with others as I sought to end a lifetime of isolation from people and from God. I immediately found that I was freed from compulsive behavior, though I would mistakenly test the waters again. As time went on, I was able to put together longer and longer pieces of sexual sobriety. It was a daily challenge and I was gaining more and more hope and faith as I went along.

I looked to a Higher Power that was only loving and who had no judgment. I experienced God's presence and His voice through the other members of my program. I began to feel worthy of that love as I learned to love and trust myself. I also began to trust God because He was doing for me what I could not do for myself.

Part Eight:

My partner and I continued in couple's therapy, but I hadn't been able to let go of one relationship with a younger man with whom I had formed an attachment. I had started to fall in love with him. That part of my addiction would ultimately spell the end of what had become twenty-four years with a lifetime partner. Another problem was also looming. After years of freedom from mental illness, I began to destabilize. The eventual breakup would be accompanied by incredible unmanageability as I sought to change so many major areas of my life all at the same time.

Losing my partner was a huge emotional price to pay. I would not begin to realize how much pain was involved until the following year. In the meantime, I bought a new home and started a new relationship. Ironically it was not with the young man with whom I had fallen in love. I met someone even younger - an unlikely partner with whom I began a most unusual love story about which I will tell you in another article. Every aspect of my life was now changing.

The amazing thing is that, following multiple slips during the previous two years, I had suddenly become totally sexually sober. There was no compulsive desire or sexual obsession. I was able to give complete fidelity to another for the first time in my life. Talk about miracles!

That continued for one and a half years before I began to experience intermittent slips. I had taken my sobriety for granted. Even so, I no longer needed to live in a place of shame. I kept picking myself up and coming back to meetings. I never lost hope or faith as I continued to work my program to the best of my ability.

Although I created incredible pain for my new partner, he supported me. He realized I was dealing with an ingrained lifetime problem for which there would be no easy fix. Yet I was recovering. I began to realize a joy that I had never dreamed possible.

I learned to pursue new dreams and resurrect long-abandoned interests as I became free from what had been a daily and time-consuming obsession. I began to write my life story and, when I was done, I was ready to embark on another writing venture. This was to be the beginning of the Sister Mary Olga series.

Part Nine:

A new and exciting period in my life was unfolding. As I continued to recover from sexual addiction, I was beginning a new career as an author. I began to incorporate elements of my past into my blossoming series of books about a wayward nun. The most important element of having come to look at my past more kindly was that I learned to do so with humor. I had learned how to not take myself or life so seriously.

By the time Misadventures became published, I had written nine books in the series. I completed two more books before I submitted the first sequel, Babes in Bucksnort, to my publisher. A new adventure beyond my wildest dreams was unfolding.

I had to learn to practice not projecting my concerns about the future into any area of my life. I continued to work my program of recovery with a diligence as I sought to stay grounded amidst the unfolding excitement of my career as an author. The reviews for Misadventures were ecstatic and so was I. That's a dangerous feeling for a sex addict. It made my continuing recovery more challenging.

What I learned was that I could free myself from the idea of a struggle by reframing it as a challenge. By surrendering the addiction to God, I could continue to experience prolonged periods of complete freedom from this addiction. The program was working even if I couldn't always do it perfectly.

As we all are, I am only human. I learned to let go of the notion of what I had considered to be sin and to reframe it as a correctable mistake. I learned that every mistake begins with a mistaken thought. It would become my challenge to remain aware whenever I slipped into unconscious thinking. As I did so, I began to take charge of my thoughts in order to not allow them to lead me astray. In so doing I was also letting go of my shame.

Ultimately I have learned that, while it is important to learn about my addiction and how it came to manifest, I am responsible for taking charge of my recovery. It's been hard work, but it has well been worth the effort. As is promised by twelve step programs, I am learning a new freedom and happiness. I am learning to not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. I am learning that God is doing for me what I could not do for myself.

What remains most important for me is to stay aware. When I am living in the present moment, there's no need for me to fear. I am slowly but surely waking up to my spirit as I become more conscious of myself and my life choices. No matter what anyone's life challenge is, we are all responsible for creating our own happiness.

As I have learned, it does not come from the outside. It comes from within. It comes from maintaining a positive attitude and focusing on what I have to be grateful for. Everything that has come to pass in my life has served a purpose which has brought me to my today. Today I am truly grateful!

As we all are, I am here for a reason. It's my hope that my life example and Sister Mary Olga's lessons in Advanced Holiness will help wake up those who have walked in the shadows of despair to wake up to their joy. I believe that is all that God wants for any of us.

Written By: David Cowdery
Check out David'd blog, The Funniest Satire Series of the Decade

Definitely the Wrong Door

I have been gearing myself up all day so far to write this memory.  It's a past experience that hopefully no one else will ever have to encounter and it's part of my story so here goes...

I was living with a guy I met on the street in his sisters cockroach (totally) infested basement.

For some reason he had taken a shine to me and I left my drug dealer boyfriend from the other side of Seven Mile in Detroit and it seemed like an eternity away.

As an addict I was comfortable living in one block surrounding so I was aware and could keep a better eye on my safety.

This territory was new to me even tho it was only a couple of streets over. 

I went out to hustle for the day and a couple of middleman dealers saw me on the street and asked if I was straight. I told them I hadn't made any money yet that day. One of them said when You do knock on the door on the corner and say C sent you.  So off I went to sell my soul and body consecutively for my next high.

After a couple hours I had  collected enough for a reasonable high and decided to take a break. I saw the houses on the corner but I never remember seeing the middle men at either one of them.  So I went to the house a couple doors down near the corner. As I approached the door I heard several playing Xbox or PS2 or some type of video game and laughing and seemed like they were drinking and having a good time.

I knocked. I heard who 's that? I replied My Name, and C sent me he told me stop by. I heard all kinds of rushing around in house and suddenly I was surrounded on the porch by at 5 men and one of them had a gun pointed directly at the side of head. I explained what was going on and cowered they told me never to knock on this door again. 

It was the main dealers house and although I saw them several times direct cars away from the house to conduct business in my wanting to get high so bad I made another really bad decision.One that could of cost me my life.

They told me to leave and I walked/ran away. One of the other middlemen ran after me and asked me what I was looking for. I told him are you crazy they almost killed me I'll go else where. He persisted in asking me and I told him I was just looking for a twenty. He said wait here and took my money and shortly returned with less great quality dope. 

I went to my friends cockroach infested basement and smoked and didn't relate this story to anyone until now. 

It was definitely the wrong door, but in addiction I made so many bad decisions. Besides the decisions I made to get high were the bad choices I made in the lifestyle and how I went about supporting habit and getting high. 

It's only through my Higher Power's grace and mercy I am here to relate this story. 

Today I am granted the benefit of a clear mind, it's not to say I don't always make good choices but I don't make dumb choices anymore.

Written By: tasiasmama

Original Post: An Addict's Daily Memoirs 2 Finding Her Inner Self


Recalling an Almost Death Experience

She was stayin on the second floor and I was stayin on the third. She'd been there longer. I'd only been around a couple of weeks. She was lookin for someone to smoke some crack with and invited.

What addict turns down free crack, right? So I followed her to the apartment she was squatting in and smoked some with her and she seemed alright but the crack was gone.

So I went out to hustle.

Later on that night I ran into her and a trick of hers and her husband and they were all goin back to the part of the building they were staying at and they invited me. She told her husband she met earlier and I was ok. Everything went ok earlier, so I went along. Well, things started to get crazy. She wanted everyone to take their clothes off and wouldn't let anyone else smoke any of the crack. Luckily, I wasn't dumb enough to take my clothes off before I got any crack and when her husband offered me a packed pipe she smacked it out of my mouth across the room saying " How you gonna offer her to smoke before me." Remind you there were four of us in the room and she the only one who had gotten to smoke. After about 20 minutes, I noticed she'd been drinking and then she got jealous. She smashed the liquor bottle on the broken out out window so the neck was in her hand and the jagged part was being waved around wildly at everyone in the room, but especially me since I was the only other female in the room.

I don't remember how, my find still blocks out portions of this night, but I got out of the room. I went up to the portion where I was staying with a friend cause she didn't know where my spot was. After talking with my friend who told my about this building and was sharing this portion of the building of me, he'd been there about a year, he informed he how absolutely insane she was.

That same night I was jonsing so I went out to look for a trick or two to make some money. Wouldn't you know it, the crazy lady's husband had had enough of her to and had gotten a HHR vehicle from his cousin. He saw me as I was coming back into the parking lot after striking out on the hoe stroll. He rolled down the window and said "Jump in, before she sees you." He had crack earlier so I figured he had some again.

He drove me across town to a city park in the back. It was about 11pm and dark and no one else was around and I was used to going to parks to trick for crack but not this one. When we got out of the car we went to a picnic table and he packed a stem for me. Then he said he wanted a blow job.

This is where some parts are extremely clearly etched in memory and some are extremely erased from my memory so sorry if this recounting goes kinda fuzzy.

He grabbed me by my neck and said " Do it right. Don't play that hoe shit, and try to do it quick." For about the next forty-five minutes I was told the following statements over and over. "Were alone here no one would find you until the morning." "I should snap your neck right now."as her would pull my hair forcing my head from side to side. I thought for sure tonight was the night I would finally die. "Do it right." "Quit playing those ho games, you're not gonna get this done quickly." Eventually I knocked his crack over, which ended up being benzo anyway, so he forced me onto the ground and with his knees on my shoulders he got my pants down.

Then he grabbed my neck again and raped me. Then He got me back into the car. I thought it was over but it wasn't. He made a call and said "Are you ready? I got one." He told me he was taking me to his friends so they could rape me too and then he and his wife were going to beat the shit out of me and that they did this type of thing all the time. He actually he referred to himself and his wife as Bonnie and Clyde.

So I thought fast, luckily it was benzo and not crack, so I wasn't totally stuck. When he turned to pull out of the city park, in the middle of the turn I flung open the car door and jumped out. I remember hearing him say "Don't do that."

I ran down a busy street in the opposite direction of the way the car was facing so he couldn't follow me and had no choice except to drive away. Which he did. Fast. I was running wildly down the middle of a busy road my arms waving back and forth over my head yelling "Please Help Me Please Help Me."

I think it was 4 or 5 cars that passed me before someone actually stopped. It was a group of 3 yuppie boys goin to a club. They were concerned and asked what I needed. I told them I'd been raped and needed to go home. They tried to talk me into goin to the hospital, they were all confused they didn't know what to do and I kept saying no just take me home. I actually went to a different spot and told them that was my home.

After they drove off, I hitchhiked from near Detroit to Flint to see the only person I thought would understand. A man I met in recovery and was in love with. His mom didn't know what was going on and wanted me to take a shower before his daughter came down for breakfast.(Yeah, he still lived with his mom who has custody of his daughter, but that's another story.)

Anyway, since we were previously involved his mother knew my family and within a few hours she got a version of what happened by my simply saying "I was raped and needed to see C." She drove me home to my dad who wanted nothing to do with me since I'd been back out on the streets for awhile, again. However he did say I needed to file a police report.

I didn't want to go through that either but finally after an hour of coaxing which seemed liked days as I still wasn't high and that was the whole purpose of mission that started the night before, I allowed Miss Barbara to take me to the police station.

I tried to write a report as well as I could but I was forgetting to how to spell, I still hadn't slept, and I hadn't slept for a few days previously because I'd been smoking. I had no home address or phone number and it took awhile and I went through the rape kit and everything. When I was done, the officer called my dad to come pick me up. He wouldn't come. I can remember hearing the officer say"But she's your daughter." It didn't matter.

I ended up sleeping in the police station waiting room sitting in a chair with my head on a table. I woke up in the morning and realized no one was coming for me and I had nowhere to go. I couldn't go back to where I was squatting because I had given a good description of the man and where to find him and I saw a xerox picture of him at one point during the night so I know the police had picked him up.

My feet were blistered and aching because when I was hitchhiking I ended up walking half the way. I did not know what to do I was lost. I sat on the sidewalk outside of the police station with my head on my knees trying to figure what and where to go and do next. Then the owner of a three quarter house I had stayed at before showed up.

My dad had called her and told her where I was and she came and got me. Again, I reentered a three quarter house.

I don't want to put a moral or some astounding truth to this story I just want to present the facts about this situation. I need to realize the decisions I make when I use drugs put me in these types of situations and I need to address them in order to heal from them.

Written By: tasiasmama

Original Post: Recalling Another Almost Death Experience

Amphetamine Experiences

I started using meth about 4 years ago. I had been drinking and was very drunk and very sick. I had lots of friends that did meth and I had been told that using meth while drunk would bring you down from a drunk. I was desperate and ingested some. I noticed about an hour later that I was feeling much better. Then a little later was not only feeling better but feeling great. Over about a 6 month period of time I became a daily user. I know people that snort and inject it but I smoke it and don't plan to ever snort or shot it.

I am a very open mined person and did see the effects meth had on long term users. So I always kept that in the front part of my mind because I never wanted to get to the point that I got crazy as I saw so many people doing. I also noticed that different types of meth had different kinds of reactions. I have maintained a normal lifestyle and job until recently (having nothing to do with my use of meth). Anhydrous Meth has been around my area for quite sometime but not as popular as it has become over the last 6 months. And right now it is about all that is around and it is hard to come by during this time of year. My boyfriend has been totally taken over by Anny Meth and he is the one that when I started using told me to stay away from it. That it was worst than other kinds. So I did for the most part trying it once in a while when he would get some. as time has gone on he has totally switched to Anny, lost his job and is now one of those fiends he told me watch out for. His life totally revolves around money and where to get his next supply. I have seen it made several times and been a part of the process but he never had. He has now gotten himself involved with some shaddy people and I worry about him. I have tried to talk to him about it several times but he just gets angry so I have stopped trying. My point is, he is the one that told me from the begining to keep my use in the front of my mind at all times and to watch and remember what it does to people that loose track of it. I even let him control my use until recently when it got to the point that I had to stop trusting his judgement because his habits changed so much. I kept it there but he did not.

Written By: Novelty

Original Post: drugs-forum.com

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