Let's take it back to August/September 2011. I was at this time in full force party mode. I had gotten my second divorce at the end of 2010 and so I was all about the single life. On the weekends you could find me at a party, hosting a party, at the bar or in Vegas doing the club thing. Not just a weekend here or there ... every. Single. Freaking. Weekend. (no wonder I feel like I'm 55 years old lol) When I would drink I wouldn't just have 'a drink or two'. It was shot after shot after shot after shot and probably about 98% of the time I would black out by the end of the night. All of that is really a whole different story that I'll eventually share BUT I had to give you a little insight as to how I got started on my drug of choice. It all started on this weekend in Vegas ...
A week(ish) later a few of us were hanging out at my house just chit chatting when I ask what that pill was. Come to find out it was Adderall. In case you don't know what Adderall is, you can read about it HERE. In short, Adderall is an amphetamine based drug used to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (aka ADHD). This is what it looks like ... Until this moment I had never even heard of Adderall believe it or not. It is highly abused and is usually noted as 'legal meth', just FYI.
Within a day or two I ask her if I can have one, and she gives me a couple. I take one 30mg tab on a Saturday afternoon, I had taken it once before drunk as a skunk, but this time I was sober ... Whooooaaaaaaaa it was AMAZING!!!!!! Seriously, I had a treadmill in my front room and got on that thing and ran faster than ever, longer than ever, and I HAD to force myself to stop! Not to mention I went the whole day forgetting to eat. I got my house clean, my car clean, I was chipper and cheerful and stoked to go out that night! Of course I took the other 30mg tab that night and had a freaking blast!! I didn't black out and I felt alive and on fire! This little orange pill may just become my very best friend!! After all, I just want to use it to curb my appetite a bit to lose some weight and maybe have a little more energy to do better on my workouts ... what harm could it cause right?
Within the next week I had scheduled a doctors appointment with a local physician. I had talked to my friend to see how to go about getting the prescription and she told me they'd just give me a simple test ... I went to the doctor, took the test, and BOOM!!! Prescription slip in my hand for 30 30mg time release capsules. I went to the pharmacist, filled the prescription ... easy as 1, 2, 3!
This seriously was a magic pill! I was so productive at work, going above and beyond; my workouts were INSANE, I'm already an energetic person but this was making me off the wall pumped; I was never hungry, I had to force myself to eat, I think I was eating only about 500 - 700 calories per day; everything was so clean in my house, perfectly organized and spotless; I could party hard and NOT black out! I really was wondering where this little magical pill had been my whole life!
I think I took the "prescribed dosage" for only about the first 7 days. One day it was like 3:30pm and I had just killed a cardio workout and left the gym really hungry. Like really really really hungry. Obviously though right? After burning 1200 or more calories per day and eating an average of 600 calories per day eventually it's going to catch up to you and your body is going to wonder what the f*ck is going on ... well instead of feeding myself like a normal person would, I decided to take another Adderall. That seems like the logical choice right?! I blazed through that 30 day prescription in about 15 days. I went back to the doctor, told him that it was wearing off too fast, so he prescribed me 60 30mg tablets for the next 30 days, just like the ones in the picture. This would allow me 2 per day.
Soon after, I started buying other peoples prescriptions from them. I was finding people that sold them to me for seriously high prices, but I didn't care. I would be frantic and have major anxiety if I was running low on them or if I didn't have any at all. I was snorting pills to get the high as soon as possible. Staying up through the night was becoming normal. I was deep cleaning my house on these all nighters ... and I don't mean just mopping and sweeping, I mean ridiculously cleaning ... like hands and knees scrubbing the floors, the walls, the oven, on top of the wall shelves, the blinds, I was painting, I was detailing my car in the middle of the freaking night in my garage (this is completely embarrassing to admit, but this whole thing is about being honest and getting all of this stuff off my chest, I've never shared this with anyone before) ... AND I STILL DIDN'T THINK I HAD A PROBLEM!!!!! Or at least I didn't want to let myself believe that I did...
Well, I can tell you that I definitely got skinnier. I lost about 15 pounds over that 6(ish) months. That's what staying up all night depriving your body of sleep, starving and dehydrating yourself, and having your heart pumping 18 billion miles per hour all the time will do for you. Needless to say, I've gained all of that 15 pounds back ... plus some :( ... Not only did I lose the weight, I also lost my family for a minute, my house, inevitably my job, every dollar I've ever had, my kids, a lot of my friendships, my reputation and about every other thing you can possibly think of. That's what addiction will do to you; it'll wrap you around it's little finger as tight as possible and then eventually either kill you or rip every single thing you've ever known out of your grasp ... I'm grateful that death didn't find me first.
This was me before I started using. This was probably the happiest in my life I've ever been! I had a beautiful family, two perfect baby boys, a man I thought that loved me, great friends, a great job, a beautiful house on the hill, I was in the best shape of my life, no financial stress ... seriously I thought everything was perfect!
And here we are, this is what I looked like in full blown addiction. Sure I'm smiling and I may look happy on the outside, but the truth is I'm dying inside. I hated who I was and the things I'd done to get me to this point. I hated that I had to lie to everyone and hide everything to keep my addiction a secret. I hated thinking about all of the things that I lost or was losing - but the best part was, the more I used, the less I had to feel. Using was my life. The only thing that mattered was that I had those little orange pills to make me skinny, energized and productive ... and most of all to keep me high so I didn't have feel anything.
Addiction is so scary because you don't even know it's happening. Just one day you wake up and everything is gone ... but instead of mourning everything you've lost, all you want to do is use.
I was court ordered to stop drinking alcohol and taking Adderall on May 1st(ish) 2012. I would have to comply to random drug testing. (I'll explain why I was in court in a later blog post) Well in my head I wasn't an addict and didn't have a problem, so this should be simple right?? WRONG! I still partied hard, I still drank alcohol, I still used Adderall. It's funny cause addicts think they're super sneaky, they think they can get away with everything and that they're never gonna get caught ... this is called addictive thinking, I also like to call it crazy thinking ... cause the truth is that addicts think like crazy people when they're in active addiction :)
Addiction is so scary. Even though right now I'm in recovery, and my hopes are that I will always be, sometimes that addictive thinking comes back rockin' my world. Due to the starvation I put my body through for so long, my metabolism is completely f*cked up. I weigh more right now then I ever have in my life, and since I've never loved my body, I really reeeeeally hate it right now. Thankfully I have an amazing boyfriend who always makes me feel sexy and loves me for who I am and not what I look like :) I just got health insurance through my job and the first thing that comes to my mind is how easy it would be for me to go back and get that Adderall prescription again, that this time it would be "different", I would only take it as prescribed, I would give the bottle to Mike for him to give me the pills as necessary, it would be "different this time", blah blah blah freakin' blah. That is all bullshit. That is all addictive thinking. Addictive thinking is bullshit. With the way addiction works, if I really decided to do that, eventually I would be sneaking behind Mike's back to get more pills and I'd be finding people who had a prescription so I could buy more and replace them before Mike noticed, then eventually I'd get caught, but I wouldn't care because I'd be so far gone into addiction again and before I'd know it, I'd end up losing Mike, losing my job, etc etc etc ... Okay I know that sounds over exaggerated, but it's not. That's seriously how addiction works. And notice that I had already thought that entire scenario through ... once again, addictive thinking.
Addiction is a battle I will fight forever. There are several "tools" I learned in treatment, but the best one I learned, the one that keeps me clean, is called the "15 second rule". When you feel like using you go back to the 15 seconds when you were in active addiction that caused you the most pain ... I will explain that moment when I write the "Everything Will Be Okay Part 2" blog post ... let's just say the pain I felt in that moment is great enough that when I relive it in my memory, there is NOTHING that is ever worth feeling that pain for ever again. I know this is a long post, but this a lot of background that's necessary for a lot of my future posts; so bare with me :)
The real lesson that I want to touch at with this post is how important it is to love yourself ... physically and mentally. I'm working on this every single hour of every single day ...
Today I believe I have a beautiful soul that's filled with the love of God. I believe that my downfall was caused by my lack of self love and by pushing God out of my life. I believe that because of God and through my own willingness I realized that I was worth a beautiful life - I deserved, and to this day still deserve, nothing but greatness. And so does everyone else. All it took was a million and one prayers and for me to reach to the deepest depths of my heart and realize that I AM WORTH IT ... and so are you :) Never forget that!
Loves, xoxo
How crazy is it that after I finished writing and publishing this I checked my horoscope and this is what I found!! #GodMoment