Methamphetamine: Stories
and Letters of the Hidden Costs
by Users, Loved Ones, and Parents
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over 2 years ago i sat down and wrote a letter about my past meth use. my name is Erin and i am an addict... i was in the June/July 2007 and than followed a letter by my mom. there has been alot of time from than to now. and I'm still clean. my mother is still clean. it has been a very hard road. i went from the everyday user to the everyday watcher. i watch meth take my friends still. BUT EVEN FOR SOMEONE I THINK OF AS MY FRIEND I WILL NEVER DO METH AGAIN! i grew up on meth, i lived meth, i love meth. i used to walk around saying that "the only man i loved was the dope man, the only one i was faithful to was my dope." i had no hope me doing dope was okay not only by my mother but my father too... i did dope with my mom. my dad wouldn't do anything around me but drink. I'm very thankful that i am clean, i became a good mother, i do things with my children, who i had lost when i was getting high... they now again live with me! i am so very thankful for what cleaning up my life has done. |
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believe me it's hard everyday. the old me still hides in there. still TRIES to take over my mind. the things that have helped me the most is i still go to meetings and i try my very hardest to stay away from people,places and things! to anyone that is reading this, that uses meth, or that has a loved one who uses meth, there is light at the end of the road. with alot of work, and love, it can end. meth is the hardest thing i ever had to over come, meth was the love of my life, my best Friend. the only thing that i lived for. nothing meant anything to me other than meth. today meth is a thing of the past! your life can get better and you still can become anything you wanna become. i work at the same place as my last letter, i even paid off all my student loans, so i might be going back to school soon!
i thank all my lucky stairs, i love my children as they come first now! i don't worry about where i am going to stay, or where I'm going to get my next hit. my biggest worry today is what can i do to better my children, show them how much they mean to me. ANYONE CAN CHANGE THERE IS HOPE! METH DOES NOT HAVE TO RULE YOUR LIFE! thank you!
--erin
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If you, or someone you know,
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Coming to terms with meth use
I have read just about everything i can on this website and I want to say thank you for some wonderful letters that have really opened my eyes. I love my boyfriend with all my heart and have never experienced anything about meth or addiction. He told me from the beginning that he had used for ten years and he had been clean for nine months at the time. I guess I'm just naive because I chose to give him a chance - he had relasped once about 2 years ago. In the beginning of our relationship I was completely swept off my feet, he was so sweet. Then he moved in with me and that lasted 2 weeks (I have a ten year old and this my son's home) before I kicked him out. He would look at me like I was the enemy but we didn't fight about everyday things - just the need to be drunk every weekend. Then he ruined an event meant for my son and this was the beginning of the end. He has never made an attempt to stop drinking, is all over the place or sleeping for days. Won't help with anything, and when we fight, he is so scary - won't even let me talk because he is so busy telling me everything that's wrong with me. One day he's grateful I'm in his life and the next he doesn't care about anything. He has definately changed. He doesn't show any interest in anything other than drinking and sleeping. He has had the breakouts, last week he ate a whole casserole in one sitting after being with his friends, and he is so angry towards me - so hateful. But only somedays. He has gotten colder, I don't even think he likes me sometimes - even tho he insists he loves me and is trying to get his life together, and recently just stood me up after making big plans for the weekend- he was so cold and arrogant about it. I had arranged for a sitter and time off work only for him to tell me how it was going to be and too bad. He said would make it up the next day. One more thing that REALLY bothered me was the night before - (please forgive me, I'm just looking for answers) we were intimate and he smelled SO bad after. Never happened before and he just said he was really sweaty. I have been with him 6 months and I have never smelled anything like that. I can't even explain it. Sort of a bitter smell - after. I had to shower it was so bad. The next night he stood me up, that was a first too. He is able to drink unbelievable amounts of alcohol and thinks he should decide if we are together on the weekends - unless it's sunday when he sleeps all day at my house. There are texts at 1 in the morning and there was never any of that crap. He jumps right up and reads them as soon as he gets them, thinking I'm asleep. My gut tells me he's using. Please give some insight on this. I told him I never wanted to see him again and changed my number. I told him I knew what he was doing and how much I loved him but there was no place for that in my life. I haven't heard from him since. He's using, isn't he?? Thank you for letting me get this off my chest.
--j
Maybe I can love again one day
I could have handled another woman.. I can hold my own. I can compete. I could not compete with his meth addiction.
I never would have guessed he was a meth addict. A lot of people said he looked like Patrick Swayze, although to me he looked like Aaron Eckhart's twin. He was tall, blonde, and had a personality that could not be beat. He was my favorite waiter at the Dennys where he worked, and where I would go either before or after my shift at a nearby group home. All the women there were crazy about him, and it wasn't long before I was as well.
We began as friends. He knew from the begining that I was attracted to him, and eventually we made that leap. Not an official couple, but working on it. I never understood why he kept me at arms length, why he told other people when I looked good but never told me, or why he told some people that I was more than a friend, and others that I was just his roommate. His "come here, go away" attitude also frustrated me. He would tell me he was ready for a commitment, and then two days later he would take it back. He would tell me he wanted a courtship with me, and then he would take it back.
His family knew about me. He told his sister that if things worked out between us, we'd have an October wedding with a Halloween theme. He told his two daughters about us, and described me as fun, beautiful, and wonderful. But to others, I was just a friend.
Things went downhill when he asked me, in January, for a commitment. Suddenly, he was sleeping all of the time, getting mean, nasty, rude, and paranoid.
What hurts is that my daughter, who initially got along with him so well, was telling me that he was not the great guy I thought he was. I responded that she was jelouse. I didn't believe her. She eventually moved out, tired of it all. I thank God she is an adult. If she had been a child, I fear that I might have been one of those mothers who...well, you read the papers, right? I don't have to tell you about mothers who want so badly to believe the best about their men that they believe the worst about their children. And I am thankful that she forgives me.
It hurts that I cut off friends who tried to tell me, family that tried to tell me. I defended him, because I believed. I really did. He had, you see, an answer for everything. Whenever I confronted him, he talked in circles until my head was swimming and I just wanted to go to sleep and pretend everything was fine.
He would disapear for days, and I thought he truely was just hanging with his friends. I was not a drug user, and despite the fact that I had a degree with a minor in social work, and despite the fact that I worked with troubled youth and had some training in drug addiction, I completely missed everything; the sleeping, the mood changes, the paranoia, the addiction to pornography, the preoccupation with sex, not to mention the weird friends and his hesitation to take me places with him. Oh, sure, we would go out now and then, but as his addiction progressed, he was more likely to go without me.
Finally, two things happened. First, he had convinced himself that I had stolen a check from him, and was hanging onto it to get him to come home. Secondly, he had been partying, not just hanging out with friends as I had thought. His sister filled me in on his habits, and that his female friends were not just friends. An interesting thing was his justification: "But they're just women I want to have sex with. I dont LOVE them!"
We got into it. I slapped him, not just out of hurt and anger, but also out of fear. He didn't realize it at the time, but his sister, our roommate, and I saw it at the same time; he was crazy. He thought he was normal and everyone else (especially me) was acting erratically. His posture was threatening, and while yes, I admit, I hit him out of anger, I also have to say, it was out of a desire to not get hurt myself.
Long story short, he was arrested for two counts of domestic violence (He manhandled his sister and pinned me on my own sofa) and the police found meth on him during the strip search at the jail. Since his arrest, I have changed in ways that I do not like at all. I am no longer the soft and loving woman I used to be. I dont trust anyone. I dont like young women now; I never felt ugly or fat before, but he used to tell me he preferred women who look like works of art. I am now finding it very hard to feel beautiful, despite the many times men tell me I am.
I had to leave the city I lived in, because there were triggers all over the place. The bar he used to hang out in, the Dennys where we met, the home we shared, the grocery where his "friend" worked. All the tweekers know each other, and I've run into a few former users who know him. I also have been confronted by some of his friends who tell me he loves me and wants to work it out. But there is a no contact order in place, and we cant even speak to each other for two years. And even if I did believe that he wanted to work it out, how could I ever, ever trust him again? He admits to being a master manipulater, and even brags about how good he is at it. I think about all the headgames, all the lies, and the damage he has caused me, and while I admit that I miss him, and still love him, I can never see him the same way again. Not ever.
I've wondered how it is that I can't seem to put him behind me, and how it is that this city that has been home to me for 12 years suddenly seems to be so forboding. Its not as if I havent had my heart broken before.
The reason? I gave this man more love, more trust, more respect than anyone and he betrayed me on every level. Do I forgive? Yes. Can I forget? Not ever.
A final result of this experience? I now am seeing someone who is wonderful. He has a good job, he is intelligent, thoughtful, fun to be with, and is absolutely crazy about me. And I can't love him. Its sad, because he deserves me, deserves everything I gave his predecessor. But this man didn't just break my heart, he shattered it. And it takes a whole lot of time and glue to put a broken heart together again..
At least I have God, who loves me and walks with me and crys along with me. I am getting a little better, after three months of crying every day. And I am thinking of writing a book, a fictionalized account of this whole mess, just to heal. Maybe to publish, but mostly to heal.
Maybe someday I can love again.
--Jenniferlyn
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