The Beginning of Addiction and What It Looked Like for Me

A walk down substance abuse lane

Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash

Do you remember your first drink?  I suppose most people do but I think people like me remember that exact feeling.

The minute I tasted the difference in my brain, I wanted more.  The first drink didn’t taste too awful, either.  Maybe if I chose hard liquor or beer, I would have been turned off, but let’s be real, I doubt it.

I fell in love with the effect and what it did for me.  

It was the summer of 1993.  I was 15 years old and my best friend invited me over to spend the night, as she would usually do.  Her mom was the opposite of strict and so we spent a lot of time at her house.

She’d been hanging out with the older boys across the street and she wanted me to meet them.  They went to the Catholic high school in our town.  There were only two high schools, the public and the private.  

Almost everyone knew everyone but I was shy and we were just about to start high school.  High school started in 10th grade where I lived, which I still think is so weird.  Although, it was probably a good thing that I was able to hold onto my childhood innocence for another year.

I had my small group of friends that I’d made since starting junior high in the middle of it as the new girl.  As I wrote in one of my latest stories, my mom basically kicked me out of the house and sent me to live with my dad.

During the middle of 7th grade, I was forced to stand in front of my homeroom class and talk about myself.  It induced my first panic attack and I still loathe public speaking of any kind.   I met a few girls in my first few weeks of school and stuck with them.  Melissa, my best friend, was one of them.

The boys across the street had older brothers that would supply the alcohol.  After I got to her house, we walked across the street and saw them all standing out front.  

When they asked us what we wanted to drink, we had no idea what to answer.  Melissa didn’t want to look stupid so she blurted out the first thing she could think of.

She’d heard about this fruity drink once before.

Strawberry Hill!  Sounded fruity to me.  

The older boys returned from the store with bags of liquor, some for us and some for them to head to their party with.  I was nervous.  I shouldn’t be doing this.

Melissa had to calm me down a little because she could see the trepidation in my eyes.  We were each handed our own Boones Farm Strawberry Hill, which mind you is the size of a wine bottle.  Two 15-year-olds probably shouldn’t drink an entire wine bottle especially when it is their first time drinking.

But, we did.  It didn’t taste that bad and the immediate burn down my throat and a warm feeling inside engulfed me, making me want more just after that initial sip.

I began to feel like I was floating and fluttering around like a butterfly.

My nerves were nonexistent.  My social anxiety was obliterated.  I could talk to all of the boys, as I continued to drink my entire bottle.

It was an hour full of fun until I started feeling queasy and had to beeline back to Melissa’s house.  

The rest of the night was spent by the toilet.  But, even then, I knew I wanted to drink again.  I just knew I had to not drink as much.  I was already bartering and trying to control my drinking after that first sip.

Not too long after that, I tried my first hard drug.  The story below is one that I wrote a year ago about how my drug addiction began. It seems fitting to share because drinking only led me to do worse substances. All names have been changed in my stories.

Pick Your Poison: An Eating Disorder or Methamphetamine

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When I was little, my skin and bones birth mother always made remarks about my size. She was around 5’5 and 100 pounds, maybe less.

I was a bit chubby when I hit 8 years old and went through an awkward phase.

We all do, right? I’m not sure why she began entertaining the incessant name-calling.

By chubby, I mean maybe I had 10 extra pounds on me. I was not overweight.

But, I was called a “fat pig” a few times. I remember drawing a picture in my journal of a pig and labeling it as me. The mean remarks continued until the day she kicked me out of the house at 12.

Obviously, something like this will stay with you throughout your formative years.

Upon entering high school, I wanted nothing more than to be popular. I made my way into the “in” crowd of cheerleaders and thought I had it all.

We often went on fad diets together because didn’t you know that we had to be thin to be popular? I shake my head at the teenage me.

The problem with the fad diet was that we loved to eat. I mean, who doesn’t? When I was in high school, it meant going to Denny’s, Fantastic Cafe (burger joint), Taco Bell, Jack n The Box, and other fast food establishments on the weekends.

So, we started buying some over-the-counter diet pills to curb our hunger. Metabolife? I think that is what it was called.

It helped curb the hunger, a little.

Then, it was senior year. The year that everything changed for me. The once studious and intelligent girl with so much potential began to fade.

One afternoon, a friend of mine that I will call Stacey, asked our friend group to come over. I couldn’t make it and the FOMO was too much to bear. We didn’t use the phrase FOMO in 1995 though.

They all called me on speakerphone that night to tell me what they did. Stacey somehow got her hands on some “speed”. She said the girl that gave it to her mentioned that it would make her lose weight.

I’d heard of cocaine but I didn’t really understand what speed was or what they were getting themselves into and what I would soon fall into, as well.

Stacey was overweight and always struggled. She wanted us all to try it with her. They sounded like they were having SO much fun. My FOMO skyrocketed. They kept talking and talking and talking.

On Monday at school, they wouldn’t stop talking about it and how they wanted to do it again. So, we all planned to meet up the following Friday.

Back at Stacey’s house, the lines were cut on the mirror and ready. I wanted them to go first so I could see their reaction.

Even after all the years of watching my birth mother struggle with drugs and alcohol, I wouldn’t have that problem. I would be fine. That wouldn’t happen to me.

I would just do it a few times.

Thinking back on my reasoning, what the hell did I know? I’d only smoked weed a few times and I hated it.

If you are triggered, you should stop reading here.

After my friends sniffed white powder into their noses, it was my turn. It hit me in an instant. That euphoria, the energy, everything was heightened. Plain and simple, it felt amazing.

There wasn’t an ounce of shyness left in my body. All of those feelings were removed and I was the happiest I’d ever been. I was confident AF. (We didn’t use that term either and I’m mad about it).

They say drugs are bad and they are but what they don’t tell you is how fun they are.

Until they aren’t. It can be quick or slow, it all depends on the person. For us, it was pretty damn fast. Too quick.

After that night that we didn’t sleep a wink, we faded into a natural high just thinking about when we would do it again. Bonus, we didn’t eat and didn’t even realize it.

It went from every other weekend to every weekend, and sometimes we’d skip class and do it. We eventually found people in town to get it from, making it more accessible. My daughters are at the age I was right now and I would lose my shit if they did what I did.

I’m sorry to my parents.

We all lost weight. It’s hard to even eat while on speed or crystal methamphetamine. Prom came around and my dress was the smallest size they had. It felt baggy on me that night. I didn’t care and was just worried about how we were going to sneak in our party favors.

The hotel afterparty went on all night long and I lost another precious night of sleep. What my friend Stacey didn’t mention is that we’d never sleep. This is so bad for you. I have a lot of lapses in memory during these times.

I barely graduated. Just kidding, I graduated with decent grades but I walked past the principal that was handing me my diploma on stage. I was so out of it.

“Michele… (maiden name here)… Come back for your diploma.”

Yeah, everyone was watching me. It was horrible.

Things took a dive that summer. I was on my way to college soon and I was partying like it was 1996.

A lot of it is a blur but some instances stick out that make me cringe and I’d rather forget. The worst thing that happened was when I got home one day to find paraphernalia on display in my room.

I’d been caught. My heart raced and dropped all at the same time. I don’t remember what happened next but I do remember being taken for a drug test. It was the most humiliating feeling and I felt so bad for my heartbroken parents.

I was scared straight for a minute before I left for college. I promised that I wouldn’t get out of control and they believed me. I wanted to believe myself but I was away and living on my own for the first time.

I was also back to eating a lot more, and actually sleeping, but the pull was still strong. I wanted to be skinny but I also wanted to eat. Without the drugs, I couldn’t control myself with food.

After moving in and meeting my new roommate and a few girls that lived down the hall, we all instantly clicked and started drinking together.

I promised my parents that I wouldn’t do drugs anymore but bad decisions happen when you are a drinking college student. They didn’t say anything about not drinking… I think.

College is where things really picked up and spiraled.

My roommate and I at the dormitory got along quite well. Back then, you couldn’t meet your roommate and chat before you arrived at university. It was a complete surprise so you could imagine the trepidation we both felt and the relief that followed when we met and clicked.

After we got settled into our space, we wandered the dormitory floor meeting the other residents.

Even to this day, 26 years later, I have yet to encounter the friendship connection that I did with Brandie down the hall.

“Hi, I’m Brandie from San Diego”, she said.

She gave me a brief introduction and I did the same, and I swear that from that point on, we were inseparable. We seemed to have everything in common after we began chatting.

Her roommate ended up leaving and moving out a month into our stay, leaving Brandie with the room to herself. I would stay there in her room many nights that year.

My roommate, myself, and Brandie became the three musketeers, doing everything outside of class together.

College nightlife became our priority. We powered through the week of classes awaiting Friday nights where we could pre-party in our room before heading out to the nearest party.

Soon we became friends with all the guys at the nearest fraternity house. Kappa Sigma became our go-to spot each weekend unless there was something better to do.

We noticed that beer bongs were popular at all of these parties, a quick way to down a beer so that you could get tipsy faster, like that is what we needed as college freshmen.

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So, what did we do? We went to home depot and bought everything to craft our own for our dorm room. What better way to pre-party? It was quick and did the trick.

One night as we partied away in our room, we began to feel the effects faster than usual. I’d forgotten to eat and I guess Brandie had, too. And, you know what happens when you have too much to drink and not enough food to absorb it.

We were instantly inebriated. Also, the truth comes out when you are drunk.

We dived deep into our pasts that night. We never made it out to the party, but instead just sat on the floor spilling our guts to each other.

I quickly found out that my roommate, Tessa, was more of a goody two shoes, which is great but I didn’t feel as comfortable opening up and sharing everything with her, even when I was two sheets to the wind.

Something was holding me back.

The surfaces were all scratched that night and much tea was spilled but I kept my box of secrets slightly closed until the following weekend.

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When the following weekend rolled around, I went to find Brandie to get ready for that night’s party. She wasn’t in her room or the hallways, so I went to check the bathroom.

Upon entering, it was empty and I didn’t think anyone was inside until I heard someone throwing up.

“Brandie? Is that you? Are you ok?”

She scurried out and brushed herself off, “Oh yeah, something just didn’t settle right. I’m allergic to dairy so it must have been something I ate at the dining hall.”

I didn’t think anything of it and we got ready to leave for the big party that night at a neighboring fraternity house. When we arrived, the party was already out of control. People were wasted, the kegs were flowing, the music was pumping, and sweat was flying around the makeshift dance floor.

Brandie didn’t have any food in her stomach and was quickly intoxicated, while I felt the need to catch up. After a few hours at the party, Brandie proved too drunk to be there so we all decided it would be best if we headed back to the dorm.

Brandie asked me to come with her to her room and Tessa went back to our room.

I didn’t have to scratch the surface with Brandie because we had so much in common and felt so insanely similar. The things that we held inside began to surface and our deepest darkest secrets flew out of our mouths that night, but this just made us closer.

“I have to tell you something”, she told me.

“Tell me anything”, I said awaiting what big secret was next.

“When you found me in the bathroom earlier, I wasn’t sick because of dairy. I do that sometimes so I can stay thin. I don’t do it all the time, just when I eat too much and feel bloated.”

I was shocked. Dumbfounded. I had no idea what to say at that moment, even being very tipsy. Even with all of the drugs and crazy shit I did in high school, I’d never encountered someone with a real eating disorder.

But then I began to think that when I was doing drugs and not eating, or taking diet pills to curb my hunger, it wasn’t much different.

For some stupid reason though, at that moment, I thought that the drugs were better and much safer than binging and purging. So, after her talk of how she began binging and explaining that she doesn’t do it all the time, I decided to go all in with my past.

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What I vividly remember and still regret to this day was saying, “We should just try to get some speed because it will give you so much energy and you won’t want to eat. Then, you won’t have to throw up.”

Her eyes widened and she was in. Now, the problem was finding drugs in college without looking like a freak.

When the following weekend rolled around and we were drunk at our next frat party, I was on the hunt, checking everyone out for clues as to who I could ask. Eventually, we met a guy and I just knew that he might be into that sort of thing.

“Do you party?”

That was always the question that opened the floodgates.

Ten minutes later and we were in his room upstairs with lines cut on a glass mirror. It was that easy.

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For some reason, Brandie wasn’t nervous at all. I think she was so focused on being thin, that she would do anything. It’s too bad that she ended up loving it as I did and we closed out our freshman year at college while taking drugs to study, party, and curb our hunger.

Amazingly enough, we held it together for the rest of our freshman year. Parting ways for the summer was sad but we made plans to move into an apartment together for our sophomore year and time flew by. Before we knew it, we were back up at college moving into our off-campus place.

What’s the first thing we thought to do after we moved in? Find someone to party with, of course.

Brandie told me that she began binging and purging again over the summer while she was at home with her parents. This worried me so much and my twisted thinking was that a few lines were much better than having an eating disorder.

You might ruin your body by binging and purging, but you end up ruining your life when you become a drug addict.

This time around, we weren’t keeping it together and began failing our classes. We barely passed our sophomore year and were on academic probation so we decided we would move down to San Diego, where Brandie was from, to attend community college and eventually transfer to San Diego State University.

We needed a fresh start and vowed that we would quit doing drugs. My parents were fed up and had enough. They quit supporting me and after I moved in with Brandie down in San Diego, I had to get a job to afford rent, making it hard for me to stick with my classes so I soon dropped out again.

We spiraled out of control, and fast. Before our year lease was over, I’d lost my job and my boyfriend at the time dumped me (that is another story in itself that now I know I must write about).

I’ll spare you the “drunk-a-log” or should I say “drug-a-log”, meaning all my drunken or drug stories of stupid and crazy shit that we did.

I don’t want to glorify anything but instead, tell you about the destruction that it can cause.

We were skin and bones, never eating, and to the point that we were taking drugs every day, unless we couldn’t find any. On those days, we slept for hours and hours, making up for the many nights of lost sleep.

One morning a few days after I was fired and dumped, I woke up to the most excruciating pain. I couldn’t stand or walk, my stomach was in knots and I was screaming from the pain. Brandie and my other roommate were able to get me into their car to take me to urgent care.

After they ran some tests, they found that I had a severe kidney infection and sent me home with some strong antibiotics and strict instructions to follow.

The pain meds weren’t making a dent in the pain and we all knew that my kidneys were in this position because of all the drugs we were taking. It scared us all and we all vowed to quit. Our lease was up and I felt defeated and tired. I just wanted to go home to start fresh.

My parents ended up taking me back in, at the age of 21 which was embarrassing but needed, and I am happy to say that I never touched that drug again. It’s not to say that I didn’t take others, but then again, that’s another story.

But, I was finally free from the deceiving drug that stole my high school and college experiences. I’ll forever feel terrible for dragging Brandie down with me and also sad to report that she went back to her eating disorder for a while but eventually got help so she was able to quit and begin a healthy relationship with her body.

I enrolled at a local community college, got a good job, and began living in a healthy way. I met my husband the following year and life was good. I thought my party ways were long gone, and the parts involving the drug were, but my addictive nature came out in other ways in the years to follow.

I said I would have a happy ending. Well, it’s happy-ish.

I would love to say that my using stopped for all substances after this but that would be a lie. I never did do meth again but it took me years of drinking and some other drugs to finally come to the conclusion that I had a problem.

It doesn’t matter what the substance is, I will overdo it with anything. It’s best to remain completely sober in order to live a happy, healthy life.