An open letter to my fellow heroin addicts…
To my fellow heroin addicts… Are you ready yet? Are you done living amongst the rubble and smoldering ash of a life you created, burnt to the ground and pulverized like an imploded building? I know you are tired, I know you want out, I know deep down inside your soul is screaming for help. You want relief, you seek freedom, you desire peace. I know you do because I was you.
I am you.
Whatever mess you are in right now I promise you can persevere. You are not worthless or hopeless. You are a person who has wandered down the wrong path and you can navigate your way back. I know you have thought your only way out was in death, I know because I did too. I felt trapped. I felt buried alive inside a cold merciless shell of a girl. A girl who was 98 pounds of anger and hate. I would fantasize about my death and only felt peace in those sparse moments. Only to be violently woke by my addiction telling me it was time for more. Why could I not be the one who would shoot a bad bag of dope. Why were all my friends dying but I was spared.
I was spared because It was not my time, nor is it your time. Fight the fight. Walk the walk. Walk until your feet bleed and you have revealed all that has held you down. Find a meeting, find your people, walk now with these people. Nothing or no one, where you are right now, is going to save you. Stop waiting for that moment, person or circumstance to start. It will never come, that train will never arrive. The moment is now so reach down inside yourself and find the strength to stop. You have no idea how relentless the human spirit can be when it desires something enough.
Start your days trying to believe you are worth more than this. The more you think it, the more you will tend to believe it. I know a small sliver of hope has planted itself inside your heart. I know because I had it too, I could see it, I could feel it but I just could not grab it.
I will tell you my secret. It is quite simple, it was a combination of desperation and the group called Alcoholics Anonymous. I know you have heard of it, you probably laughed at the idea or even thought it was a god pleasing cult. I did too, but it is neither. It is a group of people just as sick as you are who are fighting for their lives, just as you are. Go to one, go to just one meeting this week. Put as much effort in going as you would a bag of dope. Push aside any discomfort that you think sobriety would be like. Weigh your pros and cons. Somewhere on that list of cons is death and you are almost there.
I now know that I was kept alive to share my story, to hopefully inspire, and to breathe a breath of fresh air to my fellow sufferers. I was a cocaine addict, turned crack user whose ultimate demise was heroin. Seventeen years of my life was spent battling my demons that not only survived on the drugs and alcohol I fed it, but also my self created demons that called my mind home.
Through this process I have also found a higher power, the same higher power I exiled from my life years ago. Do not be discouraged or turned off by this. Whether you believe or not believe, do not fear, it will be found all on its own.
I celebrated four years of sobriety on November 29th , four fantastic, life changing years. Filled with tears, joys and firsts. I am a mother, I am a girlfriend, I am an employee and I am an active member of AA. I no longer have to lie, cheat and steal. I no longer wake up tormented by my thoughts, my failures and I no longer have to hide from society. I live an honest life. I am proud of who I have become, I am proud of myself.
I beg of you to choose life. Choose sobriety. Choose to fight. Choose to win.
The time is now. Bring you, back to you.
Kimberly K. is a recovery blogger from New Jersey, her blog can be found at www.MyDay-MyChoice.com. She can also be found on Facebook at Hospital For Your Soul.
