Jill H.
DOB: 11/13/65; Fairfield, Ohio. I didn’t fit in. God, I know as a kid I never felt like I belonged.
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Most kids who wake up in the middle of the night go to their parents’ bedroom and crawl in bed with them to sleep. When I was scared at night, I always used to sleep on the floor next to my parents’ bed with the dog because I didn’t feel like I belonged.
My parents went through a lot of changes when I was grow-ing up. My dad was self-employed and work became the center of their lives. It was real hard for me to cope with the people I was around.
They all kind of had money and acted like they were better than anyone else. I never liked being told to act my age. I didn’t fit in. I always tried to hang out with the people from the other end of town but to them I was the little rich kid. You know: “She’ll buy. No problem.” Again, I didn’t fit in.
I started using when I was about 11. I got into it real quick. It was like get high on one thing one day, get high on something else the next day. By the time I was 12, I was using pretty heavily. When I was 13, I moved out on my own. I moved all the way to Ft. Lauderdale. I thought moving far away would change things. But things only got worse. I got into some real heavy using.
I learned a little bit about prostitution to keep myself alive and it was real hard. I didn’t fit in there. I was always running and scared to death that someone was going to find out what I was up to.
By the time I was 14 I was shooting dope and still out on my own, trying to figure out where the hell I fit in. I didn’t fit in with the people I wanted to hang out with. If people got to know me, they didn’t feel like they liked me anymore. So I decided I’d move back home.
That led to a lot of boarding schools that I got thrown out of, just a lot of confusion. I decided to move back to Ohio. I guess that’s home for me now. But I moved back to Ft. Lauderdale. Then back to Ohio. Back and forth. Back and forth.
This went on for about ten times over six years, till I was almost twenty. I got into a real abusive relationship in Ft. Lauderdale, the first physically abusive relationship. It wasn’t just mentally abusive. It actually got down to physical abuse and I’d want to leave but I couldn’t. I just wasn’t capable of it. I was afraid if I was alone, I would die.
My whole life I was told it was bad to be alone. It just wasn’t cool to be alone. You had to have somebody. I still have a problem with that today, but I’m getting better a little bit.
I went through a lot of hell down in Ft. Lauderdale. I got beat up a lot. I got arrested, and I’ve been to jails, I’ve been to institutions. I haven’t been dead yet, I don’t think. Sometimes I’d want to, because spiritually I didn’t have shit. Emotionally I didn’t have nothing either.
The first time I tried to stop using didn’t work because I really didn’t want it. I had gone to a treatment program in order to avoid going to prison, but that didn’t keep me clean. I was using before I left that program. I got four wisdom teeth pulled so that I could use. I found out they gave you demerol shots if they pulled your wisdom teeth.
I moved back to Ohio because I thought I would never shoot dope in Ohio because I tried to keep up an image in Ohio. But I couldn’t hold out. I was back in jail two more times and finally the second and last time a guy came up and we make a deal with the judge to have me released on condition I seek treatment one more time.
I didn’t know if I wanted to be a recovering addict. It scared the hell out of me. It’s like, what am I going to do with my time?
Like I’ve got all this dead time I don’t know what to do with. But when I finally surrendered to the fact that I can’t use, it was a relief to be a recovering addict. I was real nuts at first.
I couldn’t see the unmanageability in my life even though I was in and out of jail. I could not understand how I was powerless. I had no grasp on it. The way I was raised in my family, if you have a problem you deal with it. You don’t sit there and just give up.
And to me, admitting I was powerless meant giving up. It was real hard to stick with it. But I chose to stick around.
I started to meet some new people. It was real special. It started to mean something to me. I found out that it wasn’t really quitting, it was surrendering to the fact that I can’t use. It finally dawned on me that I’m just not successful at using. I’m grateful for being alive. I started looking for something positive. You can find something positive no matter where you’re at.
I went back to prison with seven months clean after being thrown our of a halfway house. It was the best thing that happened to me in my recovery because it taught me I could stay clean anywhere. In prison I got real close to my higher power. I did a lot of praying there and I started looking for the positives. It taught me that you can find something positive no matter where you are.
I realized that things happen to you in your life that you don’t like and you can look at them in two ways: you can look at them as some kind of big burden that’s been given to you that you got to just live with, or you can look at them as an opportunity to do something different and learn. I thought to myself, this is an opportunity I’ve been given. I’m clean today and if I work through this, there is going to be a gift on the other side of it.
A lot of things have happened to me since I got out. I finally stayed clean for me. It was real hard to do something for myself because I never thought I was worth it. I’ll do anything in the world for anybody but me. I’m a mother. I like to mother people or baby them or read their needs before they even state them.
But when I came out of jail, I realized it’s not for anybody but me. It’s not for the courts, it’s not for anybody. I finally figured it out that I’m the only person I can do this for.
I work real hard on a daily inventory and my mornings consist of meditating, looking at today and trying to get some kind of input before I leave the house — getting some recovery before I have to go out into the world.
I found out that I’m human. I used to think I was either good or bad, and I’m finding out there is this middle ground and it’s called being human and I’m in there. I don’t like it sometimes because I always loved extremes.
It was either everything is excellent or everything is miser-able. I didn’t want to be mediocre. I didn’t want to be in the middle. Now, I’m looking for some balance. Through meditation, I can push all the bullshit out and cleanse my mind, get a little bit of serenity and openmindedness in. I feel real good today.
If I stay clean, I’ve got a chance today, no matter what happens. And if I use, I don’t. This is my last shot at recovery. I’m only twenty two and I had a hard time grasping death. I had to look back. My brother died at eighteen from this disease a year before I got clean.
Everything happened the way it was supposed to happen, not the way I wanted it to. I’m real grateful for his death ‘cause I wouldn’t be where I’m at. I’ve made a 180 degree turnaround. I’ve been clean eighteen months now. I know I’m going to go and if I use. But I want to stay clean. It’s killer.
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