Curiosity kills the cat

If I haven't put you off drugs already, I'm hoping a few short memories of mine might. Some embarrassing, all serious.

When I was released from the psych ward (previous post), I was 14 and in year 10 (UK). I was sent to a hospital school in Rusholme, Manchester called Leo Kelly. There was no uniform so, of course, tacky old me back then, showed up in heels and booty shorts half of the time. I wasn't even assigned a full week but I'd still always manage to either come in late or leave early. I'd have snook out the night before and either didn't wake up in time or I was falling asleep in class but I managed to convince everyone it was down to my medication.

A massive milestone in my addiction was a particular incident that happened during my time at this school. One night, as usual, I waited until I could hear my dad snoring and then I made my move and snook out the house. The night started off typical, I met up with a couple guys, snorted ridiculous amounts of cocaine and drank ridiculous amounts of vodka. However, this night got even more out of hand than usual because I ended up in a house literally directly across the street from my school (seriously, what are the odds?!). Off my absolute nut, I somehow managed to get home just in time to not get caught. My dad actually rang me to wake up for school just as I was creeping to the back of the house to sneak back in. I made it in without getting caught and I told my dad I was going to go to school early to get a head start. Instead I went straight back to the house across the road. Time just disappeared but eventually, after a thousand missed calls and texts from my dad and my headteacher, I crossed the street into school. But not without sniffing a gram in one first. I came in shaking and dripping in sweat and I was told later that I was actually talking gibberish to myself like I was in a drug induced psychosis. Any other day, I could say I needed to go home and i'd be allowed. But this time, my headteacher said I was not allowed as she thought I'd be safer at school. And, of course, it was a parents assembly day. I'm sat in the crowd next to my dad, whose eyes were just full of worry, continuing to talk gibberish. I can actually remember the other parents facial expressions when they looked at me, what felt like condescending smiles. When school was over, I rushed back home to my room and snorted the last gram I had, again in one. I started calling every family member I had, telling them about my 'epiphany'. When I called my grandad, he interrupted me after about 5 seconds and said, "Stop right there. I'm on my way". My grandad left work that second and drove 2 hours to me. When I tried to sneak out that night, I was greeted downstairs with a, "where do you think you're going?". My grandad actually sat on a chair by the stairs all night to make sure I stayed in. I still found a way the next night but within the next couple of days, a sudden small wave of integrity rushed through me and I decided to try and come clean. I took my grandad to my room and opened my wardrobe, which was stacked full with empty liquor bottles. Looking back, I feel like this was my first cry for help. Soon after this incident I was sent to Utah to my first treatment centre.

When I moved to the U.S. when I was 11, I soon wanted to go back to the U.K. My sister went back after a couple of months to live with my dad but it took me 3 years of chaos to finally wear my mum down to let me go. The day she finally agreed was the day I first took cocaine. I went to my friends house and his mum lied to my mum, like she always did, to cover us so we could go out. We downed some vodka and his mum gave us some cocaine. We went to the movies, not to see a movie but just to 'chill' with some other people. I was so messed up we ended up getting kicked out. I was desperate for the bathroom and the nearest place to go was a bookstore next door. I'm in the cubicle and my friends are calling me but I just couldn't move. I mustn't have locked the cubicle door because a woman opened it and I will never forget her face of pure shock and horror as she covered her young daughters eyes before quickly shutting the door. I'm presuming this was the woman who called an ambulance because the next thing I remember was being taken out of the bookstore on a stretcher. Then the next thing I remember after that was being rushed through the hospital with my mum, stepdad, and little brother following. I remember my stepdad trying to make me an example for my brother. The shame I felt from this was overpowering, but I guess today I hope that maybe I was that example and maybe he will never go down the road I did. And then I remember my mum telling me that was it, I'd finally got my way, I could finally go back to England.

After a year of being back in England I flew back to the U.S. to visit my mum for a couple of weeks. I was on very strict rules, for obvious reasons. She said I could go to the beach with my friend but that we could only be there for an hour by ourselves while she went food shopping. The second she left we each downed a can of four loko. I start downing a second and that's where it goes dark. The next thing I know, I'm in a car on top of some guy I don't even know and someone knocks on the window. Guess who that someone was? You got it, my mother. Probably my most embarrassing moment by far. Everything goes dark again. I wake up in my bed at my mums house and I use my laptop to try and get a hold of someone to go out and get drunk/high with. I managed to get some guys to come and pick me up (one of which I'd had a massive crush on for ages). My mum's house at the time was basically a small mansion so all the downstairs windows and doors were alarmed. This meant I'd have to go out my upstairs window. I climbed out and hung from the bottom window ledge with my fingers and just dropped. A moment of euphoria came when I realised, I did it! But that was very quickly replaced with a surge of pain through my spine so excruciating I actually let out an uncontrollable groan as I fell to the floor. To this day I have osteoarthritis and a hernia in my back and all my lower vertebrae are slipped like steps. I stumbled down the driveway and got in the car. My mum apparently saw me walk down the driveway but I guess she thought it would teach me more of a lesson if she just called the police. I was picked up from this guys house and I was made to sit in the police station on the floor in probably the worst pain of my life until my mum finally picked me up in the morning. My mum cut my trip early and I flew back home within the next couple of days. Can't blame her.

When I was 18, my grandma and her husband had an apartment in Tenerife and I was booked to fly out and see them for a week. On the flight there, I for some unknown, insane reason thought it would be a good idea to have a few drinks. I don't even know how many of those tiny bottles I must have downed but the next thing I remember is waking up in bed at my grandma's apartment. Completely confused, I asked my grandma what happened. She said I had been taken off the plane in a wheelchair. They had an ambulance waiting but luckily my grandma spotted me first and explained that I was just drunk and that she would take me home. The worst part was, most of the people on the flight back had been on the flight there. A couple actually asked me if I was okay cause they saw I had trouble getting off the plane last time. I was mortified to say the least.

A couple of years ago, my sister was doing a media course in college. She decided to do a project on me, a short documentary she called 'My sister and heroin'. I had arranged to go to my grandma's to see her and my sister for a couple of days. I'd been smoking crack and therefore as usual I kept pushing the train time further and further back. But eventually I had to leave, there was just no time left and I couldn't let them down again. I think this was the first time in my life I actually left any amount of crack to come back to later. I got to my grandma's and, like I always did, I just slept, woke up to eat, then slept some more until it was time to go back. My sister got the train with me and we went back to my place to do some filmed questions for her documentary. My apartment was a studio but there was a wall separating the bedroom and the living room so I begged her to wait behind that because I just couldn't resist the tiny bit of crack I had left. I started to smoke and my sister popped out with her camera. Letting my family see me use was a moral I just never wanted to lose and I feel so sorry for ever doing such a thing in front of her. But the worst part wasn't even that. The amount I left of crack made one hit. Just one. I can't even describe where my head went. I started looking on the floor for crumbs, unfortunately something I'd do almost every time I ran out. I've ripped up carpets and smoked salt/sugar/unknown items by mistake because of this. I can sort of laugh about it now but at the time it is so demoralising because I literally just can't stop myself. I become so desperate for it it actually hurts. It is the definition of mental torture. My sister managed to capture this all on camera before we did the questions. I have never seen the video and I don't think I could. Even my sister couldn't finish this project because she couldn't keep watching it.

All these events could have been avoided if I had just made better decisions. Unfortunately, once you're in it, it is incredibly hard to not make wrong decision after wrong decision. So, don't get in it, please. For your sake, for your family's and friends sake, for the sake of your life. Because there is so much more to life than drugs. So if your ever thinking of picking up or if your every tempted or pressured to try drugs; first imagine hurting the people that matter to you most, losing everything that's good in your life and handing all your power and control over to an evil inanimate object. Curiosity really does kill the cat.

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