Lines
My name is Lauren Miller. I love cocaine, cigarettes and my boyfriend. I guess the reason why I am writing this is because I have lost myself somewhere in the past year and I am desperately searching for who I was. I also want to make peace with God and I think somehow by writing this I will. One day I just woke up and boom! This isn’t a dream…it’s real. I feel like I need to explain myself and the events that I have caused to happen to the world, even though nobody else cares, I feel that it is my purpose. I have learned a lot about myself, life, and love, I want to teach those things to you. I want to open your eyes up to what is actually going on in life and maybe you can make peace with your God too.
Cocaine
I still remember that first line…..I stared at it for a while. I was scared of it, I wasn’t scared to die though. I think I knew that it would take control of my soul from that very moment. I didn’t care either way, honestly. It was a cool spring night and I had the house all to myself. My boyfriend of one year, Rick, was doing a side job to afford to pay our bills.
So there I sat, in my home, at the beautiful oak dining table that my grandmother had given to me. I was hoping that Rick wouldn’t come home from work anytime soon. It was my time to experience this* without him knowing. Cocaine was my dirty little secret…and I loved it. I got a straw and cut a piece off about 2 inches or so. I put it down by the soft white powder and breathed in through my nose as hard as I could.
I felt it come over me, it was like a sigh of relief for my whole body. I felt it in my fingers first, like tiny needles poking out of my skin, I have never felt so numb in all my life. It almost hurt it felt so good. I sat back, lit a cigarette, and enjoyed my buzz. Thinking about my life and where I wanted to go, what I wanted to be.
It drained in the back of my throat, I got my first taste of it just then. I always loved the way cocaine tasted, it is almost, naughty; you know that you shouldn’t have that kind of taste in your mouth but you just can’t help it. Twenty minutes later it was gone. I was pissed, I didn’t have anymore money or coke.
Rick came home, he had no idea what I had just done. I felt bad in a sense because I wanted him to feel what I just felt. It was never because I was keeping something from him. I never felt that he needed to know. I didn’t realize how much I loved him, and that I couldn’t live without him. I took love for granted every single day because of something that I thought I wanted.
People do not understand that drugs (especially cocaine) make you do things that you wouldn’t normally do. It doesn’t seem to you that you are doing anything wrong. I never, ever, saw just exactly what I was doing to him. It was like I was a child again, I knew what I was doing was wrong but I didn’t know why I was doing it. Now that I look back, maybe it was more because I just didn’t care; and I am ashamed to say that.
My dealer was a long time friend of mine which made it harder for me. At the time, he was trying to graduate from high school with our class and he had to do extra work on the computer to make up his credits. I told him that I would come over and help him out as long as he gave me a joint or so here and there. One day I went there and something was different.
Before I get to that, let me explain to you what he looks like. He’s about 135lbs, very pale, and about 5’6 I would say. Not very attractive, at least I don’t think. He came downstairs where I was working with a black box that had a lock on it. I really didn’t think twice about it because he was very secretive about his drugs and what he sold to who. I knew that he sold other than weed but I didn’t know what. I had always seen those black boxes he used to have but I never, ever, asked what was in them. I just didn’t care, I was working to help him and get my weed.
So anyway, he came down and said “If I show you something promise you won’t tell?”
I said “ Yeah sure what is it?”
He proceeded to tell me he needed me to help him do something and if I ever told about what I saw he would never talk to me again. I stared to think that it could be something good, juicy! I loved knowing secrets about people.
He motioned for me to sit down on the floor in between him and the box. He said, “ Now remember, you cannot ever tell anyone about his.”
I said “ Oh come on! How long have we known each other?”
When he lifted that lid, I bet my eyes were as wide as the box was open. He had spilled about an ounce of cocaine in the bottom of the box. There were baggies of pills, a gun, and some bullets covered in Coke. He wanted me to help him clean out the box and all of the stuff that was in it.
I was completely shocked. I had no idea that he even screwed with that kind of shit. I mean I knew about the pills, but cocaine? It took me completely by surprise. I helped him for what seemed like hours. He rewarded me with a two lines. That is what I always felt like when I was around him, like I was on a reward system.
So now, instead of doing his school work for weed, I did it for coke. Now and again he would ask me to do something extra for him. I would clean his room or count his money, sometimes I would organize his four black boxes of drugs. And every time, I would get rewarded with cocaine. That is as far as it went though. I never did anything sexual for him, it was never even suggested.
I think that is why I liked to be around him so much. He never hit on me, he never did anything sexually suggestive…ever! I loved it! I loved having someone so close to me in my life, someone that would kill for me, and having it not be my boyfriend. It was great, so I thought.
The cravings became worse and worse. Before I knew it, I was lying to Rick about where I was going just to get a quick fix. The thing I never understood though, was that anytime of any day, I could call up deal and he would just give me cocaine. I do not understand why he would do that. I guess it was because he was sicker than I was, maybe he was trying to show me how much he cared for me. That’s a fucked up way to do it eh?
Everything started to go in a spiral out of control. I started snorting cocaine in my bathroom while people, my friends, were in the other room. I would have to make up a excuse to leave because my nose would start bleeding. Before long, I started to feel ashamed about what I was doing to my life, I started to get depressed.
Rick started to notice that I was always itching my nose and the questions started to come about. He knew about the first time I did it, but that was it. He started asking me why I was always with dealer and what we did. And I would lie, tell him what he wanted to hear just so I could get out of the house. I knew that if I told him the truth I would lose him forever, he would never except or understand this. I didn’t know that not telling him the truth would ruin my life even worse.
Before long dealer started to introduce me to more and more of his friends who were all addicted to cocaine. I saw a different side of cocaine addiction, it wasn’t just thugs with guns living in a hotel room somewhere, it was adults with children and nice houses. He would take me on drug runs with him, we would go in and hang out and they would give us lines for free. I mean these people didn’t even know me and here I was snorting cocaine with them. It was weird really. Now that I look back, I realize how sick I actually was. I would snort coke with women who were my mother’s age and had kids in the other room. Before that first line I would never even think about doing that kind of stuff. One of the most important things that I have learned is that addiction does not care who you are, how old you are, or how much money you have. You can be anyone and be addicted, it doesn’t have a face.
Dealer started to get real big, we would at least sell to twenty people a day. I helped him count his money everyday, I can’t tell you how much it was, but I can say that it was more money than I have ever saw or will ever see again. He started to look worse and worse as each day went by. I almost felt bad for him, he thought that selling drugs was the only thing that he had, the only thing that he could trust. I mean, he didn’t even trust his own mother. I felt bad for her too, she knew what he was doing. She kicked him out of the house for leaving a bag in the bathroom I do believe.
We would go to her house to get his things, I would see the hurt in her face, the pain in her eyes, I would cry for her sometimes. She had already watched one of her sons throw away his life from drugs, she didn’t want to see her youngest follow in the same footsteps. It was terrible, and I knew that she knew I was doing coke with him and that made it even worse. I was always the one trying to keep him out of trouble and instead I was condoning it.
I started to fall deeper and deeper into depression. It was at this point I was feeling terrible for lying to everyone and I knew that I needed help. I believe that this was my rock bottom, cocaine had me by the throat and I knew it. I tried many times to stop going with dealer, I stopped calling him all together. He would always need something from me, mostly a ride to sell. I felt like I needed to give him something back for all the drugs that he had done with me in the past couple months, so as much as I didn’t want to, I would do it for him. I started to miss my life, I wanted it back so badly. I missed Rick and my old friends, my parents; I thought there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
The only person I told about my Cocaine addiction was my friend Krystle. I have known her since kindergarten, I thought she could keep my secret. I never fully trusted her though. I never told her the entire truth, or even close to it. She just knew that I snorted a line here and there. Krystle was the first to notice the changes in me and I knew she did. I came there high almost every day. I never thought that she would tell anyone about things I trusted her with.
One day I came home from dealer’s house and before I even got out of my car, there was Rick. The back screen door came screaming open and I knew that Krystle had told him my everything. Sure enough, the first words that came out of his mouth were “Krystle told me everything!” Literally I almost pissed my pants. I have never seen him look that way before, he was enraged and hurt at the same time. Of course I acted like I had no idea what he was talking about, I tried to lie my way out of it but my lies weren’t good enough anymore.
He called my parents down to our house and they tried to calm us down and my mom tried to tell me she could get me help since she was a recovering cocaine addict also. I didn’t want to hear it, I didn’t care. I made myself believe my own lies, I kept thinking to myself how could they believe him? How could they think that I was doing this terrible thing? As soon as Rick picked up the phone I knew that he was calling the cops, he kept telling me to leave and he hated me. I wouldn’t leave so the cops were on their way. I took off into the woods. I wasn’t about to go to jail just because I snorted a little bit of cocaine. I didn’t yet realize that I had ruined my life, I didn’t know how bad that it had actually gotten.
It started to rain as I was running in my bare feet, it hurt beating on my face. After running for what seemed like ever I went behind an abandoned factory and fell to my knees, crying like never before. It was then, at that very moment, that I realized I was a cocaine addict. I sat there for two hours crying and praying to God to help me get my life back, my soul back. I could see the cops from where I was sitting searching for me, I even saw my dad in his truck looking too. I wanted to die, I wanted my life to end, I wanted to give my soul to God at that moment. I believed he was the only one who could help me.
I got up and started walking, the cops got me and took me to a hospital. So there I was, in the emergency room by myself. They were just about to take me up to the psychiatric ward when a man came into my room. He said “Lauren, did you know that you are pregnant?” My heart dropped to the floor. I started crying because I knew there was no way that this baby would be healthy. He told me that I was two months pregnant and for that whole two months I had been snorting cocaine every single day. It was the worst news anyone could have given me.
I called and told Rick and then they took my up to the unit I had to stay in. They put me on suicide watch and I stayed there for 3 days. I had nobody but me in there. I couldn’t hold a conversation with anyone because they were all crazy. It is hard to talk about the same thing one hundred times a day with the same people. I hated it there. After I got out Rick let me move back in because of the baby. We pretended nothing happened for a few weeks. One night I was at my aunt’s house and I started having cramps in my stomach really bad. I didn’t think anything of it because she said it was normal to have those kind of cramps when you are pregnant. I went to the bathroom and I felt my stomach drop. I knew I was losing my baby.
I called Rick and he met me at the hospital. They did a sonogram but couldn’t find the baby. I knew it was my fault my child never had a chance to live and I cannot even describe to you what that feels like. It was absolutely the worst thing I have ever felt and I still think about it every single day of my life. Rick and I cried together for hours that night in bed. He still didn’t know the truth about my addiction and how much or often I had used.
The next day he came home from work, woke me up and told me he wanted to know the truth. Actually he screamed it at me. I was angry and I said, “ Fine! You want to know the truth? I have been snorting cocaine every day and I have been lying to you!” I can’t even describe to you the look on his face, it was like he wanted to kill me. I got up and I hit him as hard as I possibly could in the back of the head. He tried to restrain me as one of his friends called the cops.
I tried to run but he laid on top of me until they got there. We both went to jail. I was in the county jail for a day and a half but it felt like an eternity. The cops put temporary restraining orders against Rick and I. We weren’t supposed to see each other for 30 days, but we did. I moved back in with my parents and so did he. The next day I checked myself into rehab. I didn’t stay for as long as I was supposed to but I learned a lot. Recovery was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I would dream about cocaine, I would wake up everyday and taste it in my mouth. At first I thought about doing it all of the time but rehab made me realize how bad it had actually gotten. It made me see how bad I had not only hurt everyone in my life but also how bad I had hurt myself.
I thought that it would make everything better but it didn’t really. Rick would through my addiction in my face every single chance he got and I would think “Why am I even doing this? Why am I even getting clean? What’s the point really?” Instead of him supporting me and telling me I was doing great he would tell me that he is ashamed of why I had to go to rehab in the first place. I would let it bring me down and I would cry for hours every day because of the guilt.
Then one day I realized that I had to this for me and only me. That is how I became the person that I am today. I finally understood that I had to fix myself before I could fix what I had done to everyone who I loved in my life. And I did, I overcame my addiction and it felt so good. I couldn’t believe that I had actually accomplished something that I never in my dreams thought that I would. I started attending AA meetings and there was one meeting in particular that not only touched my heart but my soul.
The lead that they had was a born again nun. She was a recovering alcoholic that had something like 22 years clean. I automatically had respect for her because I knew how hard it was to overcome addiction and to stay clean. I couldn’t imagine how hard it was to stay clean for 22 years. As her story unfolded I realized that everyone has their own rock bottom and that mine wasn’t any different from anybody else’s no matter how drastic it was. She said something that literally brought me to tears. She was saying that she kept asking God to help her and she couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t; then said she realized that he never left her, but that it was her who left him. I immediately started to cry because I had just realized the exact same thing.
She told us that God show’s himself through other people, through the people in this room. The love and support that we have for one another, comes from God. Those words that this little old nun said changed my life forever. I left that meeting a completely different person.
I now have a close relationship with God and the people in my life who I love. I have learned not to take anything for granted especially love and God. I realized that I love Rick more than anything and for a long time I grieved over the guilt. I know that the only way to fix this and to regain trust from anybody is to show them that I have learned my lesson. Now when I think about cocaine, I don’t think about snorting my next line, I think about what snorting that first line did to my life.
