Story by Marguerite
Recovering from your old way of thinking
When did you start struggling with addiction?
My problems started after I had a sexual encounter at the age of 5 and I quickly learned how to suppress my feelings. I thought, if I can forget about that I can go on with life. When I was 15, I had my first sexual relationship and that’s when everything started coming to the surface and my addictions began. I was drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana, and going from one partner to another. That’s how I dealt with my feelings.
I didn’t go to therapy. I’m from a big Italian family and therapy just wasn’t an option. I was good at hiding things too, so my parents thought my behavior was normal teenage stuff. They weren’t worried because I never let them see anything they’d think was a problem.
How did becoming a mom affect you?
I’ve been with my boyfriend since I was 16. When I turned 22, we got married and started planning a family. When I became pregnant, I thought it was what I wanted. I remember one day, when my oldest daughter was about six months, another mom said to me, “oh, you’re so and so’s mom” and I thought, no I’m Marguerite. It was like I’d lost my identity.
I wasn’t talking to him at the time as we’d had an argument about him using again. He got kicked out of self-help and I knew he was in full relapse. He was living with his Mom in Kensington, which is where everyone uses in Philadelphia. It was around that time fentanyl was being introduced to the streets. Now it’s everywhere and there’s open drug use, it’s so sad. His Mom found him in the bathroom around midnight on 25 August. I wasn’t contacted until the next day. I was at work and the next thing I knew I was on my way to hospital to say goodbye.
The hospital staff brought us into a room before they took us in to see Dad. When we were in there, I just shut down and let my sister do the listening. I literally couldn’t believe this was my life. It was a total out of body experience, like I was looking down on myself.
There was too much brain damage to keep Dad alive. He was a hundred percent brain dead and would have been hooked up to machines for the rest of his life. There was no life there, it was just crazy. They had a tube down his throat. I had to give permission for them to turn off the life support machine.
We watched at the end of the bed as they were literally turning everything off and unplugging the machines. We watched his chest and there was nothing moving. He was already dead. I stayed in the room because I needed to see it with my own eyes. My Dad was 6 feet tall – it’s crazy how such a little amount of fentanyl can kill you.
I had to lose everything to know I could do it on my own
I spent most of my twenties being pregnant, and my postpartum depression was worse each time. I didn’t want to reach out for help because I was frightened they’d take the children away. In the end, I couldn’t hide it anymore and my parents said it was time to go into rehab. My sister gained control over my children, and I couldn’t get them back because I was still using.
My addictions started spiralling and my husband was using too.
I had 2 more children. With my youngest, I didn’t have any healthcare during the pregnancy, and he was a home birth. When they tested our blood, they found trace amounts of stimulants in both of us. They took these two children to live with my sister too. My husband and I were very far apart emotionally. I felt totally alone.
What made you get help?
I looked at myself in the mirror and asked my reflection whether I wanted to give up or fight. A lot of my story has to do with how I see myself and I thought, I’m a junkie, it’s what I deserve. But I didn’t want my sister to raise my kids.
I stayed in rehab, and I had some suicide attempts that landed me in the hospital. I even went to some of the therapy sessions high. Crisis got involved.
You have to hit that point. You have to lose everything.
That’s when I started my journey towards recovery. It was very difficult and disheartening. I went through several therapists and every time I thought I might be able to get the kids back, there’d be one more thing I needed to prove.
When you were struggling to stay on track, what made the difference for you?
One day I walked into my therapist’s office, and she asked me what was going on with me. She helped me to help myself – I learned how to reframe things. You’re not recovering from drugs – you’re recovering from your old way of thinking.
I was doing 4-5 hours a week of dual-diagnosis group therapy and weekly one-to-one sessions with my therapist. Listening to other people’s stories, they’re all similar and we used to talk about how you stop using, because if you’re not able to feel the pain, what’s to stop you from going back and using again?
The best thing for me was the continued therapy after I’d stopped the drugs. Being in that environment and being able to talk though my feelings every day really helped.
One day I woke up and the leaves on the tree were a lot greener than they’d ever been. I realized, I’m happy with me. It was just a switch, knowing that it has to start and end with me.
I started forming a relationship with God that really helps me. When I don’t know what else to do, I pray. Me, my rosary beads, and God. When I was using heroin, the only time I prayed was to ask God to make me get enough without it killing me. Then I asked Him, why aren’t you killing me? That’s how dark it got. Now, the first thing I do in the morning is pray, to ask Him to help me find some patience to deal with my day. I pray morning, noon, and night to thank God for getting me to where I am.
How are you now?
I’m 38 and I feel like I’m entering a new stage in my life. I’m starting to feel clean and clear-headed. A lot of bad things have happened to me but if they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have reached the good times. It’s been over 7 years since I last took heroin and 5 years since I used stimulants. I’ve got my kids back and my husband and I have grown immensely closer by supporting each other in recovery. My sister and I are rebuilding our relationship. Over the last 18 months or so of this crazy world, I’ve actually started enjoying life, just daily things.
My family are all so proud of me. I want my children to be proud of me too and be proud of themselves. I hope they’ll see they have something in their DNA other than addiction and depression. My kids are amazing, and I tell them, sometimes Mama needs a hug more than you do.
It’s not just Mamas though, it’s Dads too, and it’s important we recognize that this can happen to anybody when you don’t have enough support behind you. We need to normalize that it’s ok to struggle and people need to feel they’re not going to lose their kids when they reach out for help.
What advice would you give someone who’s struggling with addiction?
I’d tell them that every day when you wake up, it’s a fresh start. Sometimes progress is two steps back, but you’ve just got to keep moving towards your goal. For me, my first goal was just to live. There are plenty of places that can help start you on the right path.
You’re the only one standing in your way, so if you want something better, go and get it.
What impact has your Dad’s overdose had on you?
It’s very strange. When someone’s so inconsistent in your life because they’re a drug addict, sometimes you forget they’re not still alive, because there were times I didn’t hear from him for a year or two. The grief process is so different for someone who had a good relationship with their Dad, because you just think they’re down in Kensington getting high. He was really consistent in my life when I was 18-22, so he got to meet my now fiancé Brendon. We moved in together when I was 20. It’s heartbreaking to know he can’t be there at our wedding, and he can’t be a Pop-Pop.
But the worst thing is the guilt. I’ve said a lot of things I regret. The last time I saw him we had an argument and I believed for a long time that if I hadn’t said those things, he wouldn’t have relapsed. You play it over in your mind, asking yourself ‘if only I did this…’, or ‘what if I’d been nicer to him’. It’s taken a lot of therapy and even though I still feel guilty to this day I now recognize that it’s not my fault he took the decision to use.
In some ways, Dad’s overdose has helped shape the person I’ve grown into. There was a time when I thought I saw my Dad every time a 50 year old man walked into a building. At that time, I was working as a Medical Assistant in addiction and mental health, but it was all too close to home, so I switched to obstetrics and gynecology (OBGYN). I really enjoy seeing the pregnant women and girls throughout their pregnancies, bringing new lives into the world.
What advice would you give to someone living with addicted parents or carers?
The biggest piece of advice I can give is to watch your words. There’s so much anger there when someone’s struggling with addictions as they might be lying, stealing, cheating… but no one wants to be a piece of rubbish drug addict. No one wakes up one day and decides that’s what they want. Life’s too short to be angry with someone, so if you think you’re going to say hurtful things, just walk away.
There’s a horrible stigma that goes hand in hand with substance misuse. My generation talks about things much more openly, but a drug addict’s mind is an awful, awful place for them and there just aren’t enough resources to treat everyone fairly. You have to be patient. It’s like gaining weight – you didn’t gain it in two minutes so you can’t lose it quickly. You can’t rush that treatment process.
Life is just hard, you have to choose your hard and work with it every day.
What was it like growing up with addicted parents?
I did a lot of dissociating as a child. When I was between 5 and 10 years old, my Dad was a hundred percent sober. I grew up with him in NA meetings – it was really good to go to the meetings and see people supporting each other. I just think that’s amazing.
When I was 10, I went to live with my Mom, but she ended up relapsing so I moved in with my (half) sister – we share the same Mom, but have different Dads. My Dad told me I was just going there for the summer, but I ended up living there.
While I was living with my Dad we had constant Dad and daughter dates until his girlfriend and him got together. When I lived with my sister, he would talk to me on and off because of his addiction and anger issues. He wasn’t always the nicest person to me, he had this weird way of controlling me. I think he had a lot of demons and his fear of letting me down played into it.
The opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Orexo AB or Orexo Inc. The authors have been asked not to reveal specifics around potential medically assisted treatments used to reach recovery to Orexo or the readers.
