Day 54: Halting the Hustle

Day 54: I was told recently that I'm a quiet person. That even though I am present in the room I am often somewhere far away, deep within my own thoughts, oblivious to what is going on around me. Funny, in all my life I have never been described as a quiet person. I'm usually being teased about how I never stop talking and no one can get a word in edgewise. I've never been just " a person " in the room, I've always been "the person" in the room. The life of the party. In high school when they hand out the end of the year titles such as the most likely to succeed, class clown, most popular, I received the title of "fastest talker". I've always been great with people, working customer service positions In all my past jobs. But life experiences must really change a person. I feel changed all the way to the core of me. The job I work now requires very little, if any customer interaction. Really it has little or no interaction with anyone for that matter. And I absolutely love it. It's nice not having to waste energy on being fake, not having to force a smile. I really find me happiest when I'm alone now. I don't want to talk, I don't want to have to pretend to care about what the other person is saying, I don't want to have to look at another person face to face. I know this isn't normal, but I feel as if the day I handed over Matthew he took my soul with him. I know I have my other children and for their sake I continue to fake it when they are around. But it's becoming exhausting. That's why I like going to work now, don't have to fake anything and I can actually relax. The part I hate the most is hanging around people who have known me for a while and constantly ask me what's wrong, what am I thinking about when I drift away in thought. They refuse to believe me when I tell them nothing. But it's the truth. Their really isn't one single thing I can pin point as being wrong with me and when I drift away I really am thinking about nothing, cause that's where I'm most comfortable....nowhere, thinking of nothing. I mean how do you answer the question " whats wrong", when it seems that there's nothing right? If I really did allow myself to think about or talk about all the things that are causing me so much hurt and anger I would probably become a crazy person needing to be hospitalized. So I stick with the safer alternative, putting up a shield that not even I can penetrate.



Day 50: Halting the Hustle

Day 50: Sorry about my long absence. With the extremely crazy hours I’m working and me becoming ill with a horrible stomach bug, I haven’t had time to blog. Well it appears my job may become a thing of my past. It seems that the friends that were so quick to offer me help if I were to get the job, were just being polite. I am finding it difficult to get rides to work anymore and the sad things is I am only asking an average of 2 times a week. So if that is too much to ask then the offer was probably never really there. I really do love this job, but I defiantly did not understand how important having a car would be. The one friend I never expected to blow me off, the friend that owes me over $500 for the cost of my warrant he caused me to have, was the first to be done helping me. He knows how important this job is to me, I would think he would feel a sense of obligation. I know, I know how can I still continue to have faith in people? Should I be surprised, no. So as with everything else in my life I’ll just take it one day at a time, asking God for his help and hopefully we will find something to make it possible for me to keep my job. I hope this blog makes sense, I have been sober for three days and my head has become completely fuzzy. I’ve been crying all day, snapping at everyone I come in contact with. I want so bad to succeed but am feeling even more alone with each passing day. I have a long work day tomorrow, so I’m going to head to bed right now. Any comforting words anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated, I am feeling so very low right now. Thanks.

” Don’t feel sad over someone

who gave up on you.

Feel sorry for them, because

they gave up on someone who

never would have given up on them. “

Day 43: Halting the Hustle

Day 43: Yes, it is true you can't die from withdrawals from quitting my drug. That doesn't mean by any means that quitting is easy or painless. When you quit your body aches beyond belief and keeping your eyes open takes every bit of strength you have, leaving no extra energy to do anything else. Then on top of the pain you have horrible mood swings, you're either crying or yelling at everyone or everything you come in contact with. The longer the drug has been used, the more severe your side effects will be. In short, it sucks! With this being said, I have been using for a good 11 years. So you can probably imagine my side effects. I know quitting isn't going to kill me. But how am I going to possibly get through the first couple weeks working full-time and having to be a mom. I want sobriety but it really seems like an impossible goal. How do I just stop doing something that I have been doing a third of my life? I really feel I have succeeded at making hustling a thing of my past. I've managed to close that chapter. But until I am able to come up with a game plan for becoming sober, while still keeping my career and being mommy, the best I'm going to be able to promise myself is just continue to slowly wean myself off. My job and sleeping help with this a lot, by being at work 6-8 hours and sleeping about 6-8 hours that only leaves a quarter of the day to even get high. You minus mommy time out of that and their isn't much time left. So I will get there, I will just keep my long-term goal a daily goal. It's the best I can offer right now.

 

"Giving up on your goal

Because of one setback

is like slashing your other

three tires because of one

flat."

 

Day 41: Halting the Hustle

Day 41: Wanted to share this link to a song I felt inspired by. I love it. Its going to be a daily listener to remind me of my goals and to also remind me I'm not alone. "I Will Be" by Christina Aguilera.

 

 

Day 40: Halting the Huslte

Day 40: Thank you to everyone who has been following my blog, it's because of you all I am able to find the strength to push on. I hit another milestone I had failed to mention. I have attempted to quit hustling in the past and the longest period of time I had quit was 32 days. Being that this is day 41 I have surpassed my previous goal. This time around has been different though, I have never wanted to succeed at something so much in my life. I haven't seen or talked (with the exception of Facebook messages) to my oldest child in over a year, one reason being I was hustling. She also suffers from drug addiction with drugs much more addictive than my drug of choice. She made the decision to run off with her boyfriend to another city several hours away because she seen it as her only way to sobriety. She has little or no contact with anyone of her pass. With the help of NA, her boyfriend and her own personal strength she has remained sober for 16 months, has a job and is working on getting her high school diploma. She doesn't understand that I am open to her choices, I only want the best for her...if this is what she needed to do to be successful I am fully supportive. She has promised that I will get to see her again when she is 18, which is just a little over a month away. Because of this it is extremely important for drugs to be a thing of my past, for her. This has been the hardest year of my life, feeling as if I lost two kids, not just my son that was adopted. I need these holes filled by having all my children I can back in my life.
Tomorrow I will once again face my demons. I will be going to my new job completely sober. I want to be the best and hate being any less, so this has me very scared. I am fortunate that the job shouldn't be more than a couple of hours long, but it does require me to be there at 7am. So I will just pray to my Lord to give me natural energy to get through the day and lots of coffee. Well, off to bed 7am will be here very soon.

"Addiction is not a disease of willpower.

It's a disease of instinct. It lives in the

part of the brain that tells you to breathe."

Day 39: Halting the Hustle

Day 39: My new job is going well. I was only scheduled a couple of days until my performance was seen for the first time yesterday. Now I have a full schedule consisting of only one day off.  I am actually enjoying what I'm doing and its so nice to get out of the house.
The struggle of my journey has had almost 1000 views. That within its self is quite an accomplishment. I pray if there is anyone else out there who doesn't think they can quit hustling they are able to find inspiration from my story. Cause I am testimony to where there's a will there is defiantly a way. I thought because I didn't have a car I wouldn't be able to get to job and if I can't get to work I defiantly couldn't get my baby to daycare. I didn't give up, I kept asking around and the Lord put a few special friends in my path. A couple of those friends help me to get a job with them giving me transportation and a job. Two other special friends and my daughter have offered to watch my son at my house for free when I work. God truly answered my prayers. Hustling was never going to provide me a future to be proud of. I am one of the fortunate ones that has never caught a case,  so the only limitations are the ones I place on myself. The sky is my limit!

" Success is the ability to go from

one failure to another with

no loss of enthusiasm."

-Winston Churchill-     

Day 37: Halting the Hustle

Day 37: Wow, what a feeling! It's as if I have been released from prison, freed from the walls I have been locked behind. It's been four long years since I have had a "real" job. When you hustle drugs you become a prisoner to the money. Anytime I would leave my house I would be losing money. I credit the fact that I never caught a case to following certain rules I had set for myself. One being I rarely road dirty and if I did it was never more than I could stuff (if you know what I mean). All the people I served had been with me for years so most the time, I guess you could say I shit where I ate, as they say. In doing this I never had to leave the house, so much so that I would become anxious every time I did leave. If I wasn't going to the casino, which I considered another possible means of making money, I didn't leave the  house. Well, today I'm free. As I sit here with my new co-workers on a long three-hour drive to our job today, I smile....it sure feels good to be part of society again. I'm making money without the risk of going to jail or losing my babies. The only concern I have is my strength to make it through the day. This being somewhat sober shit having to work a job at 4am that is based on speed and accuracy, is a challenge within its self. Probably best for me to end my long rambling blog and take this three-hour drive as an opportunity to get some more rest, thankfully the job itself is only four hours. So high ho, high ho its off to work I go. I can do this.

 

 " You don't have to have it all figured

 out to move forward"

Day 36: Halting the Hustle

Day 36: Since my blog discusses the hardships of addiction, I read an article today I felt needed to be shared and the word spread. It put my feelings of addiction in writing and said it better than I would ever be able to say it myself. Here it is....

A Note About Philip Seymour Hoffman: Addiction Is Not Selfish.

Philip Seymour Hoffman‘s death is the worst. Seriously. In much the same way that Chris Kelly‘s was. Or Cory Monteith‘s. And if you’re now looking at me like I’m crazy for even using Hoffman and Monteith in the same article, hear me out: It’s not because they were equal talents. Your opinion on that probably depends on whether you’re fifteen or thirty-five. This is not about losing one of the greatest talents of our time. Their deaths are horrific because they died alone, victims of an incredibly lonely disease. And what’s worse, they didn't have to be alone. Loving significant others, loving children, admiration from everyone around them — if they could, I’m sure they would have chosen those things.


My dad was my biggest fan. He was the biggest fan of all of his kids. I was probably the only one who realized it, and I understand why. But when he died, wasted away and a shell of his former self after a lethal fall, the only possessions he had were photos of us and letters we’d written him decades ago. He would have liked to have been at our sporting events and our graduations, but instead he was drinking himself to death in a second-floor apartment in my hometown, bipolar disorder only adding immediacy to the fatal inevitability of his alcoholism. Anyone who thinks dying from an overdose is selfish has a weird idea of what an addict wants out of life. There comes a point at which drinking, drug use, all that — they’re not fun anymore. Philip Seymour Hoffman wasn't out partying. He was alone in his bathroom, compelled. Cory Monteith in his hotel room. Chris Kelly in his living room. All the money in the world, all the adoring fans in the world, and, to see the comments people make on their deaths, they were selfish assholes who chose drugs over the people who loved them.

I guarantee that every time Hoffman put that needle in his arm, he felt guilty. He felt conflicted. He craved that high that would take the pain away, but knew the pain he caused himself and those around him every time he took a hit. We all have destructive habits. If we’re lucky, it’s watching too much TV when it’s inhibiting our productivity, or looking at porn when we think it’s a sin, or lying, cheating, overeating. If we’re lucky, our addictions won’t kill us.  The majority of us can go through a partying phase and then grow up, settle down, and put down the sauce. But for an unfortunate group, the need to keep going becomes as pervasive as the need to eat or sleep. And we call them selfish, as if they would prefer to be a slave to the thing that’s ruining everything good in their lives.

When tragedies like these deaths happen to celebrities, they should be a wake-up call for the rest of us. If someone who has everything going for them can be so horribly enslaved to what they know could kill them, imagine what it’s like for the average addict. Addiction is bigger than class, race, religion, or any other factor that one might hope would reduce its captive hold. Succumbing to it isn't selfish. It’s horribly sad and extremely difficult to prevent, even though it is, in theory, preventable. The way we talk about a celebrity who ODs says a lot about the way we think about people who are struggling around us. It’s time we tried to understand struggles we don’t endure ourselves. It’s called empathy, and we could all use a lot more of it.
-Corrigan Vaughan

Today was my first day back at work. It went really well and it felt great to be back in the work place. Most of all it felt good to have goals and to be a part of something again. It seems like its going to be a job I am going to enjoy and a perfect fit for me right now. It's not real difficult and it wont require a lot of my time being its only part-time. At the same time it is a competitive job allowing me to set goals for myself to earn even more money. Now part two, I need to finish getting enrolled in school and get that journey started. One day at a time.

Day 35: Halting the Hustle

Day 35: Tonight my relationship is weighing heavy on my mind. I've let her down so many times throughout the years. How do you make the person you love more than anyone understand that nothing you've done to her was ever personal? Meaning, that while I was lying, cheating, or stealing I never meant to hurt her. They say never trust an addict, never. That included me. It kills me everyday to think about all the pain, stress, and heartache she has endured as a result of my actions, as a result of my devils I fight with daily. It scares me that the damage I've done could be irreversible. She's become tired from it all and doesn't have the energy to fight with me anymore, she doesn't even bother to get mad. When I mess up, it's almost as if she expects it now, she's not the least bit surprised I fucked up again. I truly don't deserve her. She does nothing but work all the time, so the bills get paid, half the time having to pay the bills more than once cause I spent the money on gambling or drugs. I forgot to mention in my earlier post, I'm also a gambler. I'm not saying I have a slight gambling problem, no, it's bad. Throughout the years I've lost all our savings, our home, multiple vehicles.... now do you see why I have no self-worth? Worse part is I'm creating my problems, they are completely preventable if I would just learn from my mistakes. I'm a complete mess, with several addictions running my life and those around me lives into the ground. And through it all, she is still by my side. Her passion is gone though, I feel she stays with me for the sake of our children. She deserves to be happy, at her age she shouldn't have to be dealing with this bullshit. I'm making these life changes with hopes we can find that passion again and have many more years together. I will be completely lost without her if we don't make it through this journey together. Tomorrow I go back to work, it's been over three years since I've had an actual paycheck job. I am so excited and nervous at the same time. But I am so proud of myself that I am actually sticking with this and making it happen. My girlfriend is also proud of me, maybe this will be the first step in renewing her faith in me.

Day 34: Halting the Hustle

Day 34: I keep who I am anonymous because I worry what those that don't know about drug addiction would think of me, how they would judge me. It is not because I am ashamed of who I am, I know this experience will make me a better person in the long run. I just wish everyone was forced to live the life of a drug addict, with no money for one week. I say no money because only then they would really feel what it means to truly be an addict. It probably wouldn't even require a whole week for those individuals to be more sympathetic of those truly suffering. I often wonder how I allowed myself to ever get in this position. Most people say addictions is hereditary, there is generally a pattern in one's family history; thus allowing the addict insight into addiction plus someone in their family to seek sympathy or support from. That's not the case in my situation. Drug addiction or any addiction for that matter is not found in my family history. So why me, was I just so much weaker than everyone else? I never did drugs as a kid or teen, even though I grew up in a home that was abusive and lacked love, I never turned to drugs. As a teen and young adult I guess you could say I was addicted to cutting, yep I was a cutter. But I hid it so very well and few people ever found out. At 16 was my first suicide attempt, I'm glad I failed. I thought it would make my parents realize my pain and make them love me more, but three days in ICU was all the whole event ended up amounting to. I was 24 years old when I started using, that's just crazy to me...I was an adult and I didn't say no and the addiction was still able to get its hold on me. Maybe if there had been someone in my family that had been through addiction, I would have seen the signs, known what I was in for. But I myself had never been impacted directly by addiction, I was clueless. Therefor, had I been made to be an addict for a week, a required class at the age of 18 to become an adult, I believe this is a path I would have been able to avoid and it would also allow me to be more sympathetic to those addicts around me.

"For those who understand

no explanation is needed.

For those who do not understand,

no explanation is possible."

Day 33: Halting the Hustle

Day 33: I know I will always be an addict, this will be a lifelong battle. But I'm beginning to feel the shock of the life change wearing off and I am beginning to slowly adjust to the new life that is ahead. Last week I took a huge step and removed myself completely as the middle man. I gave anyone that called me looking for drugs a number for someone else to call. Letting them know I didn't really wish to be a point of contact for that reason any longer. I never had anymore than personal here, but I was still playing middle man to make my little personal sack to stay high. It helped me to reduce my daily using to next to nothing after it was shared between my girlfriend and I. But by slowing reducing the daily amount it's now not the first thing I think about when I wake up and I am actually able to wake up and get my day going without it. Don't get me wrong, I am still tired beyond belief, but I don't feel like I'm dying. My phone doesn't ring at all now and I am totally broke so no money to buy, so my using will be very little if any from this point forward. Which is exactly what I want. I have come to grips with what will probably come of my relationship and will just continue to take it one day at a time, and will worry about crossing that bridge if it comes to that. I pray I'm wrong and that we are able to overcome this struggle, because of all the things we have encountered in the over 10 years we've been together, this will be the most difficult so far.

The best thing about putting drugs behind me are the friendships I will be able to pursue again. I had to let go of some really important friends because of the effects my life choices would have on their life. Having to let those friendships go killed me and is one reason I had decided to make this change. When you lack in the family department like I do, friends become your family. Having to lose those friendships was like losing my own family twice. I only pray these friends will understand why I withdrew from them and welcome me back with open arms. Cause I love them with all my heart.

" You don't have to see the whole staircase.

Just take the first step."

-Martin Luther King, Jr.-

Day 32: Halting the Hustle

Day 32: Wow!!! In my opinion I have reached a milestone... 1 month no hustling. As hard as it was to get here, it actually went by really fast, as long as I continue to just take it one day at a time. My life is finally moving forward in a positive direction. Today I finished applying for a job I anticipate defiantly getting. I'll be working the overnight shift, so I am still moving forward with continuing my education. I know things are about to get really busy for me, but I am ready. I know that with having an income and going to school I will begin to gain some self-worth back. For those that are wondering, my DMT experience was disappointing. I didn't break through as they call it, so I just experienced the hallucinations and the body high from it. Defiantly not enough to make me fall in love with it. Not sure if I will ever try it again. So in short, it didn't do anything for my depression. I have come to realize I am the only one that can be held responsible for that. By achieving the short-term goals I am setting for myself with a job and college, hopefully my depression will improve. It took just about all the energy I had to even become motivated enough to fill out the application, but that's the hard part out of the way, the rest will just follow. So here's to one month down and many more to go!