I remember before my addiction I was afraid of my life my mother, she always covered and Hubbard over me because I was her only girl. I didn’t understand that then, but I definitely understand now she was my protector and it was her job as my mother to keep me safe. We didn’t really ever have a father figure until my stepfather came into my life a very late age, and he was like a lie to us because he taught us things even taught me how to fish and I hate Baites 
to death. I remember being 14 years old, awkward kid. No guy would ever talk to felt like nobody would ever date me because I was the nerd of the class I was the nerd of the school. I opt always walked around with books when a recess came all I wanted to do was read and that was my escape from reality because I can find myself in those stories and I can get lost and disappear. Then I became married at a young age. I had a house full of children at a young age, and I didn’t know who I was anymore all I knew is that I had a family that I had to take care of because I have created it and I was alone, but not necessarily alone because my kids father was there, but he was a older gentleman and he didn’t do the things that I like to do because I was young and as a result of that, we ended up parting ways and you talking about a heartbreak my heart feel like it fell out of my chest. Then I jumped off the porch and I jumped right into addiction without any questions or anything because I wanted the pain to stop so badly I was hurt hurting I was hurt hurting real bad I couldn’t stop crying. I felt like I had failed my babies, I felt like life was coming to an end because I didn’t know how to live without this man I couldn’t breathe without him because he was all I knew from the age of 12 to the time I was 30 years old. I felt I had no life without him and then it came that time where we weren’t together anymore everything in me screamed die because you don’t know what you’re doing even when my mother Rich have to try to help me. I jumped in the shallow in the pool and almost drowned. I told her to just let it be broken. Just leave me alone and then my addiction became more powerful than ever because that was started to speak to me. I heard my soul cry and I don’t know if anybody knows what that feels like. I felt like a glass house that somebody had already threw a rocket and it was shattered and if you pinged it just a little bit it was gonna Break and over the years and over the cost of time I allowed myself to really be broken. Nobody that I hung around ever asking any questions they never cared about what was going on with me. All they cared about was simply me getting them high because when I came in, I came with the money and I came with the drugs and I came with the alcohol I came with a full fletch party so whenever it came to me, nobody was ever asking those questions saying what’s wrong Auntie 
T are you OK? They would always ask Auntie 
what you need how much you need Auntie 
. What do you need me to show up at Auntie ? What’s the plan for today and that was love for me for years that was love for me until a couple of my suppliers really got deep into my life and I really became their auntie because they wouldn’t talk to anybody else but me when it came to series issues in their life and I figured if I could do this for them, I could do this for myself. I remember staring at the window at a trap house across the street from a graveyard and I remember visualizing myself being put into one of those graves I remembered nobody being at my funeral while my casket was being lowered down into the dirt not even my brothers out of embarrassment shame I remember, looking at my casket. It was raining really hard, and even though my grave was full of water they still dropped my body in it because I was an addict who lived her life as an addict who nobody loved anyway, I went through years and years and real years of explaining this to counselors therapist psychiatrist, and it hurts so bad that I wasn’t there for my children. The pain was too much to bear especially when my child asked me mama why are you trying to leave me? See a lot of people they hear my story and they’re like oh none of that happen or are you gonna be OK or you are a strong person? I’m the only strong because I have to be because I don’t have anybody that I could be soft with. I’m strong because nobody showed me how to be soft. They only tried to break me with every file word every painful tear every strike of a hand that’s all they ever tried to do, but to be here for me the solemnly say you can be a woman I don’t need you to be the man because I’m the man was just too much for a man to say to me so even broken I didn’t get a chance to be broken so here’s what I did. I decided that I was going to work on me and by any means necessary, regardless of who I had to let go of or who I lost the process I knew from jump I was forced to be reckoned with because when I put into saving me, I put into saving me and that’s when God rich down he snatched me up and he said you are not alone and as a result of God saying that I’m not alone, and my children is being my best cheerleader ever I stand, I stand in they hold my head up high. I don’t take the disrespect that was once thrilled at me I didn’t accept the meanness or the anger or the frustrations of a man who was a man enough to be a man in the first place he was simply a boy not ready to lead, but then God sent me a man that was ready to lead and a man that I already had in my life, but I didn’t know it at the time so this man reached back out to me and when he reached back out to me, he healed me and when I tell you, he healed me. He healed me from the inside, and then he worked his way out. He let me know that I was his heartbeat, and there was no other woman for him but me he let me know that I could hold my head up high and I don’t have to drown in my own tears and whenever I did cry, he would be right there to drive them this man he’s prayed over me more than I have ever prayed over him and I promise you when I tell you, God don’t make no mistakes. God does not make any mistakes. I’m standing here almost 4 years clean a month away from being four years, clean and sober from drugs, alcohol and cigarettes mind you and God has been the leader of my life and he has been dieting me every day that I breeze he has giving me a teach child challenge and he has guided me through all the dark pain all the dark days and he’s giving me nothing but a rainbow and light I may be your addict and recovery, but I’m a soldier in his army as a result of this me changing everything me submitting to some things and having a challenge myself every day to make a clean and sober break every single day God has my back just to let you know I write these things to help others in their families to understand addiction. It may be a clean person, trying to understand an addict. This let them know that they are not alone, and we are not alone either we need our families to help us on this journey, but if need be, we are prepared to live and walk alone and that’s something that I don’t wish for anybody so if I write these to be encouraged to someone else that they may encourage me to keep thriving every single day
