Heroin

It didn't take long for me to find my dad's pain medication.  And it took no time for me to go ahead and open up one of the bottles and help myself. The first time I did it, I took 4 pills.   Getting to do two 30s each was awesome.  Usually we got one each per day or we didn't even get an oxy......which was worse than just getting one. We went into the bathroom...... adrenaline kicked into high gear. We felt high before we even got our rigs out.  It was too easy.  We hadn't had to hunt or do anything for this.  We were literally giddy.   Laughing.  Anticipating.   We should have saved two for the next day but we had been borderline sick for days and we were finally going to be well....maybe even a little bit high.  I let Ger hit me for old times sake. We had struck gold. I rushed like I hadn't in a while.....and all the feelings came back. The infatuation....the turn on.....the seduction of the whole act.   Both locked in the bathroom at my parents house......sick in the head but well in body. We were instantly different people.   We were going to get the girls from school and have an awesome family night.  We were going to go look for jobs, and I was going to work on that essay I should have had finished by now.  We were "so happy".  This became a thing.  A big, bad thing. Sometimes we would take enough for ourselves and sometimes we would take enough for us and to sell and make money. We started helping ourselves to anything and everything.  We were entitled.   We were addicts.  My dad had a change jar with thousands of coins....thousands of dollars worth.  He had it ever since I can remember. We took thousands from it.  Later to find out that my precious Poppy had loved the coin jar and often put Pennys in their for her grandpa. Well, they were gone now, just like my soul.
My parents didn't like us anymore.   They weren't fooled. We were either laying around all day, freezing, noses running, sweating, throwing up, no energy, unable to be parents, or we were happy, high energy, parents of the year, helping around the house, highly motivated and overly positive.  I can't imagine how exhausting and troubling it was to watch this day in and day out.  To listen to our "omg....we must have gotten the flu, or food poisoning, or I don't know WTF is wrong with us....both....always at the same time"......pathetic attempts to hide our horrific addictions. The absolute worst was the girls birthdays.  I spent all my money on their birthday presents and thought we could just help ourselves to my dad's medication to get us through the couple of days. I was wrong.   There were no opportunities to help ourselves.  Someone always around....never the right timing. The girls birthdays were 3 days apart and Collettes birthday was (is) on the day of Poppy's death.  Being pill sick and being the anniversary of my babies passing and the birthdays of my two way more deserving daughters was overwhelming.....to say the least.  It was fucking devestating.   I hated myself.....I fucking loathed myself.   The girls had friends over and I remember that year I got them a volleyball net.  They wanted to set it up and have a family volleyball game.  We were so sick.....and my mind was blown.  I was wrapped up in blankets and begged Ger to come help me set up the volleyball net.  He did.  He tried.   We both tried.  We got it set up and tossed the ball around a little.  I remember feeling so sorry for the girls.  I looked a mess.....pale.....freezing.....trembling....making up excuses of having the flu in front of the girls friends.  Trying to smile and make their birthdays fun.  We were all hurting.   The pain in my heart matched the pain in my body that day.
Neither one of us were working but I was still somewhat, somehow, taking classes at the college. Our criminal behavior was getting stronger and stronger.  We did what fit our needs without much room anywhere for a conscience.
This is around the time I started going my own way....the drugs ....the life style pulling me further and further away from my girls.  When the opportunity to steal from dad came, then we were around, but when it didnt, Ger and I would leave on the search and be gone for days at a time.  The girls had friends that they practically lived with and my mom took care of them when they were home.
One night Ger decided he wanted to leave town.....go back to where he was from and see his friends and family....and find more opportunity.  The family that he lived with as a teen were all into drugs....all kinds...so surely we could find our get down. We borrowed money from my mom and stole some more from my dad and packed up one late night and took off. Told the girls I needed to get away and that Ger needed to see his family.   I told the girls I would be back after the weekend. Got in the car and drove.  It was about a 5 hour drive to where we were going...but we went the opposite direction to the block first to get more pills to add to the pills we stole from my dad to make the drive. We drove all night....Listening to music...smoking...shooting up. We were hitting ourselves in the dark while driving.  We didn't spare any of the pills we had because Ger knew we could get anything we wanted once we got to our destination. We got pretty loaded.  Im not sure how we made it there alive. But we did.  We pulled up this driveway and Ger jumped out of the car....he was so excited!!! He introduced me to his "family".  A "mom", two brothers, and the dad.  The dad was intimidating as hell, but welcomed me.  The mom, Silvia, was super sweet, and loving.  She immediately asked us if we were hungry and fed us. The brothers, Timmy, and Tommy, were nice.....one an adult, and one a teenager.   They were what I can think to describe as "backwoodsy".   After we ate Ger went in a back room with Timmy, the oldest brother and I was left to Silvia who immediately started asking me how Ger was REALLY doing.  She spoke with me about how fucked up Ger had been losing his mother and that she loved him so much and was glad he had me and seemed to be doing well.   What was Ger doing?  If it had anything to do with drugs, I wanted in.....what the hell?   Finally he came out and told me to come back with him.   He and Timmy started talking about rigs....did we have any....yes of course we had rigs. We must be getting ready to get high but something seems awfully secretive.   Ger tells me to sit down. The room is trashed and there is a mattress on the floor with blankets and clothes piled all over it.   I sit on the mattress ..... on the clothes.  Ger has his back turned to me talking to Timmy in a low voice.  Is the low voice because of me or because of Silvia?   Ger turns to me with a syringe in his hands. The syringe is full of black liquid......it looks like mud.....wtf.  "baby, this is all there is...it will keep you well, I promise."  Okay....I'm game.....just fucking give it to me. He's in no hurry and I'm getting irritated.    He looks concerned....or regretful....I'm not sure....but I don't care. "This is gonna be different, baby, this is heroin".   I'm like "la la la.......wait......what?" I asked him if he did it.  He said yes.  Okay then I want to, too.  He gets down in front of me on my level.   He starts explaining to me what is going happen....how I'm going to feel.  It reminded me of the first time shooting up in his buddies basement.  I'm ready allready.  He told me I was  going to get a very different feeling.  Okay, okay I got it. To be honest I was a little scared.....but not scared enough.  He put the needle in my arm.  Pulled back.  Put the heroin in super slow. My eyes rolled back and I rolled back on the mattress.
Black.
I opened my eyes and looked around....I couldn't lift my head.  I couldn't move.  Ger was there.  He was saying things to me. He helped me to sit up.   I rolled back on the mattress again.
Black.
I opened my eyes.  What the fuck.  Where was I?  I pulled myself up .... kind of....and rolled onto the floor.  Ger came in and got down on the floor beside me. I smiled.  I felt crazy fucked up. Nothing seemed real.  I think I crawled along the floor until Ger was able to get me to a standing position. Then I remember being out in the living room and smiling and feeling so happy.  My voice seemed different and everything seemed in slow motion. It was sunny outside. We walked to the back yard and again, I was crawling on the ground.  Puking. Smiling.  Crawling over to Ger.   The next thing I remember was laying in the front yard next to Ger.   I crawled up on top of him and strattled him.  He started kissing me. I'm happy.  I'm free.  Not a worry in the world.  It's morning.  No idea what time.  He started taking off my clothes.  I think there are people standing on the porch.   I smile.  This is so beautiful.  Some time went by and we are full on fucking in the grass and a car drives up.   A girl yells out the window. " She's beautiful, Ger! " He yelled something back about how lucky he was.  I crawled off of him and puked again. I remember nothing else.  For I don't know how long.....hours?  Days.
 More.
 I wanted more.
After a couple days the high was less and less each time.  But still out of this world. I don't remember much and I don't remember how long we were there. I would sit down on the couch and wake up hours later still sitting up.   We tried to go home several times.  The first time we drove down the road a ways and stopped at at gas station.  We woke up 6 hours later in the car.  Don't remember parking or anything about what was going on.  We decided to go back to Silvias for another night instead of nod out driving.   We did this several times....over several days before we actually made it back home.
Heroin.   Much cheaper than pills.  Much better high. I learned quickly that the heroin we did that week was good heroin.  The stuff we found around home was rarely up to par compared.   It was almost always cut.  We did find a couple of old biker guys who sold the real thing.   Dealing with them wasn't the same as dealing with our "buddies" who sold pills. You didn't text these guys a million times.  If they had it they sold it.  If they didn't, they didnt. This new game definitely introduced us to a whole new crowd.   Some of the same....but a lot of new people in our lives.   Shit got real.  It was no longer so and so from the block living with his parents and stealing mommy's pills.   Now we were hanging around very sick people. People with serious criminal backgrounds.....people willing to do anything.   Anything.  To get their heroin.
Mom and dad were over it by the time we got  back.   They didn't want Ger staying at the house anymore.  Dad had spent alot of time being sick from running out of his pills too early.   Plus, watching two adults not even try to work had to have been sickening.   So Ger stayed at friends houses alot.   That was a strain on our relationship.   We would get a hotel every so often or I would go stay with him on someone's floor or couch.  I was always upset that he wasn't getting a job or doing anything to try to get us into a home or anything.    It felt like anything that happened was because I made it happen.  It was super frustrating. But I couldnt stay away from him.   I was addicted to him.  I wanted him.   I wanted to belong to him.
I got another lump sum of money and Ger and I decided to take the girls on another vacation.  Collette brought her boyfriend....she was a little older now, and Holly brought her best friend. We took took them to Seaside. Had tons of money, tons of pills, and H. It was a long drive and as usual, it was more like a bunch of teens on a wild, unsupervised road trip, rather than a family vacation. We arrived and checked into a hotel and then walked around all day shopping and playing on the beach.  It was a fun day. We,  of course, had spent a ton on drugs and couldn't stay at the same hotel the second night.  That night we couldn't find a hotel.  We didn't plan ahead.......ever. We drove around for hours, and Ger was getting really irritated.  He started arguing with me and yelling in front of the kids. It was getting really uncomfortable. Finally we found a little motel that was not nice and actually and little scary.   We started getting everything out of the car. Ger ran in the bathroom and said he left the pills on the counter for me.  I went in there and there was nothing.   He kept saying he didn't know what happened to them.   He did them all and left me nothing.  He was screaming and yelling at me outside and I told him to leave.  I was breaking up with him.   Done.   He left on foot in the dark and in the rain.    The girls were mortified at the fighting in front of friends......and of course were insecure.  I was mortified for lots of reasons.  It was awful.  Plus now I had all the kids and no drugs.  And a long night and a long drive the next day. What the fuck was I going to do? I was sick of everything.  I went in and told the kids how sorry I was and that it's going to be okay.   They and I both knew something changed that night.   They saw a different side of Ger and my heart was broken.   Ger and I were so far gone at this point we just couldn't portrey what we always had tried to portrey anymore.  We were slipping. I got the kids all situated in bed and told them all I loved them and couldn't hold the tears back.  I went to the bathroom to try to find a dropped pill or a rinse......something.  Ya.......it was all gone.   I layed down telling myself that I could do this.  Ger's temper had been out  of control lately.  He was showing me a different side too.  Hell, maybe I'll just quit.   I started to feel sick.  I don't think I really was considering how much I had used that day, but just knowing that I had nothing made my body start aching.  I drifted off to sleep.
I was woken up by a knock on the door.   It was like 3 in the morning.  I opened the door and Ger came in and layed down on the floor.  Didn't say a word.  Okay.
The next morning he was telling the kids he wanted to take them to see the lighthouse and some other things. I was for sure sick at that point and just wanted to get home to get well.  I was so pissed at him.  We went to the places he wanted to show the kids and I just stayed quiet.  I was so cold and uncomfortable.  I asked him to call Silvia.  (We were closer to her house then home.) At least then maybe we could get well.  We headed that direction.  Ger was excited for the girls to get to meet them.........and I was just excited.  We got there and Silvia was so happy to meet the girls.  She welcomed all of us with open arms.  I felt relieved.....like we had pulled it off that we were extending our vacation to meet family.  Ger and I got well.  We ended up having a good time and staying longer.   Taking the kids to do some more fun stuff.   Then heading home.
I went down hill so fast from this point.....I don't even really know where to start. I somehow managed to get us into another rental.  This was a very nice home in the same town as my parents again. We moved the girls again.  Our drug habit was thousands upon thousands of dollars.  Spending every dime of unemployment and of school loans and stealing the rest. My car broke down and so......we were without a car.  If it couldn't go in our veins we didn't buy it.  So we didn't do things like take our car to shop or get oil changed or fix it when it broke.  We went without.  I would borrow my mom's car to run back and forth to get drugs or we would get rides from friends who were doing the same. We did alot of walking around and alot of hustling. Being stuck in the town we lived in without a car put alot of limitations on us.   We continued to steal from my dad and from my family.  It was never enough.  Never.  We would go days at a time being sick.  Sending the girls to my mom while we layed on the livingroom floor......days blending into nights......in so much pain.  We wouldnt speak or touch.  Both of us groaning in agony. We needed more money.   I called the Dr office I had worked for for so many years before my daughter died and and asked them if I could come back.   They said yes.  I remember wondering how I was going to pull this off ......working.....and inevitably being sick sometimes.  I was angry at Ger for not working at this point.    Resentful.  Our blissful relationship wasn't the exciting romantic erotic relationship anymore.   I mean,  I was head over heels for him still, but when you're sick so much the stress takes a tole. We were happy in love when we had h or pills, but without one or the other we were both sick and in such a state of panic that working on our relationship wasn't top priority.  I was to start work in a few days and I needed to buy some scrubs.  Ger didn't want me  spend the money.   He wanted more drugs.  I mean I did too, but I was going back to work and it was required.   We got in our first physical fight over this.   The girls were at school and he came at me yelling and pushed me down to the ground.  I was in shock.  (For a split second and then I pushed him back) We weren't supposed to be like this.
 Ger and I had a mutual friend that lived close who started hanging out at our house. He was young and smoked alot of weed.   I went through phases of smoking a little bit, but never alot like everyone else I knew. This friend would be at my house all day with Ger smoking weed while I went to work all day and they did nothing. My resentments were growing by the day.   Ger would call me at work and ask me to get a draw and it would piss me off so badly.  But I always ended up doing it because I wanted the  same thing..........more drugs.  I was trying so hard to be a normal person at work, sick or well, and it was exhausting.   I would tell him to go  hustle or do something to help.  He would go do "jobs"....stealing or whatever to contribute.   I had completely finally dropped school at this point but was making good money at the  office.  I was doing mass amounts of heroin before, during, and after work.
It's difficult to describe the way we were living.  The girls were getting older and the relaxed parenting was getting more and more relaxed. Parenting didn't really exist anymore, really.   I loved my girls but heroin had taken over.  The extreme battles in my head didn't exist as much because I was consumed by being and staying well. I was making enough money to pay my $850 rent, and all my bills plus I could have gotten a car and taken care of the girls and lived comfortably. But I was allready behind on rent my first month. My stress level was greater than it had been since I met Ger.  Working was so hard.  I had patients to take care of and I was shooting up on my lunch breaks. I allowed Collette to start smoking weed at the house.  I stayed home with her and watched her the first time she tried it with her friends.  She told me later that they were taking my cigarettes and smoking them too. Both girls had friends over all the time like at our other house.  We had high nights and low nights with the kids.  No structure what so ever. On the high nights they and their friends loved being at the house. We made up a game to play one night. (One high night)  "Indoor volleyball".  Ger and I played with them all the time. We would stand in a circle in the livingroom and volley the ball to each other.   Whoever knocked a picture frame off the wall or knocked anything down was out.    The first person to break something ended the game.   Then we would start over with all players.  We had so much fun and played this often.  It's one of all of our most fun memories. Things like this always kept us close......and kept me in the category of the cool mom.
It was beginning to be impossible to get to work every day.  My x mother in law told me she would buy me a car if I could find one for $1000.   Ger and I found one for $800 and used $200 for H. Having a car again gave Ger more opportunity to hustle. I was still constantly hounding him to contribute.  So one evening he and the kid, Tony, that was always over smoking weed took the car to go do a job.   Ger called me and told me to wait up for them because they may need medical care when they got back.   I wasn't sure what to expect.   The girls waited up with me until they got back.   Yes, they needed medical care. Tony had blood everywhere and Ger was cut up a little.   I told the girls they had gone to fight someone who had ripped them off.  They had cash and I was turned on.   Whatever my baby had done was a success.   He was such a bad ass.  He got us money.....he got all fucked up....and he wasn't in jail.  I cleaned and bandaged them up. We made phonecalls and got loaded.   I was getting comfortable exposing my girls to my other side.   (Because it wasn't really a side anymore......it was all of me) I was a different person.   I could manipulate......I could lie and steal......and most of the time I didn't care. I was star struck with Ger.  The more thug he became, the more turned on I got.   I pushed him to keep it up and  I wanted to go with him.  It was a new way to rush.  A new way to get turned on.  More risk.....more thrills.  More destructive, self sabotaging behavior.   Heroin wasn't a thrill anymore.  (Though still, the love of my life) It was necessary.....a have too.   I needed to continually raise the bar. I don't know if it was to feel alive or to slip up and die.  But this is where the new love of my life brought me......and I came willingly.