I'm Wendie and I'm a recovering addict...  The purpose of this blog is to put all my recovery stuff in one place... including my step work.  If i can help another addict and/or alcoholic through my willingness to share that information...  then i will be happy.

---

I started my life as a pretty normal kid...  Normal for a military brat anyway...  I moved the first time at 3 months old..  and was never in one place long enough to really make friends.  The longest we ever stayed anywhere was 5 1/2 years...  in Germany...  beautiful country..  but it's hard to make friends in a place that you don't speak the language not that i was ever good at making friends to begin with.  I went through the trials and tribulations of elementary school pretty much like other kids.. I started using drugs in Jr High school because they were prescribed to me by a doctor.  Dexedrine.. portable speed.  I took four or five pills at a time and it's a wonder to me now...looking back on it..  that someone in Jr High didn't notice how amped i was... I also took up drinking.  During this time.. Myself and two other kids... one of them my sister.. were molested by a neighbor...  it has been a great source of shame and depression to me through my life that i was too young to know how to protect myself and more importantly to me... my sister.   After all this happened... i blamed my mom for a lot of things that weren't her fault. I was a kid... I didn't or couldn't associate the anger i felt with what he had done.  Once he moved away and as time passed..  this became blocked out in my memories..  i just didn't remember it.  I got busted once for having alcohol... a 5th of brandy in my locker...  this started a long list of problems i was bringing on for myself.  I was kicked out of school over it...I was locked in the psychiatric ward at Sacred Heart Medical Center at 13 years of age several times for attempts to kill myself.  That, combined with constant running away and general misbehavior landed me in a lockdown juvenile treatment center.   From there i ran away on multiple occasions. My last escape got me all the way to New York where i was eventually caught and brought back to Spokane.  I was put in foster home after foster home and I ended up on the streets permanently at 17.  I used various kinds of drugs in varying amounts..  mostly smoking pot and dropping acid just for entertainment.  I did the occasional line of crank now and again...  but nothing really serious ever happened to me.  it wasn't until i was 24.. after a long and abusive relationship ended that i got into the meth.  Noni (Someone i considered to be a mother to me at the time) pretty much kept me high.. That relationship ended with her threatening to kill me and me telling her to forget it and slicing my own wrist. I still bear that scar.  At 26 years old.. i got pregnant with my daughter.  i did really good while i was pregnant. i stayed clean. Did everything i needed to do for my pregnancy and on January 9th 2002, Aeryn Tanna Susanne Zoren was born.  My joy was shortlived.  They took her from me based on mental illness that was a direct result of an addiction that i had managed to keep a secret somehow.  I fought to get her back for a while...  but as soon as i was no longer being drug tested for Child Protective Services... I got loaded again... it started out with pot...  and ended with me giving my daughter to my parents permanently...  they adopted her at 9 months old.  I met my (now ex)  boyfriend when i was a month clean...  it lasted about 2 years... he was your typical 13th stepping creep.  When he and i broke up the first time..  i relapsed...    When we broke up the final time..  i realized that no man is worth getting loaded over.  My life now is so much better than it ever was before.  I have a home, roommates who genuinely care about me and WANT to see me stay clean, a dog that loves me unconditionally and most of all i have a relationship with my daughter that i would never allow myself to have if i was loaded. 

 

I hope that by telling this story i can  help someone else get clean. The links i put up here are ones that i use in my daily life to keep myself clean. 

Currently listening to: The computer grumbling
Currently feeling: lighthearted