REAL STORIES

Age: 27
Gender: Female
Location: Denver, Colorado

I nearly died through my IV addiction to meth. I began using sporadically at age of 16 and dropped out of school. I began living from place to place because my parents would not put up with my use. I had three children before the age of 20 which were all taken away by my family because I was a horrible mother and cared more for my addiction than my own children. By the time I was 21, I was running the streets of Denver, homeless and stealing cars for a place to sleep when I did sleep. I sold my body for drugs, I stole from everyone to support my habit and went in and out of jail all of the time. I had racked up 5 new felony cases that I was on the run from by the time I was 23. I had become an IV user that weighed about 95 pounds. I never showered, ate or slept. I just ran the streets of Denver looking for the next person I could use or sell my body to to get high. Finally one day I was driving in a stolen car and saw the cops lights come on behind me. I knew that if they caught me I was going to prison for a long time so I tried to jump out of the moving car at 20 mph and fell under the vehicle. The vehicle ran me over and I laid in the middle of the road. When the cop tried to handcuff me, I tried to punch and kick him so I could get away. The cop tazed me in the back and I became unconscious. I woke up in ICU with tubes everywhere and broken ribs. A doctor came in to see me and told me that I was pregnant AGAIN. On top of that I was handcuffed to the bed and I knew I was going to jail. I spent my entire pregnancy in jail and by the grace of God, I was granted a 6 year DOC suspended sentence and 4 years in Peer One. I was offered the opportunity to enter a TC program where I could keep my baby. I spent 3 years in Peer One and graduated the program in July of 2007. I finished my sentence with them in March 2009 and am proud to say that I am a single mother raising all 4 of my children, working full time and about to graduate from college.

If there is anyone out there that will listen, please know that Meth will take everything you have ever loved from you, it will take your soul and kill you! It hates you! You cannot imagine the pain- physical, emotional, mental- that I have gone through and that I have put my children and family through. It was the hardest thing that I have ever gone through in my life and the most regretted thing I have ever done. Please, please, do not even try it. Not even once. This stuff is deadly and kills your dreams, ambitions and future. Not to mention the emotional damage that I have done to my poor innocent children. Almost 12 years later, I can finally say that I know who I am and that meth is no part of that picture.

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