Drug Addiction: How Did You Get Help?
Darkina describes how her drug use escalated and recalls why she decided to get help.
More Videos from Darkina 14 videos in this series
Darkina:
I went into treatment again, on August 18 and it got to the point being out there using the drugs I didn’t know why I was using the drugs. I didn’t want to use the drugs anymore. I was crying and using the drugs. I was crying being a prostitute. I had no understanding on, “How did my life end up the way it had ended up?” I was being raped numerous times, beaten numerous times, and didn’t understand, “Why can’t I stop? I don’t want to do this no more.”
I went to jail several, several times and I am going to call it a god thing that the third time that I went to jail two weeks apart from each other, the jailor said, “I am going to give you a chance. I am looking at 2.5 years.” She said, “I am going to give you a chance. I think you are going to do it this time; you might mess up one time,” and she gave me a chance. She gave me three years probation. I called my probation officer and told her I needed some help. She gave me the number over to Ebony House.
I called Ebony House. They said there were 30 people ahead of me and I told them I was sick, “I am getting high talking to you; I need some help. Can you please come and help me?” And they told me to come over on a Monday. That was a Thursday, they told me to come over Monday. My life changed. At that point I surrendered. I gave up everything.
It wasn’t about my children anymore. It wasn’t about my family anymore. It wasn’t about no one but me. I needed some professionals to help me figure out what was going on because I couldn’t figure it out anymore. I went into Alba House. I sit down. I shut up and I listened.
I didn’t want to run anything anymore. I needed to find out why I did not have control over a demon called crack cocaine that did not have a brain. It only moved when I moved it. I didn’t have no understanding. How could I not have no control over it? So I went in there, got some, you know, I got a chance to deal with my molestation as a child. I got a chance to deal with my life coming up as a child, you know, how things that I just blocked out.
At the age of 18 years old, having six children, only four of them was mine, taking care of my entire family – never learning to have no time for myself. It wasn’t ever about me. It was always about my family, always…that led me to crack cocaine. I could never please them. I could never make them happy so I figured if I got on the level of some of them then maybe hey, then maybe they will understand me, what it would be like not to have me around, and I didn’t realize how important I was to my family until I began to use crack cocaine.
After getting out of treatment, today it’s about myself. It’s not about my children. It’s not about my family. It’s all about me. Today, I know to love me. Today I take care of me and if I take care of me and I love me and I stay clean and I stay sober, everything else is going to follow accordingly. That’s my life that I live today.
The cravings do go away. The cravings do go away. I am a year clean. Do the dreams go away? The dreams don’t go away. Do the thoughts go away? No, the thoughts don’t go away. How do I deal with that? That’s where treatment comes into play. They give you tools. They teach you how not to act on the filling. There was a point in time because the filling came about, I had to act on it. Today I don’t have to act on that filling. Today I call on god sincerely. If it’s too strong, I call on god sincerely but even out of my addiction I pray and ask god if you show me god that I do not need this drug, you know, give me anytime, showing me that I don’t need this god, I will never turn around, and he showed me that I don’t need to wake up to this drug anymore. I don’t need this drug.
I go to my meetings - very important of my sobriety – go to my meetings, hang around people that’s doing the same thing that I am doing and live my life without crack cocaine. I know I cannot be around crack cocaine. I can’t go to places I used to go, do the things that I used to do. I love myself today. I understand my addiction today and because I understand my addiction today, I don’t have to use crack cocaine.
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