I look back now and after doing some calculating, it blows my mind how much money I've wasted over the years. Seriously. The sad and scarey thing is, even if I knew back then how much money I was wasting on dope, it wouldn't have mattered...In fact it wouldn't even have mattered that I was taking my clothes off in front of a room full of strange men in order to get that money. (There was a time when I enjoyed my job as a stripper but once I got hooked on drugs that became my sole reason for going to work, not good IMO). If I would have saved the money I made, damn I'd have it made in the shade right now! Let's figure this, I was a dancer for 12 yrs (let's knock say 3 yrs off of that just for maternity leave, being sick etc)..now let's look at the 2 yrs I was at my total worst with dope. I worked 6 nights a week and got high on crack every night. (I'm going to do a bare minimum here). Out of 2 yrs let's say I worked 45 wks each yr (92 wks total). In one week I would spend a minimum of $ 720..(remember this is a MINIMUM usually more was being put out than that believe me!) That works out to $66 240!! ON DRUGS ALONE! Never mind what I was spending on top of that for booze!! Now getting more realistic, I could spend an easy $200-300 a night..you figure it out! WHAT A WASTE! I stop and think about that and kick myself in the ass over and over and over..I could own my own home, a car, have money put away for the kids for college..gone on vacation etc etc...its CRAZY! Like I said though, at the time even if I would've know these rough figures, it wouldn't have mattered. All that mattered was getting high. I needed to hear the crackle, taste it in my mouth, smell it ( I loved that smell!) and get that rush. That was all that mattered to me. It didn't matter that I had 2 beautiful kids at home who missed me, needed me and loved me... it didn't matter that I was forking over $50 a day just to get to work because I wouldn't work anywhere else because I KNEW at the club I was at I could get away with it right in the change room. It didn't matter that I was turning into a coldhearted bitch. NOTHING mattered except getting high. AND THAT my friends is hard for me to deal with...Fact of the matter is it happened, yes I was an addict, yes my sole exsistence in life for a time was to get stoned which eventually turned into this crazy need to do so much I would drop dead. Twisted or what?! Twisted but true...yet in an odd way it turned out to be a good thing..I, at some point, came to realize that I was a fucking waste, I was a shame to my children, the 2 most important people in my life..I was a shame to myself..I can't say exactly what happened to make me see the truth (a whole shitload of truths actually), maybe it was getting evicted from our home and having to send the kids to their dads for 3 weeks while I lived in a fucking hotel and worked 12 hour days! Maybe it was people around me that DIDN'T use that were saying "HEY! You're going overboard and I'm worried"..who knows. Maybe I'll never remember but it really doesn't matter anymore, not to me anyway. What matters to me now is the fact that I am getting better, I am getting stronger and I'll never go back to that life!
What life is that? Ha! Its a shitty one to say the least. Getting up everyday as late as possible feeling like a bag of shit, slapping together a simple dinner (though sometimes I'd make the 3 of us a nice roast or something), cranking the tunes, cracking a beer, hopping in the shower, dropping off the kids and off to work I went!! On my way to nightly party! As soon as we (I always worked with my girlfriend) got there, it was time to get high. Oh! and the Gods forbid if we had to wait a fucking hour for someone to show up!! SHEESH the nerve of some of these fucking people was unreal!! *yea okay Raven could you cram your head up your ass any farther or what?!* And the night went on, cold beer, good laughs and passing the pipe around..the work night would come to an end and if my kids were gone overnight (which they usually were), it was off to a party or a bunch of us would head over to someones hotel to drink some more and get even MORE high. Stumble home at around 5 or so do up the last of what I had, pop a valium and attempt to crash. Of course sleep never came easy because I was far too high and disgustingly paranoid and jonesin for more rock yet feeling guilty and.....well you get the idea I'm sure. The next day the routine would start all over again. What a pitiful and pathetic life...but at the time I didn't care, hell I don't even think I knew how pathetic I was. Just think there are people in the world who are WAY worse than that!! Wasted time...
In any case, like I said its behind me now for the most part..and its not easy believe me but it CAN be done..all it took for me was a little self discovery, a lot of courage for what I was about to do.. and the ability to let go... |
