Leave the Light On. Jennifer Storm

      As always, my incredible staff at Victim/Witness Assistance Program and my board of directors; your encouragement, space, and support mean the world to me.

       INTRODUCTION

      I used to live my life deep inside the vortex of addiction. My life spun and spun out of control for ten years as I plunged further down the scale of disgrace and detriment. I picked up my first drink at age twelve and drank addictively the minute the liquid spilled down my throat. It was as though I had been dehydrated for the first twelve years of my life, and suddenly my mirage appeared in the shape of a tall tin can of beer. I blacked out that first time, and when I woke up I was being sexually assaulted by a man more than twice my age. Thus my introduction to sex and alcohol came in its most destructive and painful manner. Instead of that crime serving as a deterrent from alcohol, it drove me right to the bottle, searching and longing desperately to ease the ache and to quiet the confusion.

      I had my first overdose/suicide attempt at age thirteen. What should have been a carefree summer leading to junior high, I wound up spending in a psych ward. Drinking quickly led to smoking pot, dropping acid, and snorting cocaine—which became a weekend norm by age seventeen. I was a bad drunk. I couldn’t hold my liquor. “Beer before liquor, never sicker; liquor before beer, you’re in the clear”—this age-old saying didn’t apply to me. It didn’t matter in what controlled combination I attempted to drink; two things were certain: I had no control, and I was always sick as a dog, puking my brains out. That is, until I found cocaine. Cocaine became my great love. It became my savior. It became the great enabler I was looking for. It allowed me to drink more, longer, and stronger. I became dependent upon the combination of drinking and cocaine. It was always about the alcohol, and cocaine gave me the freedom to drink as much as I wanted. I was looking for anything that helped me dull the pain and escape the disorder in my life. I went to great lengths to maintain a chemically induced state of euphoria.

      Drinking that way led me straight into more victimization. One day, after discovering for the seventh time in three years that another person I loved was dead, I tried the drug that brought me directly to my knees. I was addicted to crack cocaine before I exhaled my first hit. It engulfed me in a state of nothingness that I demanded at the time. Daily I hit the pipe. I lost many jobs, friends, relationships. I was totally unstable and my life was completely unmanageable.

      I drank to avoid dealing with my feelings. Emotions were a foreign concept to me. I quelled them, squashed them, and attempted to create a fantasy world where all things were happy. Except that it wasn’t real. I don’t think I ever experienced a real emotion. It’s not that I didn’t feel—emotions would rise in me like a great tide, building and building, with waves of sadness or anger crashing over me—but I would immediately detach. Go somewhere safe in my mind. Or hit a pipe. Or take a drink. Anything to escape and create a state of flat affect that became synonymous with my day.

      I was an escape artist.

      But I never got away.

      Everywhere I went, I was still there.

      My emotions were all stuffed inside me, hidden just beneath the surface, encased in darkness like a box of valentine chocolates. Some were darker than others. All were contained and appeared pretty and normal on the outside, but when people tried to scratch beneath the surface, they would find a sticky mess. It became harder and harder to keep my feelings hidden beneath the protective glaze I gave them with my daily dose of whatever substance was most convenient.

      Eventually it became impossible to tame the rising surge of shame, guilt, remorse, horror, self-loathing, denial, defeat, despair, and hell I was living in for the ten years I used and abused. All those avoided emotions came to an abrupt head one night after a weekend bender. They wanted out like caged animals and began seeping through every pore of my being. No matter how much I drank, how many hits I took off the pipe—they wouldn’t stop coming out. Tears spilled uncontrollably down my face. Anger reddened my cheeks and ears. I sat with a pretty pink razor with daisies on it, slicing and dicing my own wrists apart. Intent upon ending it all, I turned my mattress into what looked like a blood-soaked maxi pad.

      The feelings were released and exposed to light. When I woke up the next day in a hospital bed, I was amazed and changed. I had an awakening. It wasn’t a moment of clarity, but undeniably an awakening, for it lasted well over a moment. I began hearing what people said around me. I became willing to listen. Words like “alcoholic” and “drug addict” passed my lips with ease. I just knew I was. I was addicted. I was alive. I had a chance. I had hope.

PART 1

       KEEPING IT SIMPLE

       The beauty of recovery was that it was mine and mine alone. I charted my path as it suited me.

1 FLOATING ON THE PINK CLOUD

      “OUR FATHER WHO ART IN HEAVEN, HALLOWED BE Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us… give us…” Blood was dripping over my fingers that were clutched tightly around a rosary—the rosary that had been handed down by generations of emotionally unstable women, the rosary I was trying to use to connect to a God whom I never really spoke to until this moment as I screamed out, “Give us… give us…” Frustration overcame me when I couldn’t remember the words. My grip tightened until I couldn’t distinguish the blood running out of the gaping wounds in my wrists from the blood emerging from slices the crucifix was making. Suddenly the wound, the gaping space of black emptiness in my left wrist, came alive and began to breathe. I realized in horror that the gap wasn’t breathing; it was laughing. It had taken on a lifelike shape. The violent gash I had just created with a pretty pink razor was erupting like a volcano, laughing and spattering blood everywhere. Then it began chanting, “Our Father, Our Father” in a childlike, mocking tone, as if it were taunting me for my inability to complete the prayer—or the deed.

      My body bolted upright in bed as I was violently ripped from the nightmare. Sweat beads slowly traveled down my spine as my eyes attempted to adjust to my surroundings. Immediately my right hand found my left wrist, and my fingers gently traced the soft, raised pink scars that had begun to close the flesh I had torn apart only months before in a desperate attempt to take my life. I drew a deep breath into my lungs as I pulled my knees to my chest, hugged my arms around them, and slowly exhaled, thanking God it was only a dream. It was a dream that wakened me all too often, although it was the memory inside the dream that made it worse to deal with. I slowly looked around the room for the clock. I didn’t have my glasses, so everything around me was out of focus. I saw a bright red, fuzzy blur of numbers but couldn’t make them out. I squinted tightly to try and focus my eyes around the numbers, but it was no use. I found my glasses on the table and placed them on my nose. As the lenses dropped down over my tired eyes, they revealed 6:30 a.m. in a bold, red glow. I was still so used to getting up early from being in a structured living environment for the past eighty-odd days that it almost felt normal to be awake at this hour.

      Two things hit me simultaneously: I was alive, and I was safe. These two things I must constantly remind myself of, and they