Some people like to start their story at the beginning. Others like to work themselves backwards from the end. My story is best told from the middle outward.

A lot of people who have met me later in life find it hard to believe some of the baggage I carry around from past lives. Lives of a person I myself no longer recognize. It's easy to get wrapped up in "coulda, shoulda, woulda", but my goal is to try and work through my behavior at different points in my life and try and understand what motivated and drove me. It's cliche, but those who don't understand history are doomed to repeat it. I have no intention of receding into what was a wasteland of existence 5 years ago.

I am addicted to opiates. Full blown, obsessively addicted to any kind of narcotic, really. Anything that will numb me out and quiet the constant chatter in my head. I started off with pain killers, because I went to a Pharmacy school and all of the trust fund brats I went to school with had parents working in Pharmacies. We were getting 80 mg Oxcotin pills for $30, until the FDA decided to change the makeup of those beauties so they were no longer crushable/snortable. So we switched to 30 mg oxycodone, which we would pay anywhere between $15-$20 for a pop. By today's standards, that's unheard of. You're lucky if you can find a "blue" percacet for under $35.

I didn't even realize I was becoming addicted until it was far too late. I had been warned about how easily it is to get hooked on pain killers, but at such a low price, and a mindset of wanting to behave as poorly as I possibly could in a rebellion against my parents, I was popping those pills like candy, and there was always a steady supply because my boyfriend at the time started selling them.

Then our supply dried out. The father of the classmate we were getting them from got caught stealing pills from his pharmacy, lost his license and spent a few years in jail. It was a very rude awakening. I'll never forget the first day that I felt sick - i had to work a very busy shift at the sports bar I was working at outside of Fenway Park, and we were totally dry. I got into a fight with my boyfriend while I was trying to get ready for work, sweating and swearing. That intense urge to get high was and still remains the most powerful drive I have ever experienced in my life. It out ranks my sex drive, even my survival drive gets tested once and awhile when I would put myself in dangerous situations. It's that monkey on my back that has taught me that there is evil in this world, and it lurks within all of us. We must control our darker instincts and practice mind over matter. The battle between good and evil is much more violent when there is a dopamine release button involved. Ah, such a love hate relationship I have with opiates.

Things got expensive. Jobs were lost. Families were hurt and integrity was burned. I'll get into specifics further down the road but all you need to understand right now is that when you become a drug addict, that drug becomes your life. You lose touch with everything else that matters. You no longer care what happens to you, and that is a very, very dangerous thing. It changes your character and you behave in ways that are so narcissistic at their core that its nauseating to reminisce on it.

I moved from pills to dope, ditched a codependent shitty ex boyfriend (see later chapter), spent a few years alone, finally got my life together and met the love of my life. I turned it around. But wasn't easy. I hope maybe my story will inspire another addict to do the same.

So now you know the biggest defining factor of my 20's. Welcome to my life. I'll get into some more specifics next time around. Thank you for joining me on this journey,...