History part 1

So, everyone knows where I'm at maybe it's time for how I got here.  I will break this down into installments because there is a lot of history to cover and I wouldn't want to overwhelm anyone.  ;) 

Lets start with addiction, that in and of itself is a long history.  I had used drugs for the majority of my life on and off and found that unlike the majority of people I hung out with.  Marijuana sucked.  I preferred things that kept me awake, made my mind work fast and gave me endless energy.  Well that turned in to a serious problem for me especially after I divorced my second husband.  I have to say that it starts very insidiously though.  At first it was just once in awhile, then I got reacquainted with my third husband and of course got married, he had his own addiction issues long before he met me.  Note the lesson here dysfunction draws dysfunction.  Anyhow I digress, he had lots of contacts that were into crank (that is what meth was called back in the day).  So we got married in November of 95 and by early 98 we were doing meth every day.  This escalated continually, we had several friends that made it, in fact we had one friend that while not addicted to meth was addicted to making the perfect meth.  He needed Guinea pigs to test it for him.  We happily volunteered.  When he finally got arrested for manufacturing it was then called methamphetamine and his tested 99.9% pure.  That was unheard of.  After he was gone we fell in with some others that manufactured it.  Not nearly as well as R. but it was ok.  We learned how to manufacture it ourselves.  Then once a week or so a group of us would get together and make a bunch (no it isn't made in a a bathtub, contrary to popular belief) then divide it among us.  So we finally got caught for that and off to prison for 4 years I went.

Prison was the best thing in my life up til that point to happen to me.  I had time to reflect on how messed up my life really was and the devastation I had wreaked on everyone I cared about, especially my children.  There are still times the guilt of what I put my kids through really eats me up.  Once I was there I was determined to come out of prison a better person than I was when I went in.  I took every conceivable rehabilitation class I could and some that had nothing to do with rehab but helped to make me a better person overall.

Of particular note of the classes in prison is a series called  CP&R  which stands for Cognitive Principles and Restructuring.  OMG!!!!!  What a tough class.  There are 3 levels and it takes guts to even enroll for level 2 let alone go on to 3 because the levels of self examination are extremely intense.  I found I did not like the person I was one little bit.  But the good thing is every level also teaches you to restructure your thinking and behavior patterns.  You come out of it much wiser and with an immense amount of self control and restraint.  You basically learn to be an actor in life and make things happen rather than a reactor that simply reacts to the things that happen around them, and usually in a wrong way.

Also while I prison because of my exemplary behavior and how hard I was working at true rehabilitation I was selected to take part in a Service Dog Training Program that was instituted my second year there.  I will go into much more on that in another post as this one is getting hella long.

Until next post.