What is addiction?
Technically, addiction is when someone becomes physically and psychologically dependent on some mood altering substance. However, for me addiction has been so much more than technical terminology.
My experience with addiction began with my mother use of drugs the earliest experience I can remember was when I was about five or six. I had my hand slapped out of my mother's hand by an officer arresting her. I did not know at the time, but I later learned, it had to do with her involvement with drugs and other crimes. She went to prison for a few years. She came home when I was about 10 years old.
However, when we reunited with her she had already married a man she met in a halfway house. The transition was not so smooth and now I was old enough to understand things. My mom and this man were trying to get their life together but they were struggling, still using drugs. I witnessed them fighting over drugs over and over. I seen my mom get hit during some of these arguments. I tried to intervene, but I ended up being the problem. I didn’t understand why my mom would live like this. But, it wasn’t her. It was her addiction that allowed her to stay in this abusive relationship. As a result of it I was also sent away to an institution named Saint Joseph’s in Wyoming.
While I was away I do not know what transpired but out of nowhere I was brought back home and my grandmother, mother, brother and I set back out to California. I was happy to be coming home with the rest of my family. Also, because my stepdad was no longer in the picture, I thought my mother was going to be a mom. Most importantly, I thought she was going to kick her drug habit. This wasn’t the case. It only got worse.
It was my mother who first introduced me to marijuana. She acted like it was nothing. When I got caught with some her response was “I don’t care if you smoke just don’t get caught again“ I was about 12 years old. I didn’t want to smoke or do any other drugs. I didn’t want to be like her. This was how drugs were normalized for me.
A year went by and I stayed away from drugs personally but they were still all around me constantly. Back in California, my mother had connections everywhere. She used to take me on late night runs with her to get dope. I guess a kid with her was a security blanket. So she didn’t get robbed. A sense I preferred this to what came next because I knew she was “safe”.
There was a breaking point. It came when my family was basically having an intervention with my mom. There was a lot said. They told her if she didn’t straighten up they would take my brother and I from her. Her response to that was ushering us to the car, draining all the money out of the bank, and getting a hotel room. She also purchased a lot of crack and heroin.
I was 13 years old now, and I was more aware o