My name is M.P.. I’m a 40 year old addict that is trying to do something different today clean and sober. It wasn’t easy for me to get here and now that I am here I still have a long way to go. You see just because I put the drugs down doesn’t mean that I don’t have using behaviors. An addict like myself came from a dysfunctional family. I had alcoholic parents. All I know was arguing, fighting and drinking and neglect. My mom worked so we didn’t get on welfare until my Grandmother took over.

I have 2 siblings and one is still in her addiction so I just talk to her on the phone and tell her how life is in recovery. Not sugar coating it cause it is called treatment. Anyways I‘ll get back to that in a second. Okay me and my brother were hustlers we robbed pizza men and ladies, went into people’s stores and took alcohol to school to sell it to other minors. At the age of 12, I kept money, stolen money but I felt a security of having money and at 14 I started using cigarettes, weed and alcohol. I was in and out of Rosemont and went to Scioto. I had behavioral problems at a young age and I also was crying out for me to be loved cause my mom wasn’t there nor was my father that molested me at 9 years old. So I also have trust issues as well.

So I’m in and out of the system  going to bars at 16 and juvenile systems knows me well. I was raised by pimps and street walkers when I ran a way even though I didn’t do the activities yet I learned how to use my mouth piece and manipulate men to get what I wanted. Eventually I sold myself just because I didn’t yet walk the street I still prostituted as long as I got money or things I felts security and attention that I wanted from my dad and mother.

So this was my life until I got familiar with the drug dealing part. I started out selling and seen my boyfriend get killed in Detroit and I got shot for my first time. I went back to CO with the drugs that my so called boyfriend that what it really was that I was the carrier. Some love huh?
Well from there I guess I thought I was in a Die Hard movie cause I have numbers so I wasn’t that good anyways in the crime scene. I’ve been shot 2 more times, stabbed two times, once when I was pregnant. Pushed in front of a moving vehicle and I’m not counting the times when my johns tried to kill me out there on the streets where I never thought I would go.
I allowed me to use me abuse me out there walking in a maze of disaster and destruction in and out of treatment centers running shoes on neglected my 4 children. Made a trip to Amethyst in 97 to surrender and wasn’t ready. So 3 years later here I am coming in knowing the right thins to say. I’m scared. I don’t know how to trust, love, take suggestions, tell on my diseases, not hold secrets. Save a sista’s life. Thanks to my counselor and the facilitators I’m getting there slowly but surely. I’m not running today. Yeah of course I scratch and kick but what do you expect from a dysfunctional with mental issues young lady. Sure I slipped in my old ways at times and that’s where Amethyst’s well trained staffs come in and don’t forget my peers that are women that I’m learning that are just like me put me in my place at times.
By the way I’m getting custody of girls one by one. My mother is sober of 15 years clean and was there to catch my children when I dropped them like hot potatoes. She’s so ready to give them back. Cause she understands what abuse is and she’s proud of me.

I’m proud because M.P. has come a long way from June the 8th when I firs walked back through the doors of Amethyst. I have a lot of work to do but I’m here. Thank God I made it to Amethyst.