WHEN DRUGS ENTERED MY LIFE

I was 8 or 9 when the police came in to bust the apartment because my mother's boyfriend was selling drugs from our apartment. The police had K-9 dogs, and questioned us about "white stuff" and "green stuff." My siblings

Me as a baby

and I didn't have a clue what they were talking about. The word got out to my friends what had happened. The big kids teased us, making up songs about how my mother was selling drugs. When we moved, I was so happy.

MY FATHER

I never knew that my father used drugs. My parents were separated, and we only visited my father in the summer. My worst moment with my dad: he tried to have sex with me, when I was 11. I asked him what was he doing, and to please stop. My father was high at that time and I didn't know it. He told me that I looked just like my mother. He asked me what did I want to do when I grow up? I told him that I wanted to be a nurse. He asked me, was I going to take care of him? I told him yes, then he started touching me. He died 10 months later, from a heroin overdose.

MY FIRST TIME

One of my friends came over to play and she smelled the pot that my mother was smoking. The next day we stole some and she showed me how to roll up a joint.

3 unhappy kids, 1979 -Left: (Lachele): “I was 16 and high on pot, PCP, Golden Champale, and Malt Duck when this picture was taken.” -Middle: My brother, the future police officer -Right: My friend Tineal, who died from using drugs

When my mom came home she didn't get mad. She told me that I could smoke only in the house. So that was the okay for me to get high. I was 12. My friends thought that my mother was so cool. I use to steal from her every day, rolling 11 joints a day. By the eighth grade, I was the most popular girl in school. Everyone wanted to be my friend and I loved it. My friends and I started drinking beer. We would get a case and drink and smoke. When I got to tenth grade, I earned the name Pothead. We started doing Black Beauties, Yellow Jackets, and smoking PCP.

LIFE AFTER HIGH SCHOOL

When I finished high school, I went to work for a hair stylist. She was dating this man who was selling cocaine, so I got some from him and started snorting. One day my friend's boyfriend gave me a whole lot of cocaine powder, money, and a big necklace. He asked me out, but I told him no. I took the powder to the lady I worked for, and she told me that I was just wasting it by snorting it. She showed

Left: Demetreus, Right: Vinnette, Top: Kenyetta, Bottom: Precious.

me how to cook it and smoke it. I did not know that smoking crack would change my life.

I started dating this young man and he was giving crack to me free. How many of you all know that it wasn't for free? The next thing you know, my mother and I were getting high together. We got evicted from our house. We lost everything, including my mother's hair shop that she had built in the house. She was a good hairdresser--she had over 100 clients. My mother decided to move away to Jamaica to get her life back.

MY DAUGHTER

When my mother left, all of my siblings were getting high except for my oldest brother, who is a police officer. I had a $300 a day habit. I was stealing big money and drugs. I was pregnant with my daughter Vinnette, and getting high every day. When I had Vinnette, she was 4 lbs, 5oz and she had the shakes. Vinnette had to stay in the hospital for two days and I brought her home, still getting high.

MY BOYFRIEND

I did a drug trip

Mom in striped shirt w/child: My son Demetreus at 9 months.

for my boyfriend. I went to Florida to pick up cocaine. I had $31,000 in cash on me. I made the drop: two and a half keys [kilos] of cocaine. On the way home, airport security guards stopped me and searched my bags. I had the drugs strapped on my body. At that time I weighed about 100 pounds. The guards finished searching my bags, and let me through. I was so scared. When my boyfriend and I got on the plane, I told him I was going to flush the drugs. He told me that if I did, he would kill me. Two years later, he left me for my best friend. I thought I was going to die. I used even more.

MY SON

Demetreus was born in an ambulance because I was too high to get myself to the hospital in time. My baby had so much drugs in his system that the social worker wanted to take him from me. I had to sign an agreement that I would take Demetreus to a special doctor to check his levels every other day to make sure that the drugs were leaving his little system. In the neighborhood,

Vacationing in Jamaica, snorting coke bigtime [age 23-24

people called my baby ‘Naked,' because he didn't wear anything--I was too high to buy Pampers.

NEXT MOVES

I got a job at this nursing home and I was getting high on the job. Some of the patients knew. I would smoke crack in their bathrooms or anywhere I could. I ended up living in a basement that a woman was renting out. All we had was a small heater, a pull-out sofa bed, and a 13-inch black-and-white TV. Then I moved to an apartment complex. My daughter's father paid the deposit and the first month's rent. I lied and told him it was $900, but it was $800. I looked outside and saw guys selling crack. I bought some, and never went back to work. I quit my job, and got on welfare. My life was a wreck. At this time my mother had cleaned up her life, and she would come to check on me and the kids. I would hide in the closet from her for hours until she went away. I wanted her to leave so I could finish getting high. Then I was ashamed of what I was doing--hiding from my

Celebrating 5 years sober with my best friend Lynn

mother in a damn closet.

MY WORST MOMENTS

Stealing my children's fundraising candy money. Selling my body for drugs. Selling my food stamps for drugs. Pawning everything in my apartment for drugs. Not finishing up the test to be a nurse, all for drugs.

MY LAST TIME

January 21, 1994. My mother had asked me and the kids to come visit her. She locked me in her house for a whole week. I promised her I would not get high, then left for my apartment to see if my welfare check was there. I was leaving when this man asked me to test this package of drugs for him. I did, and then we got high all day long. My sister and her boyfriend came over to get high, too. I felt a pounding in my chest. My body began going through convulsions. I told my sister to please take me the hospital. It is a good thing that she did. I was having a heart attack at age twenty-nine, from smoking crack all day long, nothing to eat, nothing to drink, no sleep, just smoking. My body

My wedding June 22, 1998

was worn out.

That night in the hospital I decided I didn't want to die from drugs like my father. My mother told me to not to worry about the children, and to get all the help that I needed, even if it took two years. I told the hospital that I was going to kill myself if they discharged me. They put me on the psych ward. I didn't care, I needed help.

MY RECOVERY

I was in the hospital for 21 days, then went to aftercare for two weeks. I knew I had to stay connected. I continued treatment at a recovery house, Safe Haven, at two months clean. Oh man, I hated being there in the beginning. Those women taught me how to live. They showed me how to walk, talk, be a lady, cut out all the old behaviors, narrow down all the boyfriends, be a mother. They taught me how to be responsible. Thank God for those women. My first steps outside the recovery program, I was a scared little puppy. I wanted to build a relationship with my children. It was so hard to gain their trust. I lived for the Narcotics Anonymous 12-step meetings. Sometimes I went to three a day.

I'll always be proud of the day that I stopped, and of never turning back to that world. I am ten years clean now. I have a husband Greg and another daughter Precious, born without drugs in her system. I am a supervisor on my job. I have my own house, with a basement and six TVs (smile).

TO EVERYONE READING THIS

Don't ever use drugs, and if you are using now, stop, and get help, because your life and your body don't need drugs. If you're in recovery, stay in the meetings. Get a sponsor, a network of people in recovery. You cannot go around slippery places, people or things. I wish I had known that you do not have to use drugs to fit in or be a part of life. God has brought me a long way. I should have been dead from all that I went through, but I am here to share my story to help you who are reading this now. Please, get help if you are using drugs! May God bless you all.

Exchanging Vows, Lachele and Greg

Love, Lachele