Party Vibe

I lived with my grandparents in Villa Park IL (my parents died when I was very young) and I was a ‘goody-goody’ – got good grades, wore clothes my grandparents picked out from K-Mart, was unmercifully picked on by students AND teachers alike….didn’t drink or smoke or anything. I remember the anti-drug commercials of my childhood, and really believed that if I ever tried drugs, I would either drop dead or jump out of a window.

When I finally moved out in 1995, my grandmother was convinced that I would go bad – I can still hear her telling me,”You’ll get on drugs and sell this house!” I called her some very nasty names; basically told her she was deranged. I just wanted my independence – I was 28 and didn’t want her freaking out when I came home late (I’d go out to bars with my best friend etc). I left her in the care of a lady from the Catholic Church we used to go to – I had declared myself an Objectivist (the philosophy of Ayn Rand) and refused to attend church.

Not long after I moved to the city (Lincoln Park), I began to become addicted to sex – I actually posted an ad in the ‘alternative lifestyles’ section of the paper! I met many men and was lured into ‘modeling’ – which got me into hard-core porn and a promiscuous lifestyle that could’ve gotten me raped or murdered many times! Eventually I hooked up with an ‘interesting’ ad, which was a guy who openly called himself a Satanist and a ‘recreational drug user’. How adventurous-sounding!

Well, I invited him over…..told him I didn’t do drugs and didn’t want to, and he said it was ok. After a few weeks he moved in. I had watched him use crack once or twice before, and just thought ‘what a strange thing to do!’ I had seen the movie ‘Rush’ and I actually thought life was like that, so I told him please do not let me try it! But after a few weeks that was to change…

Mike, my ex, cried and told me he was afraid that he would cheat on me with a crack whore if I didn’t use with him – and I fell for it! He started off by kissing me and blowing smoke into my mouth, and then I got brave and said I would try a hit. That was it – I got the ‘woo-woo’s’ in my head and I just wanted more and more. When my grandmother passed away, she left me with an inheritance of around $100,000, which I had widely invested in mutual funds; I lived off of the interest and the rental income of what was now my house. I quit my job at Blockbuster – I never had to work again! I began to withdraw money from the bank, and the teller asked (it was a small-town atmosphere in a big city where I lived), and I began to make up lies.

Being a native Texan, Mike couldn’t handle the winters in IL, so I had to walk several blocks to get the car from the parking garage in the snow. After a while, he told me that he wanted us to move to Texas to be near his family and friends. I had no close family, so I agreed. When we moved in January 1997 it was -60 F with snow up to our knees, and when we arrived in TX FOUR DAYS later (his uncle kept having nervous breakdowns; he was also an addict and had just broken up with his girlfriend) it was +60 F! We loved it, Uncle Bruce hated it – he went back to Chicago and we started moving into our new house in East Dallas.

I didn’t work, and eventually I began to request withdrawals from my mutual funds in order to get crack. Twice I went to a Western Union to get ridiculously large sums of cash, with an armed guard at the locked door – one time I even went with my DEALER to get THIRTY THOUSAND dollars! We just kept all of that cash in our closet at home! That year many bad things happened – I almost died from an overdose (I was doing IV drugs by then), and another guy nearly died on our bedroom floor. The money eventually ran out, and we started writing hot checks in several towns. Finally, Mike broke into the neighbors’ house (for the SECOND time) and stole a TV and stereo – the same day they cut the electric off. I ran with him to pawn it, and then went to a ‘friend’s’ house to use in his closet. I remember running stoplights, feeling an insane rush of thrill. Then stark reality hit as he informed us that we couldn’t stay there – we had no place to sleep!

That began a two-week period of ‘living’ in nasty abandoned houses in our area, cheating cab drivers to get to the dope house. I even gave one cabbie my purse! We looked forward to weekends, when we could go to Deep Ellum and make a lot of money panhandling. Mike used me to gain sympathy, as I would walk around with a little teddy bear in my pocket, looking tired and hungry. For some reason, I took to telling people ‘God bless you’ when they gave me change, even though I still called myself an atheist. It just came naturally.

We ran into a guy named Kevin that we used to hang with, and he took us to the ‘best’ places to get crack. He was ‘in charge’ of an abandoned building nearby, and I can remember wanting so much for Mike to ask him to let us stay there. I felt a sense of safety, like somehow everything would be okay. Kevin agreed to it as long as we followed his ‘house rules’ – keeping the place neat and pitching in to buy candles. Gangs would stay there, and the graffiti was chilling to look at; depictions of hanged men on the walls. But I felt safe there, and even stayed behind by myself while the others went to score dope. That was total God protection right there!

We had a nightly cycle of panhandling and walking to the dope house until my feet were so messed up I was limping. Kevin looked after me like a big brother, making sure nobody messed with me and that I ate. We each (there were 4 of us there) had a pallet laid out in this big room, and we used the closet as a bathroom! Once after we returned from panhandling, we discovered the place had been swept and smelled of Pine Sol! And when Mike told Kevin when it was his turn to buy candles that he wasn’t going to, Kevin told him to leave. He did, but returned later that night with the candles and an apology. The reason for his orderliness would become clear later.

In the mornings, I would walk over to McDonald’s, buy a coffee, and sit there with my teddy bear Amelia sticking out of my pocket. People would come by and offer me change and food. Later I even asked for a job application, only to have the manager tell me,”We don’t want your kind around here!”

One weekend we went to Deep Ellum, and I stayed behind in a club’s window ledge to rest my feet while Mike went off to get change. A group from Victory Outreach came over and asked if they could pray for me. For some reason I said they could. Then Mike came back with a hundred or so and off we went. By this time, he was hooked bad on heroin, and most of the money went to his habit, which was good for me, even though I didn’t think so at the time – I gradually detoxed.

The Monday after I got prayed for, we were asleep in the abandoned building. It was February, and we were getting flu symptoms. I had asthma, and I knew that if we didn’t do something soon, we’d die. I had already eluded death by overdose, had a shotgun pointed at my head, been in a holding cell SIX times….I felt my ‘luck’ was running out. But when I tried to tell Mike, he would put his hands over his ears and yell,”I don’t want to hear it!” He was totally out of touch with reality.

Laying on my pallet, I suddenly had a vision of me sitting in an immaculate room, sipping a cappuccino. And then I had the overwhelming urge to get my life back – a life where such a scene would be possible. I now know it was the Holy Ghost. I sat up, thinking that everyone was asleep, stammering,”I….I have to….stop”. I had no clue how that would be possible – you had to go stand in line at the Salvation Army at 8AM, when we were just getting to sleep – and I had no ID, and bus fare meant less dope money! Well, Kevin was awake and he told me,”I am so glad to hear you say that. I know a place you can go.” It turns out that he used to be a room-leader in Reconciliation Outreach, a Christian shelter within walking distance. He had left there to go and use again, but God had still used him to save me!

We walked to McDonald’s for our goodbyes and a cup of coffee – I can remember Steve Perry was playing over the intercom system. Kevin told Mike,”I know you won’t stay there, but don’t you DARE keep her from it!” I was willing to do whatever it took to get a real life back. We walked the blocks to the offices, which were then on Peak Street. Pastor Willie Burnett told us we couldn’t stay because we weren’t legally married, and they had had problems before with splitting up ‘couples’ into the separate men’s and women’s houses. Mike grabbed my hand and tried to pull me out of that chapel, saying,”Cmon, they don’t want us – let’s go get some heroin.” I planted my feet, and Pastor Willie says I slammed my hand on his desk (I honestly don’t remember doing that but I probably did) and shouted,”I’m not going back on the streets – I’LL DIE OUT THERE!” Mike took off – some men tried to get him to go to another mission, but instead he shoplifted an Eckerds and led the cops straight to the place we had been staying! He ended up going to jail for 6 months, and I would have as well if I hadn’t listened and surrendered to God! Then Pastor Willie said to the other workers in the office,”Call Jan at Refuge 2” (the single Women’s house). They knew I wanted to stay.

Well, to make an already too long story short, I stayed there for 17 months, living in a wonderful restored Victorian house with a group of other women who had been addicts, homeless etc. I attended chapel every other night, daily Bible studies, church on Sunday, along with treats such as pool parties and weekend passes. I got a job and eventually moved out to begin my new life. I won’t say I lived clean and sober since then – I have backslid, and I still drink (I am trying to at least slow down). But I was saved by the blood of Jesus Christ shed for me on the cross, and today I have a good life with a wonderful, godly man and two furry ‘daughters’ Yes, beating crack IS possible – but only by letting GOD do it!