A Glimpse Into My Road Into Addiction

My Life as a Non-Conformist…

In my educational journey I honestly didn't think that I was going to have something to write about. And I honestly wasn't thinking of my life as being one that was on any kind of academic track. Hell I could hardly make it to P.E and keep my eyes open. Nine times out of ten I just laid down and went to sleep and just took a non participating mark.

Ok so before I begin, I want to tell y'all about my dad. His name is Gregory Boyd Little. He is my best friend. I am a major daddys girl. That probably had to be the one moment that I remember from when I was 5. My subconscious has blocked out the rest of my memories from when I was a kid. I know why I just choose to continue to ignore it.

So my key life moment that stands out to me most is not education in the form of traditional education but this education that I have definitely cannot be bought and paid for. My life has had so many ups and downs and life lessons that I'd be willing to bet that I could survive 5 lifetimes.

So with my dad being hurt in the coal mines that's my major most memorable moment. But the most memorable life event that holds great significance to me and taught me about life on life lessons very early in life.

I had my 2 best friends living on either side of me. It was awesome. I love those kids so damn much it's not even funny. We lived next door to each other for about 7 year before my life happened.

Imagine being nine years old standing at the closet door in your room brushing your hair swaying back and forth listening to some 90’s slow jams getting ready for school. Then all of a sudden you hear a “Knock, Knock, can I come in?”

Dad came to your room to tell you that you weren't going to school today. Daddy has to explain something very important to you there in a little while.” I'm going to do the same thing with your brothers. Just one at a time. And I don't want yall to think that the reason that things have to be the way that they are changing to isn't from lack of me fighting and it definitely is not because I don't want to be here with you and your mom and brothers.”

Shopping was in the very near future. What girl doesn't like to go shopping? Not many you are right. But this girl right here does not like shopping. I'd rather order everything online or I take a couple of my anxiety meds and maybe smoke a blunt. ( Oh that's these days I guess I should have said that I didn't try and do that when I was 9) Anyways I've never been the type of girl that likes to put dresses on and get all pressed up. I like cut off blue jean shorts and a tank top. After that its blue jeans and hoodies. And blue jean jackets. But as i mentioned earlier I am a major daddies girl so any opportunity that I got to do something with him I was all over it even if it meant going freaking shopping.

This was going to be the first time that we took off school to hang out together when we were not sick. But honestly I didn't think anything about it. ( I barely remember the days where I didnt have paranoia) But what 9 year old kid sits and thinks “Oh NO, daddy is about to go to prison for a long long time.” On our way to Walmart my dad asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and of course I started spouting off my list like I hadn't practiced it a thousand times in the mirror that I brush my

hair in.

We are riding, riding, riding, from the outskirts of Salem to Paducah (nearest Walmart) . It's a 45 minute drive. Dad turns down Old Mattoon Rd. And pulls over on the side and parks the truck. He turned to me and said we have to talk about some things.

“I'm not going to be home for Christmas this year sweetie” I just looked at him so confused.. Like he knew just from the expression on my face that I was going to need him to elaborate a little bit further.

“I did some things that were against the law, and I was caught.” I started crying instantly.

“Well actually I was told on, but that's something that I will tell you about when you're a little bit older. I wish that I knew the questions that yall have or are going to have. The best that I can do for you is to tell you if you want to let me know something, write it down, because your just a kid with the attention span of a gnat.”

The emotions that I was feeling way before we ever even made it to Walmart were indescribable. And the pain seemed to sear down into my chest the more and more that I saw him in person or that I got to hear his voice say something to anyone. The same way it feels after you're away from your kids for over a decade and there was nothing you could do about it from behind a barbed wire fence.

So it was a normal day like any other and then all of a sudden everything got weird. And it wasn't one of those gradual kinds of weird things but it was like boom everything was just eerie. My aunt Yelanda was sitting at the bus stop waiting for me to get off the bus. I asked her where mom and dad were and she told me that I was going to be staying with her and my uncle while mom and dad had to deal with the house. Mom told me it was rats but it was the police. They raided my dad while u was at school earlier that day. And let me tell ya my family are pretty good at keeping things from you. Like my aunt was really good at keeping the fact that My mom and dad were both sitting in McCracken County Jail. (From experience that place is one of the worst jails I have ever been to.)

So I was getting ready to go out to eat dinner with my Aunt Yelanda and Uncle Charlie and there was a loud knock on the front door. (We never used it unless it was family)

The mystery guest was really there for me. He was the lead detective on my fathers case. The detective looked real out of place in my aunt’s little rustic kitchen. He looked at me and asked me if i was ok and did I know what his badge meant. I said “Yes it means your a cop” He smiled and said “Yes I am” He asked me if I knew who my father was. What kind of man he was. I just looked at him with a blank face. He stared at me for a minute. I'm not sure if he was waiting on me to respond to him or if he was going to try and eat my face for breakfast. The detective finally spoke and said this “ Your dad is a very bad man that deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison because he would rather run around and get high and do drugs instead of spending time with his family. And I'm glad that I got to personally put him away for at least 10 years. The exact amount of time will be determined tomorrow afternoon in court.”

That day was the day that my opinion changed about the police. They were no Longer the good guys. That was also the day that my “Authority Problem” started. The men that were supposed to

be the good guys that would take care of us when we were in trouble were sitting in my aunt's kitchen telling me that the man that hung the moon stars and the sky for me was a bad guy and he didn't deserve to be around his kids.

I'm not sure how long it was after the little visit from the detective in my aunt's kitchen to when my dad was actually gone. But one minute my dad was here and the next my mom was home and my dad was gone. Every weekend me, my mom, and 2 of my 3 big brothers would go to mccracken county jail every weekend for visits. I was so upset I couldn't even give my dad a hug and a kiss. I had to talk to him through a nasty half working pay phone and a thick ass sheet of plexiglass. So my dad would make a fist and put it up to the glass and wait for me to do the same thing. (Crazy thing, when my dad would come and visit me through the glass almost 15 years later we did the same thing.)

Afew months later my mom moved us to Nashville Tennessee with my grandparents. Except for Rodney and Randy. Brady had already left to go to boot camp with training to be a Marine.

Living in another state meant leaving all the friends I had made and had been going to school with since I started school. I was also going from elementary school to middle school a year early. I was so nervous. And on top of that I missed my dad so much. My mom moved out a couple days after we got to my grandparents house. And she just left me there with them. Didn't ask me what I might have wanted. I was 9 years old and the only family that I had ever known on a consistent basis was torn apart. All because of a stupid accident and a Jerk ass Rat. I never got to talk to Rodney or Randy but Brady would write to me all the time. Dad sent me mail just about every day and he would call twice a week. My dad would have me boxes and presents sent all the time.

My mother. The one person who was capable and available to be a constant in my life like she had been for the first 9 years of my life, always made promises that she didn't keep and she would lie or make up excuses as to why she didn't show up. Even thinking about it now it still hurts my feelings. My mother’s and my relationship is the way that no one even tried to sit down and explain addiction to me. No one gave enough care to explain any of the things that were going on around me to me. No one cared enough to tell me why my dad found it necessary to be selling it because he got hurt and the doctors had put him on so much medison and when they realized that he was becoming addicted to the meds. The doctors told him that he should just alternate Ibuprofen and tylenol.

My mother introduced my dad to cocaine and the people that he was getting it from. She told him that it would help him. Now that I really think about it I get my addiction solely from my mother. There’s no drug addicts on my dad's side of the family. A Couple Alcoholics but I'm pretty sure that my dad is the only addict in his family. There are more than a couple drug addicts and alcoholics on my mom's side.

My dad had started using cocaine several times a day to keep the pain dulled as much as he could. Metal rods and screws and pins all throughout someone's arm definitely screams constant pain. In order to keep up with his and my mothers habits. He didn't want to be taking money from his family.

Honestly I do not think that there is a successful way to actually do drugs. But my dad was a fully functioning addict. It was like he wasn't even an addict at all.

My dad finally told me the whole story behind his addiction and his incarceration. He told me how they were trying to put my mom in prison with my dad but he kept her out of it so that she could stay home and take care of me. He told me how Tommy ratted on him. And that was a very good family friend. He ended up blowing up his heart with a shot of cocaine a week before my dad was released from prison. My dad even told me about how the detective that had come to my aunt's house to talk to me had told my dad that he would make everyone hate him including his only daughter and send my dad to prison for the rest of his life.

It's looking like this is a good stopping point , otherwise I would go on and on and on and you would know what I had for breakfast yesterday morning. My life started out pretty rough. There's situations and events that I left out for a purpose. I thought the way that my life was how everyone's lives were. The reality is and always has been my reflection. I choose the way my life goes. I may have some curve balls thrown in there but it's on me how I choose to let it affect me and my life. I can let them take me over and I end up in the same position I've been in and out of my whole life or I can take control and not let the negative cause me to back slide any further than I already have. I can't tell you how I feel about all that I wrote. I left a lot out on purpose. I'm not ready to reflect or talk about some of the things that I didn't share, I don't know that I will ever fully be ready to talk about them or to deal with them, but I eventually will get them put on paper.

Even if it's just for me. I do know that I am still working through a lot of things. I'm still fresh in recovery compared to others I know. I also still deal with losing people every day either to the system or the graveyard.

I will not let this disease take me out like so many others that I know.