" I asked god to heal me and he did"

Description

Here we hear the story behind someone in recovery.
Hello how are you doing today? I'm fine, how are you? I’m good thankyou. I’m aware that you are a person in recovery and I'm going to be asking you a couple questions today. Are you okay with that? Sure. Okay, if at any point in time you feel like you need to stop or take a break that’s fine too. Okay. So first question, what was your pivotal moment that made you want to change your life? I think when my children realized I was doing drugs. When they didn’t know, then they found out. They kind of suspected I was doing it and that made me, they were more important to me than that. Can you remember how, why, who you started misusing drugs? Yes my ex husband, that’s how I started. Do you have any regrets? Not really, I just think it was a part of my life lesson that I had to go through in order to get where I am. It taught me a lot about life and a lot about right and wrong, good and bad. I know it wasn’t good at the time I was doing it but I enjoyed it then but once I stopped enjoying it, it was time for me to move one. And my children were getting much older and I didn’t want to lose all their respect. And I was the only one taking care of them because me and my husband had split up. Afterward I couldn’t deal with what he was doing. He left the state and I stayed here with the children. Okay, how do you feel or think about drugs now? Any person or anybody, if I could tell them, think 20 times before you start doing this and find anything that is more important to you than this because you will lose everything if you let this take control of you. You’ll lose your dignity, your will, you’ll lose respect from friends and family and you just won’t even care to an extent if you let it get that far because some people control it a long time. You know, they do it, they work and a lot of people don’t know, you know but then there’s so many weak people that are on it and it totally takes control of you. But I was one of those people who liked more than that. I liked looking nice and smelling good and living nice. So you didn’t let it take over you completely? No I didn’t and when I thought I was losing control that’s when it was time to change my life. Do you feel like people judge you or treat you differently because of your past? No. Okay, Are there any people from your past or people affected who weren’t using or misusing with you, who you still speak with; don’t talk to; or wish you still did? Yes both, it’s people that I haven’t seen in years that stopped like I did and moved on and there’s people that didn’t stop who are dead and gone. you know, there’s people now even that I see still living that bad life. I don’t shun them, I'll speak to them but I don’t socialize with them, that’s not the lifestyle. I went back into the church and my whole life changed. I asked god to heal me and he did. I try my best to help anybody, I don’t down anybody who does drugs because I did them so i’m not going to talk bad about you because you do them. I know a lot of people who have done it but then they get with somebody who hasn’t and talk bad about the ones they were doing it with and I think that’s not good. What you do in the dark eventually will come to the light. Like they say back in the day, people who did them caught aids because they were stupid and careless and that’s the generation that I was in. But me and my best friend and a few others were the only ones who didn’t. And a whole bunch of people that we knew did get aids. My best friend died from it. She ended up going with a guy who gave it to her. Okay next question. Are you active in the community to help others stop or educate beforehand about drugs and alcohol? I try to, I have. Right now i’m much older and don’t go anywhere but I talk to my grandkids and my friends constantly and their friends. I don’t aggravate them but I try to explain to them, don’t go there try to find something in life that is of value to you. Say like whatever you want to be, process that and do that you know and if you're out there, that’s why i’m so proud of my grandkids because my children kept them in sports all while they were growing up and they went to college and all of my grandchildren are doing quite well. And I'm very proud of that, that none of them grew up like out there and that’s a blessing. From what I came from and things I've seen, I couldn’t even tell you here, it would take 20 years for me to tell you all the stuff that I have seen behind this. And I've seen how people act and what they’ve done, you know. To me I think my children were the most important thing to me in my life that kept me going, I really do and the way that my mother raised me was to take care of my kids and me and I try. Hey, I made a mistake but I don’t regret it. I wouldn’t do it again but i’m glad that the time I was there, I learned a lot out of it sooner than most people because that’s not what I wanted to do with my life. I worked all the time until I was retired. Okay have you personally suffered from any overdoses or near death experience due to your addiction? No. Okay have you lost any friends or family from drugs? Yes. And did that influence your behavior or outlook? A lot. How so? I lost my best friend. She was part of it, with my kids. Her children were very close to me and her son was going through something when she was on her dying bed. I told him whatever he was going through with his mom, you go tell her goodbye because you’ll regret it the rest of your life if you don’t. I was there with her until god took her you know. I seen her go from a healthy beautiful person down to a skeleton. I didn’t realize the effect that it puts on you. People don’t look at it like it’s a disease like cancer. Drug addiction is a disease and you can get help if you want it. A Lot of people go take another drug to stop this drug but that doesn’t really help you. It’s up here. When I stopped nothing helped me start it so I didn’t use nothing to help me stop it. I just stopped. I got sick for a couple weeks but after that I was back to normal and I never looked back. I never ever wanted to go back there.. never. I don’t think anybody who goes through recovery ever wants to go back there. I had a friend who ended up being the mayor of his township, graduated from college. We were both THERE but we came back and both decided to change our life back. Right now he’s a preacher, he has a church, he has a congregation and he’s doing quite well. I’m proud of him and he’s proud of me so that makes me happy because we survived. I look at it as i’m a survivor. As you should. I feel like I survived something, just like now we’re going through COVID and it’s the same thing, we have to survive this. Right, and that’s the same thing that it was back then. Back in the day, our parents drank but then when my group came, it was drugs. Then the kids went back to doing different things and now you know they say things happen in a circle. Say what happened 30 years ago is happening right now. And it’s the truth, It does, it’s really happening right now. And the virus I feel is worse than this because you’re losing so many unnecessary lives right now. Yes sadly. Back then you could control it but this isn’t on us anymore. This is between me and god, I pray everyday that god watches over my family so we can survive this. I have children and grandchildren that work in the nursing’s field on the front line and I just don’t want things to happen. Friends too. I thank god that he is in my life, I really do. Alright, anything else? Yes we’ve gotten to the last question now. What was your home life like then and now? Okay well my whole life, I was always a neat working person. I worked and raised my kids. We lived very decently and I worked all my life. During the addiction it was the same? Yes, it’s really lonelier now, because I had somebody with me now i’m by myself. But it’s not that much different. Because you always kept up? Yea i’m still the same as I was then. I was always neat and I always cared about myself and my family and my appearance and I still do. That’s good. And I do think that was embedded in me because I came from a family that was like that. I came from a well educated family that had good jobs and lived well, I was just kind of the black sheep of the family at the time. Alright, thankyou for talking with me today, that was the last question. You’re welcome!

Participants

• Jy’Asia Bivins
  

Interview By

• Jy’Asia Bivins