THE LIE IS DEAD, WE DO RECOVER
I’m an addict, my name is Dori. I want to start by saying that me being alive to tell my story is a miracle in itself. I was raised in and out of the foster care system. As a result I learned at a young age, not to get too comfortable anywhere, that people will always let me down, and that I just don’t really matter. I was just a case number to some worker. I always felt invisible.
I also struggled with my sexuality. When I was 18 yrs old, I aged out of the system and was sent out in the world on my own. I felt beat, I felt hopeless, and most of all I felt angry. Any hopes and dreams, fantasies I called them, faded. I was tired of this world letting me down and I was going to get even one way or another. I ended up back at my birth mothers home which was in a drug infested town. I was introduced to alcohol. And there it was, I discovered I didn’t have to feel this pain anymore. Soon after that, I started using heroin. I called it a gift from God for all my suffering. I really believed that this was my destiny. Drugs were never the problem to me, they were the solution. As long as I had them I could be who I wanted, and I could tell the world to go to hell. I was cold, I had no compassion, I manipulated everyone that came in my path because I felt it was my right to hurt you because of my circumstances. I had 3 children in active addiction but I lost them to the same system that I hated so much. The cycle was repeated.
As a result of my drug use the law caught up with me and I was given drug court. As a result of that, I had to go to NA meetings. I went kicking and screaming because as I said before, the drugs were not the problem. I needed them and couldn’t imagine life without them. I attended meetings reluctantly and then the miracle happened, the desire to use was lifted. I started to believe that maybe I could make it in this world, that I am worth something. I started to become visible to myself, the hate and anger that I had for this world started to subside. I realized I was not alone, and that I can survive. I can rise above my circumstances my past does not have to define me any longer. I was free, free from active addiction, free to feel, free to love, and most of all free to accept love.
I am comfortable with who I am, I learned a new way to live. I attend meetings, I have commitments, I work steps I am a part of something. Narcotics Anonymous has given me more than I could have ever imagined. It has restored hope. My rights to my children were being terminated in 2007, today I am in the process of reunifying with my boys. I can now teach my children that life is amazing and that they don’t have to live the way I lived despite their circumstances. Life shows up and I don’t use no matter what. I have found something out in this program, we can overcome anything, we can succeed, the lie is dead…we do recover!