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August 2005
The Reasons I Used
By Antonio Reed
Cincinnati Author
I am an addict name Tony R.
When I was about 8 or 9 years old I used to fit in with my uncles and aunts. I love to feeling it gave me. I felt a part of something. It was weed that I smoked.
One day I walked in the bathroom on my uncle. He had a paper bag and was huffing glue. I said, “Let me do that.” I did it and when I finished huffin’ it I felt real strange. I looked at my uncle and he was standing there with jail stripes from head to toe. I didn’t like what I seen or how I felt so I never did that again.
The house I stayed in with my grandmother and her children was roach and rat infected. It was so bad that whatever we opened we would have to eat it all the way up or the roaches and rats would get it. I didn’t like bringing no friends over because I felt ashamed. I know that had a lot to do with me using, to not feel what I felt then. I didn’t feel loved in my youth.
I can remember guys who tried to do sexual stuff to me that hurted me and I never told anyone about it. I found myself going around these same people, not because I liked the things they was doing to me but because I felt a part of something.
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Time passed and things got better as far as our living conditions and a group of friends that I ran with at the time would get money by stealing it from their grandmother. We couldn’t buy stuff to get high ourselves so we would pay older people money to get it for us and we would use and go to school. A few of us was in the 4rth grade, all the way down to the second grade. We stopped using and going to school. So on every Friday after lunch we would skip school and go to hang out downtown in Cincinnati, hanging in game rooms and hotels, on the square, sky walk, just having fun, running and stealing from department stores and stuff like that. I never knew the danger I was headed for using drugs like I was. I got in trouble a few times as a juvey and never did time for it. I would always get work detail or probation.
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I lived with my mother. My father wasn’t in my life like I wanted him to be. He was married to my step mom and had two other children and he didn’t have time for me. I would go around wanting to be near him. He would write me a check and on my way I went.
My mother was so sweet but I feel she was a snake in her own way. She would always take my money and give it to her boyfriend at the time and always promised me she would give it back, but she never did.
I was never really a drinker because of something that happened to me when I was in pre-school. My uncle on my father’s side make me drink and keep drinking this brown stuff that tasted nasty and smell just as bad as it tasted. So that turned me against drinking. So weed was what I did for a while.
I hated myself, my father, mother and step-father because my father wasn’t there for me, my mother would take my money, make promises she didn’t follow-through on and my step-father showed me who I didn’t want to grow up to be. He abused women a lot and my mother never stood for nothing so she would fall for everything. I stuffed all the hurt and hatred inside of me, not showing no emotions. So here I was, walking around smiling on the outside and crying on the inside and the only relief I had was weed, not thinking other things would come behind that.
I ended up with my own apartment and selling weed. I felt to myself I was doing good because I was going to hair school getting $150.00 a month for that, getting a GR check from welfare for $155.00 a month, getting about $110.00 in food stamps and making money with the weed. My rent was only $38 cash. I was doing OK.
I was introduced to freebase back then – and what did I do that for? I had a girlfriend who was pregnant at this time so I was expecting my first child, not knowing nothing about being a father because all the step fathers I had never displayed nothing to me but how to hit on women.
I started drinking at this time, little wine coolers, because the weed wasn’t enough anymore. I would smoke and smoke and wouldn’t get the high I once did before. My first son was born and freebase was growing fast with me. I dropped out of school and started going to night school to that I could graduate. It n ever happened.
I stopped everything. Hair school. GR check. Foodstamps. And the weed had stopped because I was always short on the money from buying cocaine to smoke. My friend started to leave and my son’s mother ended up leaving me for someone else, so my drinking and drugging got worse. I tried a few pills before and had a bad trip one time, so I stop doing them real fast. I never shot up with needles because I saw what it did to a few members of my family and friends’ families.
In 1986 I ran across crack cocaine and tried it. Why did I do that? I lost everything. Then my $38 apartment. Not because I didn’t have help, but my pride wouldn’t let me reach out for it. So I moved back in with my mom, started stealing from her and all kind of stuff.
Let me back-up for a minute. Before I lost my apartment, I got real high and drunk one day and decide to take revenge on my son’s mother and the guy she was with because they had hurt me. Not paying attention to the hurt I was causing to myself or others. Before this took place a group called The Young Father’s Program had got me in treatment that cost a lot of money. I didn’t learn nothing there because I didn’t wasn’t to learn nothing back then.
I met a young lady there who had a drug problem and used to shoot up. Knowing that gave me the mind that wasn’t nothing wrong with me, not looking at I had nowhere to live, no nothing – and these people had big money still, houses, cars, everything.
I was with a woman at the time and ended up having sex with this girl inside the treatment center. This same girl ended up giving me a ride home on a little motorbike. I never seen her again after that.
While in treatment I went to AA meetings and could not relate to them because I didn’t see myself as no alcoholic but addicted to drugs. A few things that was said struck me hard , but by me being poor, never having nothing, what I lost wasn’t nothing compared to these people. I got out of treatment, ended up using again and now it was time for payback.
My son’s mother had her own place and I had mines, but instead of staying to myself, I’m down where she lives, breaking her windows out, trying to get this guy to come out so I could kill him. That never worked. So one day I caught them going in and I took a steak knife and stabbed him in the back and would have did what I came to do, but the knife broke. He was scared because our weighed me by at least 175 pounds. When I stabbed him he seen the knife break. Instead of him coming after me, he started going for his car for something.
I stood there for a minute then took off running. They called the police and they put a warrant out for me. I was considered armed and dangerous. For the first time in my life I knew I had crossed a road that I could not come back from.
I tried cutting my wrist and just laying thereand die, but something wouldn’t let me, so after I got out of the hospital I was arrested and spent about two months in jail. Then I got out on a O.R. bond. I was doing OK until I picked up again.
I met another woman who had my second son while I was in prison, but before that took place I too hurt this woman so bad. I stole from her and everything. Once she found out she just wanted me at home with her and not running the streets. At the time she only had 2 daughters and I tried to love them as best as I could. Her youngest daughter and my first son was about the same age and since I couldn’t see my son I tried to show and give her that love. Anyway, I told her that I had to go to prison soon. She didn’t care. She was blinded by the love I showed her to the point that she didn’t see the hurt I was causing her. I went to prison. She got pregnant , had the baby and came to see me. It felt good to have somebody who cared. Then she met someone else.
When in prison I went to the old Mansfield, got into a fight and went to the Hole. Then they rode me out to Madison, Ohio. There they would call these AA and NA meetings. I wasn’t into that until someone told me you can get time off your sentence for going. So I started going. Before this I took a test and had a 2 nd grade reading level. I didn’t read nothing but the Bible and thank God I can read today.
I started going to these meetings and listening with an open mind. One day in both AA and NA a person was sharing and I heard my story. I cried like hell. So I didn’t say nothing, but a guy who was on fire for the meeting all the time, I asked him what to do if a person wanted help while in prison. He told me the first program that I got in and really took a look at my life. It was called Inward Journey and I learned a lot in there. I completed it and moved on.
But I forgot about all the hurt and pain I caused others and in 1992 I got out of prison and started selling crack, met another woman who smoked crack and I didn’t know about it. I’m not going to glorify the lifestyle, but I did what crack dealers do. I wasn’t using nothing at all at the time and ended up with a dirty urine. I was wondering hard how could it be if I’m not using nothing. Nobody told me that handling crack with my bare hands could give me that dirty screen. So I had to go to outpatient treatment.
I did end up using again and to the CCAT house. I went to detox. They wanted to keep me and I left the program. I entered another treatment. Failed. One day I was at m grandmother’s house playing a board game and the Task Force came in/ I ended up going back to prison from 1993 til 1996.
Once I made parole again. They said I was going home. I called everybody and told them I was coming home. I want you to know – out of all the women I was involved with, only one was always writing me and that was my oldest son’s mother. While in jail I got papers about custody about my second son. His mother did something and they took all her children. I couldn’t be there and right now today he is still in their custody at Children Services.
I ended up in 1996 from prison in another program called the S.O.S. Hall. I really paid attention there and completed it. Then I made it off parole, worked my first job ever a whole year, got taxes back, owned three cars. Doing good. I stayed clean for 34 months and then everything went down hill.
I remember one time bringing my son from Hamilton to Cincinnati. I remember my mother called me in the back room of her apartment and gave me a letter that my second son’s mother had wrote me from the prison she was in. I read it and gave it back to her. I didn’t want to get involved with trying to be dishonest to the woman I was with at the time.
My mother ended up in jail in Hamilton and I did what I could for her. I sent her money, went to visit her, and when she got out I was there to take her to my place. I had to work the day she got out, so I paid for someone to take her home, but before she got out I went to see my 3 brothers in Cincinnati. I looked in the refrigerator and there wasn’t nothing at all to eat, so I took them to the store and bought them some food. I stayed for a few, then left. Right then, on the way back, I cried because a person’s pride can get in the way and make that person not even ask for help whey they know they can get it. Same with me, too.
Things was going good. One day I came home and the woman I was with had used and I was hurt, behind it angry. So out of anger, I used, too. The two children that lived with us knew what was going on and someone called Children Services up in Butler and they came out and took the children. I say both was my son, but only one of them was my real son – but I treated them both the same.
So, back to court again. I can remember letting guilt and shame take over. I had very good jobs that I lost because I was using.
One time we met these church folks who didn’t know us at all. They took us to this church and we told the people there what we had been doing and we didn’t have no food. When we left that church we had $150 to buy food with. Now you would think with all the crying we did and confessing we done, we took that money and bought some food with it. But we didn’t. We went and used with all the money. When the people came the next day to take us to the store, I felt so damn bad telling them we smoked the money all up.
I’m about to go back a bit. I can remember using when my woman was carrying our son and the baby was inside and stretched out as if to say, “Please, Daddy and Mommy. I don’t want no more dope.” We both looked at each other, patted the spot and said, “Let’s go,” because we had dope then ready to get high. So after we lost everything, she went back to treatment and I stayed out.
I had to go into a homeless shelter to get away from it all because it was no rest. So I did that and got back into treatment. I got out and got my own place. We was both doing good, got the kids back. Everything. Then I picked up again. This time they took the kids for good and we kept on using. We ended up getting into a fight because she wanted me to sit in our living room while she take this guy in our children’s bedroom and turn a trick for the money. I put him out and we got into it real bad. She called the police. I stayed overnight.
When I got out I was ready to kill her. But her having money and dope stopped me. So we got high and made love. But then she got angry at me again and called the police. This time I went to jail and stayed there for about six months. Plus the bank where I made a fake deposit wanted a hundred dollars before I got out. So I called my mother, got the prison address from her where my second son’s mother was at and wrote her. It took her a while to write me back, but she did. The first letter I received from her was okay saying how glad she was to hear from me and all that kind of stuff, but the second letter was telling me she loved me and always did and she was getting out soon and wanted me to be her man. It all sounded good to me considering the fact I had no one and was lonely as hell, dying on the inside for a relationship so I wouldn’t feel alone.
In the meantime I met an older lady inside the jail I was in that I used to have sex within the bathroom. We both was porters. A pack of cigarettes cost $3.00 a pack and we would go to the store twice a week. Every store day this woman would buy me 3 pack of smokes that I didn’t ever smoke because I would smoke Bugerlers. I would let hers stack up and then I had a guy inside the jail with me who had money and had his mother togo pay the hundred dollars for me to get out.
In the meantime, while all of this was happening, the woman who put me in jail showed up telling me she had an apartment for us and moved all my stuff into it. I told her she can have it and what ever guy she was messing with, he can have the stuff, but when I get out I was going to Cincinnati with my family. And that’s what I did. I had my sponsor to take me home. I got there and tried to get in touch with my second son’s mother who just got out of prison. It was hard at first because of her mother, but we hooked up. She took me out to her cousin’s house where she was going to spend the night. I was ready to go and she told me the last bus runs about 3am in the morning. Now, me living in Hamilton, Ohio from 1996 to 2001, I didn’t catch no bus because they did not have buses to catch there. But I knew better that a bus running at 3:00am in the morning.
I just smiled at her. She asked me what was wrong and I told her it was fun to both of us because I know what time it was we did the dew and then got close. We end up moving in together into my mother’s house. Then, from there to our own where our second son was born. After she had him, Children’s Services came and took him away. They said that what she did in the past was so bad that any baby she have they will come and take them from her. And that hurted very much because we had plan to be together, have children and one day, get married.
I was back smoking weed and did crack about 2 times. So we had sex again and conceived our little girl. We got another apartment hat we could afford. I started going to outpatient treatment. I was doing good, working and selling weed. She started working at a temp place and ended up meeting somebody else on the side while I was at work. She was doing her dew. Our daughter was born and I lost it. I started back on crack, didn’t care and when I was beat up enough that time I went to the Cross Roads Treatment. Got out. Was doing good.
Then another big crash come by. This time I was living with my mother and a whole lot of other people. I stole from my brother who stayed there and my mother put me out, but before that happened one of my brothers got caught with a shotgun he was about to use on my daughter’s mother because she was trying to move her new man in a apartment that was in my name. My brother wasn’t having that at all. And to repay him I was high on crack and broke into his house while he was in jail and his woman was at work. Then I stole from the brother that lived with me at my mother’s house and she told me to leave and don’t ever come back.
So I did get high that night and the next day I went to the Drop Inn Center and got into a program. I did good. I didn’t have no women and didn’t want none. I would just mess around with girls, but nothing serious. I learned a lot. This place kept me humble because everyday when I was up in treatment I seen people getting better. When I first came there I was ready to die.. All that changed. I used to come downstairs and see me, what I was like and how I could be again, everybody sleeping at the center to get off the streets and out of the cold. I was so grateful.
Looking at my daughter grow up brung me joy. I no longer fell for the schemes that my daughter’s mother used to play. It was like she didn’t want me and didn’t want nobody else to have me either. I got over the pain I used to feel behind that.
Others in the program used to look up to me. I went places while there. And then I met someone who fell in love with me and I did he same back. I completed the program, got out, got my own apartment and this woman moved in with me. I found out about the trouble she was in after I was head over hills in love with her. And we tried to hide her the best we can, but there was a day she just wouldn’t listen to me. She thought I was caging her up like an animal and I wasn’t. I just didn’t want her to get caught and go to jail. But it happened. And when it did I was so hurt and started using heavier than I ever used before.
I seen a woman that I know, then I met a dealer through her. I opened up my house to him and when I say “house” I mea apartment. I was getting more crack than I ever had, but this guy wasn’t right at all. He started doing things I didn’t like, having women in my house who stole what little bit of stuff I had and I never knew it til the drugs were gone out of my system. And then I noticed people would play childish games and I was sick of it. This guy would say over and over that he feels he was going to have to shoot me or ne of my brothers. And that if certain things happened again, that he was going to have to kick my ass. At first it didn’t bother me because I always been able to handle my own. He didn’t know that, but I did. And I knew how my brothers is. We are opposites. They are out-going with their anger and craziness. I’m more laid-back with mines. And I did my best not to get angry or mad, but when I do watch out and this guy had it in his head that I was soft and I know I’m far from that. But I was starting to fear fro my life, my brother’s lives or what I was going to get pushed into doing to somebody else.
So I picked up and left. Called a lady I know and got a bed in Detox in Dayton, Kentucky where I am now. I gave my mom the keys to my apartment and took a few things with me. I left so much good stuff behind. I hated it, but I know deep down in my heart I can get all those things back – but if I die, if my brothers die or if I was to kill, I wouldn’t ever be able to get or give back.
So, I ran. Once here I started thinking about the madness I started up just by some crack. I went through so much within three onths.. The women I have, got locked up. I was two months behind in rent. Electric was cut off. The bill is $1,700. Both of my brothers pulled guns on me and threatened to beat my ass. This dope boy was talking shit to me and those that used too was doing shit. My grandmother is on her death bed now. I feel all alone, wanting to die. My little girl is about to be taken out of my life. Family turned their backs. Friends went away. Father never called me back. Women trying to sleep with me, and I found out some stuff, the woman I love was doing while I was at work trying to make a way all of this stuff running in my mind.
I have a son 16 years old who want me to be a part of his life but I couldn’t because of all the stuff I felt inside, confused as hell. So I ran to dope to kill my thoughts and it did that for just a second. Then my brain woke up again. Everything I worked for was gone like that, in no time at all, faster than ever.I can remember lying on my bed, crying, thinking to myself, “I don’t have no electric, but I have gas. Way don’t I seal everything up real good, unplug the phone, put something up to both doors, blow out the pilot light and turn the gas on and just fall asleep?” I had everything planned out, but God’s grace was with me, because I got on the phone to get some help.
I left a lot out of this story, not to hide anything, but for you to know I’ve been through hell and back, all the problems I had. And they are still there. I’m very disappointed in myself because I know better. I was under so much pressure walking a thin line for Children’s Services. Can’t make a mistake because if that happened if would prove to the judge that he was right all along. They seem to think that someone who is addicted can take a pill and be okay or normal. They really don’t know me or the sickness of what I’m dealing with at all.They might have heard about it or picked up a book and did some reading, but to say they know first hand, they can’t say. Nobody but another addict knows what I’ve been through.
It’s not that I don’t love my children, because I do, with all my heart – and if it was a pill to make me well, I would get a lifetime supply of them. I’m not a bad person. I just make bad choices at times that cost me for the rest of my life. I’m a sick person trying to get well. I believe deep down in my heart that I not only need NA, but professional help, too, because of the life I lived, the things I’ve been through, the things I’ve done and stuff that happened to me as a child growing up until now.
I can say the Lord and his grace have always been with me. You know how it’s funny when a person is down and out, they take a real hard look at their life, the things they did right and all they did wrong. In the beginning, drugs was fun. I should have known way back in 4rth grade that something was wrong with me because I remember me and my friends going to the store and drinking cough syrup and getting a bus.
I’ve made millions of bad choices in my life. The choices I made this time was bad and good, so I know I have to live with them because dying will not change them. The bad one was choosing to use again, knowing my chance to be a part of little girl’s life is at stake, my apartment, job and the relationship I rebuilt with my family was too. The good choice I made was to seek help again, to really take a look at my life and get back on track to get the help that I really need.
I’m a addict name Toney R. and I hope that you readers can get something from my story. I pray that the Lord opens your eyes, hearts, and minds and see, feel and wonder and know that you’re not alone. I used dope, dope used dope, then dope used me, I lost hope. Had to run somewhere safe and for six days I haven’t had no dope and slowly is coming back my hope. I like to thank those people and addicts in recovery for all they have done to jump start me again on the right path. I’m not going to mention no names because this story is about me, not them, but whatever I become in life I want them to know that they helped me through it behind God’s grace. Thanks for your help. The saying in the fellowship I belong to is “One addict helping another addict.”
THANK-YOU ALL VERY MUCH,
Tony R.
And to my children, I know people will talk crazy to you about me, tell you all kinds of things. But please know that I love you, all 5 of you. Always did and always will.
In the material published in Queen City Forum Magazine’s “The InkTank”, the author retains the copyright and all rights are reserved to the author of the story, poem, serial, or otherwise. None of the afore mentioned may be copied, reprinted or reproduced without the expressed written consent of the author.
Links
· InkTank
· The InkTank: About the Authors August 2005
Contact Information
· jsyroney@inktank.org
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