The Saline Reporter
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
The human toll
Sara's curiousity leads to a drug addiction
By Alana West, Special Writer
PUBLISHED: April 19, 2007
Sara, 23, who asked that her full name not be used for this story, played sports in high school. She earned good grades and a place in the Navy that would have helped fund her college education.
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"I signed up right after Sept. 11, (2001)," Sara said. "I was given $50,000 to $60,000 to go to college ... I lost everything, and I can't go back. I got an 'other-than-honorable' discharge."
Curiosity led Sara to try drugs. And when she tried them, she wanted to keep taking them. At one point, she sold drugs to pay her bills. She said she will never do that again because she doesn't want to go to prison.
"I was at a bad point," said Sara, who is from a small, rural, local town in Michigan. "I took crack, Ecstasy. They are easy to get ... I sold drugs to pay bills ... What kept me doing drugs was the numbness."
Sara likes talking to people about her past and what she is doing now to ensure her future is free and clean. To understand her past herself, she must have spent a lot of time self-analyzing, trying to work out what happened, so it will never happen again.
As she talks about her many losses as the result of drugs through her own use, or her biological family's use, you can tell she is weighing them against her future. She is making peace with who she is now.
"When we (use the word) 'glamorizing,' we're talking about our addiction. But a lot of times, we don't remember the bad times, (like) when we puked on the floor," she said.
Sara has been at Dawn Farm since Jan. 9, and feels comfortable here. The people are like family to her, and they watch out for each other. They share their stories, and the daily chores around the farm. They pray together before meals, and must ask permission from each other to do even mundane things, such as use the restroom.
If someone gets upset at another person, they can "resent" it, but can't tell someone the anger that they are feeling for 24 hours. By that time, usually the hurt feelings evaporate, and there is no anger left. This keeps the group whole.
Sara has heard stories that show her that her own past history, which hasn't been pleasant by any means, hasn't reached the low points that others in her group have reached.
"I swore up and down that there was no way I would share (those feelings) with other people. But there is something about being here, and hearing the other horror stories," Sara said.
She said that people in recovery tend to minimize their own addiction. However, she said, if they follow the road that they are on, they are likely to end up in that same position, or worse.
"The word (they want us to remember) is 'yet.' It hasn't happened to me, yet," Sara said.
Here is the good part of Sara's history: Sara was adopted at age 7 into a loving family who also adopted her two biological older brothers.
"I did well in school. I was active in school. I was a jock," she said.
On the surface, everything seemed OK. But she came from a home in which both of her biological parents were addicted to crack cocaine. She has heard that in her family, the women were prostitutes and the men were drug dealers.
"I was raped. My two brothers committed suicide (after they got older)," she said.
Both of her brothers also took drugs while in school.
Sara said she doesn't know why they committed suicide, but she knows they were addicted to drugs.
"Addicts don't know what feelings are. We've been numb for so long. We have unhealthy coping methods," she said.
Addicts deal with life's ups and downs by taking drugs. She doesn't know how to have a healthy relationship, she said.
"I love the fact that I can relate (to people here)," she said. "They are like a family. Our past (real) families have enabled us (not intentionally) ... But you can't bullshit a bullshitter," she said. "You can't get away with it here."
She said she was able to talk circles around her family members, who didn't tell her that her behavior had to stop. Eventually everything caught up with her.
"And I didn't know what to do," she said. "(My family) didn't say, 'No, you need to get help."
Sara said families of addicts don't know what to do, either. They love their child or family member, and don't want to say no, and risk having them leave home.
Now she is learning more constructive ways of coping with her feelings, sometimes through artistic expression.
"I play music, or do therapeutic painting," Sara said.
She said she also enjoys meditation when things get overwhelming.
"We have to learn how to live again. We feel feelings all this stuff we feel all comes to the surface," Sara said.
Once you get rid of the addiction, your self starts trying to find the real self again, she said.
"You get back the self you were, and never knew who you were."
Vivian's hard life lands her in trouble with drugs
Vivian has almost completed three months at Dawn Farm. She seems very focused, and ready to get her life back in order. When she speaks, she gets to the point, and sometimes what she says is profound.
"They say, be ready to lose what you put before recovery," Vivian said.
She said whatever was a priority in a person's life during their addiction, which they considered more important than recovery, will be lost to them.
Vivian has a boyfriend back in California who supports her recovery, and who is not an alcoholic, but she expects the relationship to end. She has not been home for three months, and she plans to stay with her recovering family in Michigan through transitional housing, as she slowly learns to take life's ups and downs without taking a drink.
"Life throws curve balls, no matter what. The difference is if you have to drink or not ... You have to have faith that it's going to work out," said Vivian, who just turned 21.
`Vivian's mother read about Dawn Farm in the book "No More Letting Go" at a time when Vivian needed help. She decided that it was the place for her daughter.
"In California, (facilities) won't take you unless you have a lot of money," Vivian said.
She went through detox Dec. 10, and entered Dawn Farm Dec. 14. Even when she leaves, she plans to enter transitional housing soon, as she has nearly completed her three-month stay at Dawn Farm.
"I'm still on second phase," Vivian said. "I spent Christmas here, and New Year's, and my 21st birthday. But Dawn Farm saved my life. The group itself is most awesome."
Vivian said she tried drugs when she attended rave parties in her home state, trying to fit in and be popular.
"Ultimately, I embraced the persona (of the drug addict). I was an atheist and an addict," she said.
Since then, she has found peace in reaching out to a higher power. Her face lights up, and there is conviction in her voice.
"It's 'Thy will, not my will, be done.' Our own thinking and our obsession will get us drunk. We have to talk to a higher power," she said.
Vivian said she knows she is powerless to manage her life right now, without that higher power, and she has faith that everything is going to work out.
Vivian thinks continuously about her problems with addiction, so she can make peace with it, and learn another way to function when she becomes stressed. One of her strategies is exercise.
"I do a lot of jogging on the treadmill," she said.
Over the past three months, she has seen newcomers enter the program at Dawn Farm, which reminds her of her first few days there. Having entered the center through detox implies already that their lives are out of control from the drugs they are taking.
Combine that with rules that won't allow them to go to the restroom without asking permission of the group, manual labor on the farm, and many hours of group therapy, during which they must admit their own troubling past, and many people start to get scared, and wonder if they made the right decision to stay.
"At first, you've lost everything. That's the first step. You're powerless to manage your own life. If you don't remember that, you can't control (your addiction)," Vivian said.
She added that if people just have faith, and trust, it will all work out.
Calvin's doesn't want to look over his shoulder anymore
Calvin knew on Christmas Day last December that he needed to make a change in his life.
"I was here once before, 15 years ago. I wasn't ready then," he said.
Calvin used drugs, mainly crack cocaine.
"I knew I was going to get high again," he said.
At age 57, he is ready now, he said.
Calvin was arrested Christmas Day, and was told by the police officer that he had the choice of jail or Dawn Farm's detox facility. He chose detox.
"It was a good thing," he said. "I was feeling fear all of the time."
A drug dealer thought Calvin had stolen from him, and broke his arm by hitting it with a table leg.
"Somebody stole something from him and my name came up," Calvin said. "I am tired of looking over my shoulder."
Calvin has a son in Detroit. He regularly attends the New Grace Apostolic Church in his hometown.
"The pastor is very supportive of me being here," said Calvin, sharing a radiant smile, seemingly happy and well-adjusted.
Calvin speaks about his past as if it were the past -- over and done with.
He is now divorced, but he said his wife and he had a co-dependent relationship during their marriage.
"She let me be," he said. "Things didn't get better."
Calvin said he has to learn how to relate differently to people now.
"I've been high ... since I was 12. I have to go back to being 12. I'm stuck at 17 or 18. I have to break down everything I've learned. I have to maintain my memories and work through them, until I am able to forgive myself," he said.
Calvin said sometimes he has thoughts that plague him or glamorize his past, when he used to take drugs.
"The birds land on your head. You don't hang onto that thought. If you start talking to someone for 10 minutes, the feeling will pass," he said. "We talk to one another and pray."
At Dawn Farm, people must be together for much of the time. They are not allowed to talk one-on-one with others, but must talk in groups of at least three. This rule prevents preferences for only certain friends.
The group works best if everyone is included, and can focus on the real work at hand, which is sobriety.
Because they are all together, all the time, there are moments when people can get enough of each other, and can't get away to cool off.
"I'm sensitive," Calvin said. "But if someone steps on my shoes, I can't be confrontational.
"If we want to respond, we have to wait for 24 hours. This enables us to process our thoughts, realize they probably didn't step on them on purpose. The beauty of this program is it alerts us to our feelings. I think you hurt me, but when I look at it, I wonder, 'Was this really what it was?'"
In the process, he has found feelings he didn't know he had. When Rocky lost the fight, in the last "Rocky" movie, Calvin said he had tears in his eyes.
"It was just a movie. Why am I crying about this?" he thought to himself.
Calvin has discovered that he can pursue new interests that can help him through troubling times, times in which only drugs worked before.
Calvin has learned that he enjoys playing video games and writing his thoughts down in a journal. He is happy that he has found these things out about himself, and he wishes he had done it sooner.
"You have to fight to get honest with yourself," he said. "I am at peace with who I am. I'm all right."
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