To understand how this came to be my life, you first need to know who I am. 

I am an almost, 28 year old woman. I’m single, and I live at home with my parents in our family home. I have a soul destroying office job that pays the bills, and leaves me totally unfulfilled. I have begun a degree, which I am doing part time along side my full time job, which I am utterly convinced I cannot do and am going to fail. 

My life has been very normal. I grew up in an atypical British town, went to normal schools with normal (aside from my awesome, crazy friends) people. I come from a fairly average family that has average family dramas. My family and friends love me, I believe they do anyway, and have always supported me.

I have never, in anyway, felt like I have been disadvantaged. I haven’t suffered any spectacular hardship in my life. I can offer no excuse for what I have become, aside from that I am weak willed and self destructive. 

I first tried cocaine when I was 16, and of course a boy was involved! Oh he was dreamy. Up until that point I had only ever tried weed at parties, and even then didn’t enjoy it and gained the nickname “whitey” for good reason.

I can still remember that rush. It was a feeling I can’t describe and could never have imagined. I felt like the best version of myself, funny, sexy, smart. I seem to recall I also went on to clean the whole of said boys kitchen because I couldn’t sit still.

After that moment I had the odd line here and there at parties. The boy went, as most boys do, and I just sort of got on with my life without thinking about cocaine.

I was 17, almost 18 I think, when I started working at my local pub for friends of mine and my parents. I had no idea at the time how badly their cocaine addictions were, or that they dealt it through the pub, but these are things I would come to learn once my naivety was lost.

Again, it was the odd line here and there on the weekend after the bar shut. Then came my first “session” my first “all nighter” upstairs in the pub after closing. I can remember feeling like i would die if I didn’t twitch my toes and twiddle my hair, and oh my god the utter bull shit we talked about until the early hours! And the next day was nothing short of hell. I was literally a zombie the entire day, how I functioned I’ll never know, as I think I even went into work at my part time job! Yet, despite all of that, what I recall the most, so clearly, is how utterly amazing I felt. I was invincible for the first time in my life. I was cool, I was in with the in crowd, I was part of the secret club, and it felt delicious. When I look back on this memory it is that euphoria I remember.

For the next year I used it more frequently, sometimes even being paid from the pub in it! Eventually leading to me sleeping with a coworker in exchange for it. Actually, that sounds far more seedy than it was. I knew he had it, we kind of liked each other, so I’d go back after the pub shut and we’d have sex and a few lines then I’d go home. It was a pretty wild time for a girl who was always so sensible and mature! I was a total buzzkill before this new exciting me. I made new “friends” and did things I would never have even dreamed of, like having sex in the pub cellar with a guy I adored, but who was in love with my best friend. I know, total life fail.

Eventually, however, I left the pub, I went back to college and didn’t think much more of this “wild child” I’d spent a year pretending to be. Everyone did drugs, they were everywhere, I wasn’t special or a druggy just because I’d done a bit of coke for a year when I was 17, it’s not like I still did it, or genuinely even thought about it anymore. It was the past, old life, a funny memory of my youth. 

Or so I had convinced myself

For the next few years I never touched it. It helped that the enablers from before were no longer a part of my life, so I wouldn’t have had the first clue how to get it even if I had wanted to! I got a job, met a boy (sigh...fool...) and cracked on with life. All seemed well enough for a few years and my life was actually fairly standard, and drug free.

Then the boy left (shock horror) breaking my heart in the process. So here we are, some 6 years after my pub days, heartbroken and alone, when I encountered an old friend. She was so great to me! Comforted me and supported me in my time of need, kept me busy and forced me to get out the house and enjoy myself! Initially it was only that. I’d never really associated our friendship with drugs. I knew she did them, and had a bit of a reputation for it, but we’d only done it together years earlier on very few occasions, and she never seemed to do them now. Only she did. And here we are yet again!

A night in, few glasses of wine, and she pulls out the bag. The powder seemed to almost sparkle. It also turned out, coke had changed considerably in my time away from it, and it was now much stronger and a fuck load more expensive! Thankfully my mate had a guy who liked us and did us good deals. Isn’t that exactly what we needed?! 

So we start off with the odd night every few weeks, get 1 in between us, no harm no fowl. Then it’s every week. Then twice a week. Then it’s 2 grams between us. Then sometimes 3 on pay day. I can already feel myself getting run down from lack of sleep and food, but I am in complete denial at this point. My mate had done it for yonks, far longer than me, and more frequently, and she was fine! Had a steady job she enjoyed which paid well, she was happy and functioning, so I’d be just fine. I was only having fun and enjoying life after the cursed boy, I’m not hurting anyone, right? 

For a long time it stayed like this. A bit here and there, the occasional mad one, but I didn’t feel like I needed it and could take it or leave it. Before long though I would get excited when she text because of the possibility of it. We became each others enabler. I had gotten numbers for dealers of my own, and would buy it for me to go out on the weekends. Even at this point, I think probably the tipping point for me, I wouldn’t do it every weekend and would only share half with a friend, and it was still more of a treat. 

I also have to admit I liked being in the exclusive club again, I liked that people asked me if I could get it, it made me feel powerful almost? Pathetic right? Huge alarm bells and flashing neon signs are going off everywhere right? And yet I was blinkered to it all! 

I suppose we’re probably a year, maybe 18 months, after I rekindled my relationship with cocaine when it started to escalate quite quickly. Actually, might have been more like 2 years. At this point I literally couldn’t go out without it, and was on it every single weekend. If I couldn’t get it my night would be ruined. Although I was only doing it at the weekends now, and the occasional mid week session (Ha. Just saying that out loud...god how did I not see it?!) and if I wasn’t drinking, or with certain people, it honestly didn’t really factor into my routine. I was still ticking along nicely, had my job and my family, my friends. All was picture perfect on the surface.

It’s about now when my mental health issues, which have admittedly plagued me ever since puberty smacked me in the face with a shovel, got very bad. I was so depressed I could barely do anything without wanting to cry. I cried myself to sleep most nights, if I could sleep at all. Work became very stressful, health issues started to plague my beloved family, and I was struggling to cope. I spent so much time pretending to be fine I was totally drained. Ah, but my bestest friend would help me out! My ever faithful cocaine would see me alright. Even just knowing it was coming brightened my mood, and when I was on it I didn’t feel like I was pretending to be happy anymore, I was fine! I felt great. Sure, I felt lousy again the next day, but that wasn’t the cokes fault, that was the depressions fault. A diagnosed hormone imbalance that would be with me forever, totally and completely unrelated to any and all cocaine use.

Now, things did eventually come to a head mentally. I had to go to the doctors and went back on antidepressants. I also moved jobs to reduce the stress levels in my life, and before long it all kind of seemed to level back out again.

So on I go with my miserable little life. Working in a job I despised, living for the weekend and my lovely little packet of happiness, and just doing my thing. Everything got done, I handled all my responsibilities, as I always had. Did the dutiful daughter, aunt, friend, sister, employee thing with minimal disdain. 

We are now a little while on, and probably about a year or so ago from now, when it all got much worse. I am now buying more. My half G has increased to 1 G, and it’s all mine. I am also now on it at least twice a week, every week, sometimes more. I am beginning to struggle to keep this up emotionally and financially, and yet on I go regardless. I have now also begun lying about how often I’m on it, and if I have it, even to those who also partake. I am embarrassed and ashamed, and know how disappointed everyone would be in me, so best to just keep them in the dark and then we’re all happy! It’s not like I’m addicted anyway, I’m going to cut back soon and sort my shit out, so it’s not even worth upsetting anyone by telling them it’s gotten fairly bad, because I’ll have it under control soon.

Wrong wrong wrong wrong. Also, I am a fucking idiot.

I was clearly already very addicted here, in fact I had been for some time before that too if I’m honest with myself, something I have most certainly not been for a very long time.

Things continue to spiral for me mentally and financially. It strains my relationships with friends who don’t know I do it at all, to the point I would cancel plans in order to see a friend who did it so I could get fucked instead. I am utterly disgusted with myself. I truly hate this person I’ve become. This is not me, I don’t know who this person is, all I know is they’re a cunt and I hate them.

I have also started taking it on my own. Friday nights in, mum’s at work and dads in the pub. Time for a little me time in the form of a bottle of gin and a lovely fluffy gram of magic. So of course my Saturdays are write offs most weeks. My relationship with my mum, my best best friend, the most important person in my life, is all but gone. I am barely a functioning person at least 3 days a week, going to work on little or no sleep. 

I am tired all the time. Constantly ill. How the fuck no one has questioned me having hay fever for 2 years solid is also amazing?! Surely someone has guessed? Someone MUST know? I so so need someone to see it and help me stop it because I literally cannot bring myself to stop it alone. I am frightened I’ll destroy my parents, the guilt of what it would do to them, to our relationships. Then my nephews...god...Aunty Druggy the waste of space loser who will never amount to anything...what a disappointment to the family. What a disgrace.

And yet none of that fear ever stopped me getting here did it? It didn’t slow me down on my self destructive road. It hasn’t stopped me even when i got myself back into debt with pay day loans, when I was so bloody proud of myself for sorting my finances out just a few short years ago. 

I feel that, by pushing my mum away, she won’t notice, and I won’t have to face her. This incredible human being. My mumma, The Saint, the superhero! The greatest mother anyone could wish to have, but who I don’t deserve. I have let her down, I’ve let myself down. 

The worst part about all of this is how bad my mental health is again. It’s the worst it’s been since my attempted overdose almost a decade ago. The coke has made me feel so fucking useless, so weak. And this fury and disappointment I have towards myself just furthers my thoughts that everyone is better off without me here. I am working hard, actually that’s probably another lie I’m telling myself, to combat the depression aspect of my life. Unfortunately that is largely being treated with more and more and more cocaine. We’re now on Thursday, and I have gone through 4 grams just to me since Sunday. That is disgusting. Jesus, just working that out and seeing it in front of me. That is disgraceful. I am so fucking ashamed of myself.

So now I lie here and promise myself, as I do every night when I can’t sleep because I’m too wired, and the next day when I’m the undead on a huge come down, that that is it now. No more. But we all know that’s just until I’ve slept and feel a bit brighter, don’t we? 

I couldn’t face a doctor, what if someone found out? What if someone overheard the conversation down the corridor through a bloody great wooden door? Or snuck in and read my file?? These are genuine fears I have. Or, my favourite, what if they call the police! 

So I could always ring a helpline. Have a little chat with frank perhaps? But speak to someone on the phone? With my anxiety? I hang up whenever they answer out of shear panic. They’ll only judge me. Think I’m an awful person who doesn’t deserve their help. 

Right....ok...blogs. Message boards. Let’s have a look. Huh, useful, helpful, likeminded folks, ah...who haven’t used the message board since 2014...or ones with the god squad in force...or some judgmental prick who’s likely never even had a chocolate bar, never mind a line, so has no clue.

So now we’re here. I’ve stayed up all night again on it. I’ve got work in 2.5 hours. I’m going to have to pay out to replace the coke I bought for a mate for the 20th April  that I’ve now essentially demolished, rest assured I only did because I know I can replace it tomorrow and she hasn’t paid me yet anyway, so that makes it totally fine (not) aaaand I’ve just spilled my cocaine journey onto the notes on my phone...which no one but me can access and see...so I’m not even really sure who the reader is that I’m addressing?! I guess myself...? 

So, me, you stupid bloody idiot of a human. Time to face reality. You have a problem with cocaine, a big one. You are an addict. You have an addiction. You need to get help now, somehow. If I was me, I’d probably start by sending this to someone who loves me and would support me. Just please do not let this be it and just go back to doing nothing, you complete knob.

P.S If you don’t stop soon you’ll either wind up alone and in unmanageable debt, or dead. Dead is a real possibility if you do not SORT YOUR FUCKING SHIT OUT. If the drugs don’t get you, the depression will, and the only thing worse than being loser druggy Aunty Toni, is dead Aunty Toni. You can do this...I can do this. You are not this person, and you can do this. I’m also suddenly very aware that I have just waffled complete shite to no one for about an hour...totally healthy state of mind to be talking to yourself through your phone...bravo.