Faces of addiction: Cathy's story
For Cathy, addiction was always part of her family. As early as eight years old, she began experimenting with drugs and alcohol, only to fall victim to addiction herself. Cathy is now clean and living the life she’s always wanted. This is her story.
Transcript
I was using heroin. I didn't take heroin that day. And I felt sick. And I called my sister and said something's
wrong I think I have the flu. And she said, nope, you're dope sick. So I knew then that I had to continue to use or be sick.
[MUSIC PLAYING] The first time I started using myself,
I was about eight years old, drinking shots of vodka out of my parents' liquor cabinet and was using narcotics by seventh grade.
Well, I think, in my family, addiction is a disease because it seems to be hereditary. I lost my father to this disease of addiction
when I was really young. So I was raised, kind of, by my older sisters, who used. As I got older and started to expose myself to things,
I think it was just a perfect fit. The bottom that I hit, the thing that happened to me that made me wake up and decide I didn't want to live that way was I was gang raped.
And I didn't, kind of, stop using after that. But it was the beginning of the end for me. I kind of used with a vengeance after that.
And so I just knew that I couldn't continue to live that way. And my first thought was that I was going to kill myself because I just didn't know that people
got clean and stayed clean. So my first reaction to those feelings was, I'm just going to kill myself. I have been clean coming up on 25 years.
Recovery for me is that I'm living, kind of, like, the life that I want to live. I'm not doing anything against my will.
In the last 25 years, I think the most important thing that I got was I got a freedom from self-loathing. I really, really hated myself when I first got clean.
I think I would offer someone who is thinking about getting clean or struggling with addiction, I think I would say to them what I
wish someone had said to me, which was early recovery is not easy. I won't lie. I won't say it is easy.
It's difficult. It's physically uncomfortable. But it's worth it. And it's an investment.
addiction recovery
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