My name is Lisa and I am an addict...part 1

Yes, there you have it. Its out there for the whole Internet to read and see. I feel it is time I let you all in on the deepest secret of my life. Well, at least a secret to most people who know me. I got the courage today to write this post after reading this inspiring blog over at ClubMom Stay at Home Motherdom.

I am a recovering addict of prescription pain killers. I mostly only took Vicodin AKA Lortab or Hydrocodone because they were the ones I could easily obtain but would ingest any others I could find or get prescribed. They were all life to me in the form of a pill. The answer to my quest for happiness and the dirt that filled my hole of sadness and emptiness.

When I was 15 years old I was in a horrific car accident. My sister, her boyfriend, my best friend and I were all in the car on the way to our high school talent show to watch my hubby now perform in his band. We were hit in the side while making a right hand turn by a car going about 80 MPH. It was a residential area and we never saw the car in time. We were sent airborne and then hit the ground, flipped about 4 times, skid on the roof for a few hundred feet and finally stopped with the car on its side.

I was the only one awake through the entire ordeal. I saw the car hit us and felt and saw all the flipping and everything. It was very scary when the car came to a stop and everyone else was totally still. I could only see My sister and her boyfriend in the front seat layed over each other like Romeo and Juliet with their heads together blood streaming everywhere. I felt myself scream but couldn't hear it after the loudness of the crash. After what seemed like hours but was in reality only seconds my best friend woke up. She immediately got hysterical and started banging on the windows screaming because she was afraid the car would explode. At this point my sis and her bf also woke up and the boyfriend started trying to kick out the windshield as we were all afraid that the car could catch on fire. My mouth throbbed with pain but I had no idea what was wrong.

The driver of the car that hit us appeared at the window screaming obscenities "Look what the fuck you stupid kids did to my car!!!!". Another man appeared and slugged him in his jaw and within seconds we were all sitting in the grass on the side on the road. I felt very out of body and everything was going black around me. I looked down to see blood speckling the front of my overalls and reached to my face and felt my mouth. All of my front teeth were missing and all of the bottom ones were flattened. I was too worried about everyone else to care.

The ambulances showed up and my sis and best friend were taken to a local hospital and myself and the boyfriend were considered to be in critical condition and were taken to a specialty hospital downtown. In the ambulance the boyfriend was really worrying me because he kept repeating things over and over and over and I overhead someone talking about a brain injury. I felt I was OK except for my mouth.

I was in the hospital for a couple agonizing days where I had to have my braces cut out of my gums that still had teeth attached to them but not to my mouth. I also had to have the bottom teeth pulled back forward by the hands of the doctor and then re-braced to keep them in place. That was the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. I was missing 5 top teeth including of course my front teeth. I should have gotten my braces off in a few months. I was in severe pain and was put on heavy narcotics.

My sister was fine. She only had a gash across her face and a concussion and my friend only had bruising but her boyfriend had bleeding in his brain and wasn't expected to last the night.

Four days later he was released and we began the long journey towards normalcy again. It would take me a long time to recover from the trauma and many years to repair the damage to my mouth. But even worse was it marked the start of an addiction to pain killers that would eventually take a hold of me and try to claim my life.

Comments

[Mary]

Hi. I clicked over here from l-girl's site. That is an amazing story and I look forward to hearing the rest of your journey. Thanks for sharing it. It is very brave of you.

[donna]

You are so brave to share this story. I'm glad you are able to. I look forward to the rest of it.

[Emily]

I love how you constantly stay so honest on your site.

[Amber]

Wow, that sounds like a horrible thing for you to go through at such a young age. I am very interested in hearing the rest of your story and yes thank you for sharing such a personal part of who you are.

[Krista]

I am a total idiot about wearing my seatbelt. You just affirmed once and for all to me how important it is. I'm the world's Most Responsible mother, except for that little detail *now feeling ashamed*...
Thanks for sharing yet another gripping story from a chapter in your life. You must be so thankful every day just for being here! And I keep thinking, look, you survived long enough to have these beautiful babies... it was meant to be obviously.
And damn, reading this made my mouth hurt.

[Lindsey]

As Emily said above, I love your brutal honesty on this site.

[Shasta]

Thank you so much for sharing this and as others have said for being so honest. I couldn't imagine.

[Mel]

Like all the others have mentioned, you're very brave to admit this to everyone. I never would have guessed...

When did you finally beat the addiction?

[Colleen]

Quite a turn around from the other day's "boring" post!! What an awful thing to have experienced. I'm sure this is kind of therapeutic to write about it. I'll be checking in for "part 2".

[stayathomemotherdom]

You are very courageous. I look forward to reading your story.