hello...I'm new here...found this place while searching online for addiction recovery chat rooms, and i'm very glad i found this! I'm a very shy person, and it's much easier for me to speak openly about my emotions online. So, I guess this entry will just be a little bit about myself. My name is Brittany, i'm from CT, 20 years old, and i am a drug addict.

I've always felt different from everybody else...started cheating lying and stealing very early on in life. I tried cigs and alcohol in grade school, and at 14 I tried cocaine and lost my virginity. That's when things started going downhill. After that, I started smoking pot on a regular basis. I was very promiscuous once i lost my virginity, and i believe that's because i always had very low self esteem and getting any type of attention from guys seemed to be my way of validating myself of being pretty and wanted. yet i was almost always just used for the sex.

 After i started smoking pot, i discovered robitussin cough medicine, the main ingredient is DXM, and if taken, you will trip. i became obsessed with this weird, long-lasting, trippy high, and i started to drink cough syrup as much as i could possibly stand to. that's when i started to make connections and find myself able to access more and more drugs. i started to do cocaine, ecstasy, shrooms, pain pills, and heroin. i've also tried acid and special k, along with a few other things. The heroin started to take over my life. I went from snorting it to shooting it in a very quick amount of time. i also found myself in trouble very quickly, and as i was only 16, i was forced by my parents and the hospital to go see a social worker. he suggested i try na meetings, and i did. i liked them, but as i wasn't going for myself, i was still smoking pot and sneaking in other drugs, too.

when it became time for me to go to college, i stopped attending meetings and the drug use took off once again, although this time, the downhill part came alot quicker. i didn't really go to parties in college, and i only got drunk a few times. i have never liked alcohol. the taste, how it makes me feel, and how it makes me feel after disgust me. thats not to say i couldnt become an alcoholic, but for now, it doesnt bother me if im around it, and i never crave it. anyways, eventually i started using heroin again. i then met my boyfriend who i am still seeing and now live with, and eventually he found out i was using heroin and helped me kick it. however, he was addicted to pain pills, and in place of my heroin addiction, i started doing pain pills with him. our addictions spiraled out of control, and eventually it all came down to getting arrested, fired for stealing, and kicked out of college..along with other bottoms, like stealing, lying and cheating from/to my family, friends, and the one i love. i had a choice: go to rehab or not be welcomed at my parents house and live on the street. broke and desperate, i knew worse things were waiting for me on the streets, and i decided to give getting sober another shot.

i went to an outpatient program, where i got on suboxone, what i think is a better version of methadone. its for opiate users, and it wont allow you to get high if you try using opiates while your on it. it also helps straighten you out, acting as a crutch for me in my sobriety. i also started attending meetings again, this time for myself. i am now 20, and have been clean for a year and a half, and am doing very well. it is truly a miracle how i've changed and how life has turned around for me. but, i'm tired and "a little bit about myself" has turned into alot about myself, so i'll stop there for now. i just hope if anything, i can be an inspiration to someone out there still in pain.