Behind Stephanie’s perfect life lay a dangerous addiction.
"Lying in a hospital bed I heard my mum talking to the doctor. I was so excited that she was here and couldn’t wait for her to come and see me. But after five minutes I heard her footsteps leaving down the hall. The realisation crushed me, even my own mother didn’t want anything to do with me.
But my mother wasn’t a bad person and I didn’t blame her for not wanting to see me. I was in hospital because I’d crashed her car when I was drunk. I was in hospital for the second time in two weeks after getting drunk and taking drugs. I was out of control and didn’t know how to stop.
You wouldn’t think I was the kind of person that would end up in rehab. From the outside my life looked perfect. My mum was a lawyer, my dad was an investor, and I grew up in a big house. I never even tried drugs until I was 16. I had one friend, Kelly* who told me she snorted coke and I used to say to her, “Be careful, it’s bad for you”. One day we were driving home from school drama practice in her BMW and Kelly offered some to me. She told me it would make me more alert and improve my concentration which didn’t sound scary at all. In fact, it didn’t sound any different from the Adderall tablets I had to take to treat my Attention Deficit Disorder. She gave me a tiny amount and I snorted it. My heart began to race and I immediately felt a little more paranoid, but really, I didn’t feel much different, or “high”. If this was what drugs were like I didn’t think I’d bother doing them again.
But around this time a lot of happened in my life and everything started to get on top of me. My parents got divorced when I was three and I lived with my mum but I used to visit my dad and step-mum at weekends. He drank heavily and a lot of the time he just used to sit on the couch when I visited. He wasn’t really there for me. One weekend when he was drunk he cut his hands on glass. When I turned up to see him there were bloody handprints all over the door. It was really scary and afterwards I was told that if my dad had had one more drink he would have died. I couldn’t stay with him that night so I went back to my mum’s crying. That was the wake up call my dad needed and he got sober after that. Ironically he got clean just as I started dabbling in drugs.
Around the same time a girlfriend of mine set me up on a date with a guy. I was so excited but the day of the date came and it was horrible. He was really pushy and tried to get me to have sex. I was too afraid to say anything to him and he ended up raping me. Afterwards I felt so awful and dirty inside, so I did cocaine again with Kelly to try and numb the feeling. It didn’t make me feel any better but I felt so dirty anyway, I thought I might as well do drugs too.
Two friends convinced me to tell my mum about the rape, and then I went to speak to a school counsellor, who told the police, but we didn’t have enough evidence to prosecute him. Soon after my mum discovered Kelly had been using drugs and told the school. She was a senior and was supposed to be graduating but she had to leave and blamed me. She wouldn’t speak to me after that. I was really upset to lose a friend, but at that point I was even more upset to lose the person who hooked me up with my cocaine.
I started drinking at school. Every morning I would take vodka out of my mum’s liquor cabinet and pour it into a water bottle, and then sip it during lessons. I didn’t like how I felt when I was sober and the alcohol helped to block out my feelings. Despite this, I still got good grades. Different colleges came to my school to give talks and I decided to apply to the fashion institute. My parents took me down to the university for an interview and they offered me a place. I was so keen to get there I convinced my parents to enrol me in a continuation school, which is different to a regular high school because you study at your own pace. If you’re a good student you graduate faster, but mainly kids go there when they’ve been expelled from other schools and are behind on their lessons.
What my parents didn’t know was that my main reason for going was that I knew all the bad kids got sent there and it would be easy for me to find drugs and alcohol. On my first day I spotted Amy*. She had crazy blonde hair that stuck out in all directions and was wearing lime green shoes. I knew she’d have drugs and decided to be her friend. It turned out she was into crystal meth so I started using it too. You only need to do it a few times before you’re addicted and I started to physically crave it almost straight away. I would be awake for weeks at a time but my brain wasn’t engaged. Inside I was a zombie, but outside I was hyper.
By now I was spending $200 a week on drugs and alcohol. It had become my security blanket and I never wanted to run out of them. My parents noticed my personality had changed drastically but they didn’t know what to do. Then one evening I came home and was so high I told my mum I was going to slit her throat in the middle of the night. She sent me away to my aunt’s for the summer to try and get me sober, and it worked. After 2 weeks I ran out of meth and didn’t know where to get more so I was forced to stop. I had some withdrawal symptoms but because I had been rationing my stash I had been cutting down gradually anyway.
I went home to start the new school year as a senior and was determined to keep my life on track. My parents tried to organise things to keep me occupied and away from my old acquaintances and I stopped hanging around with Amy. I made friends with another girl, Shannon*, who was a bit of a party girl but wasn’t into hard drugs and for two weeks I managed to stay sober. But then one weekend we went to a party and someone offered me a drink. I thought why not. I started drinking again regularly. At another party a week or two later I had some beers, a jello shot and then we went to Shannon’s boyfriend house and I drank a quart of a bottle of gin and smoked some pot. Instantly I started to feel really weird. My mouth was dry, I was having trouble breathing and I couldn’t see properly – all I could make out were blurred colours. I was freaking out. I turned to Shannon and said, “I’m gonna die” over and over.
Shannon and her boyfriend took me home but my mum wasn’t in so they fetched a neighbour who called an ambulance. I had convulsions as I went to hospital and was so scared, but it turned out to be some sort of allergic reaction. After keeping me overnight at the hospital my parents took me home. They sat me down for a talk, but I told them not to worry as I was never drinking again. I really meant it, but I didn’t know how to stay away from alcohol. As soon as my mum went to work the next day I started drinking again.
A week and a half later I snuck out of the house while my mum was asleep. My friend was back from college so I drove my mum’s Mercedes to his house and started drinking margaritas. At 6am my friend told me to go home. I was too drunk to drive but he told me I’d be fine. I got in the car and blacked out. I remember driving down this series of windy roads and the whole way I went in and out of consciousness. When I got to the tightest part of the curve I look down and realised I was going 180 in my mum’s car. I went up the middle divider and crashed and then rolled the car into bottom of a grassy bank.
Someone behind me called an ambulance and then let me call my mum on their cell phone. She didn’t even know I wasn’t in my bedroom. I was so out of it but still felt awful that I had to tell my mum that I was going to be carted away to hospital again. I was in the hospital all day and not one of my so-called-friends called to see if I was OK or came to see me. And then when my own mum didn’t visit I realised I was totally alone. Drugs and drinking had driven everyone away. I laid in bed all day thinking. I couldn’t carry on like this, but I couldn’t imagine my life without drink or drugs either.
That evening my mum called the hospital and said, “you’re going to your dad’s for a while, I love you” but when my dad picked me up he told me he was taking me somewhere to get help. I wasn’t mad, it was actually a big relief – I knew I couldn’t stay sober on my own. He took me to a rehabilitation centre, and it was so weird to think I was “in rehab”, like a Hollywood celebrity or something. Although it was one of the higher end rehab centres, it certainly wasn’t glamourous. The first night and next day I felt like I was still drunk, really out of it, and then I had the worst hangover ever.
Everyone there was a teenager like me and in the AA meetings I could relate to all their stories. I felt like I fitted in for the first time and realised I couldn’t get sober for anyone else, I had to do it for myself. I was there for 30 days and it helped a lot. We went to groups everyday where we talked about our addictions and every Tuesday we had a family group where I talked to my parents about our issues. After everything that had happened my relationships with my parents and half brothers were very difficult but they did everything to support me – I’m so glad they didn’t disown me.
Three years later I’m still clean and sober. I graduated early from college and now work part time at Chapman House as well as an assistant to a TV stylist in Hollywood. I realised that the people from my past weren’t true friends and I don’t speak to them anymore. Instead I’ve made new ones, ones that I know are there for me no matter what. I’ve also got a boyfriend, Cory, who has been in rehab too and is eight years clean, so knows what I’ve been through.
When it comes to drugs if doesn’t matter where you grew up. I had a lot of positive role models and lived in a nice area, but I still got addicted. To begin with it seems like fun but not too long after that you’re just using the alcohol and drugs to feel normal again. I was using the drugs to fill a lonely hole inside. Everyday is a struggle to stay sober but my family has supported me all the way. Finally I’ve learnt to like myself and don’t need anything to block out my feelings."
