into the Fire
Off I went to Los Angeles, California with a friend of my bother’s, Brian, who I didn’t even know. It was here that I really grew up fast - a young girl from the suburbs of Washington DC, to the big city of lights. It was like going from the frying pan into the fire. It was a different life out there. California was so exciting, but very scary at the same time. I got to meet movie stars - I was even in a movie. But life wasn’t as it seemed. It was overwhelming to be in the big city alone, so I started going to bars at night.
During the day I worked as a legal secretary and after work I would go to Gold’s Gym in Venice Beach. I became a body builder. I went from weighing about 118 at 5’5 to, in six short months, weighing 155 pounds of pure muscle. It was pretty scary when, one day, I looked in the mirror and didn’t even recognize myself. I looked like a brute, so I immediately stopped working out. But my body attracted a certain type of guys: body builders with 19-inch arms. They were all gorgeous but they had no brains and no ambition.
I’ll never forget the very first of many one night stands. I was at a nightclub that Brian was a bouncer at, and a really good looking guy came up to me and asked me to take a ride in his limousine. I was so excited as it was my first limo ride. Well the next thing I knew I was in bed with this complete stranger. I remember coming home and taking at least a two-hour shower. I wanted to wash the dirt off me. I thought to myself, I will never do that again, I felt so used and like such a tramp. However, that night primed me for a future of one-night stands. Unfortunately I can’t count how many there were. It got easier as time went on, and I started using men as they were using me. We had a mutual goal - have sex and never talk again. It became especially easy to have sex with a guy who was supporting my cocaine habit.
During my time in LA, I partied every night at a different club, went to Mexico on vacations, and had a blast. There were also some very difficult times as well. I got mugged outside my apartment, lost three jobs, and got evicted from my apartment. Eventually I realized life was just too tough in California, so I moved back home to Maryland, thinking I could pull my life back together and save money to go visit some friends in Ireland. My intentions were good but my cocaine habit, once again, took over. I got to the point of snorting cocaine in the bathroom at work and then immediately when I got off work, my friend Sandra and I would go to a bar, hook up with two guy friends and started a night of bingeing on cocaine. This went on for months.
At the time I had a boyfriend named Tim who loved me very much and was so good to me. I did nothing but treat him like dirt. I would make plans with him to meet him somewhere, and then never show up because it was more important for me to get high, than respectfully meet my commitment to him. He and I had made a promise that there would be no more cocaine, but from the very day that I agreed to stop, I continued behind his back, and he was nothing but a hindrance to my partying.
One day we went to a concert with Tim’s friends, who were supplying me with cocaine. We were all in the car going to the concert, and they started cutting up lines to be snorted, and they handed it to me. Tim looked at me and looked at them and looked down at the lines and said “No, we don’t do that anymore.” Well right then I made the decision that this drug was way more important than my relationship with him; so I grabbed it and said “Speak for yourself,” and I snorted it up right in front of him. As one can imagine, he was furious. He knew he was beat in this competition, so we broke up. This was great for me because I now had the freedom to get high whenever and wherever I wanted too. I did feel awful about what I did to him, but very shortly got over it because getting high could get me over anything, at least that was the way I thought.
But you know what else worked well to get my life together: moving - that was my answer. I applied for a franchise move to San Diego, California with the same company that I was working for, and it came to pass. So I moved to beautiful San Diego. I got a house right on the beach. I couldn’t have asked for anything better, but it wasn’t enough.
Even though Los Angeles was three hours away, I spent every weekend in LA. I would leave at 5:00 p.m. on Friday and stay at one of my old roommate, Kathy’s apartment. I would party the entire weekend, mostly all-nighters on cocaine. That meant staying up all night partying. I would leave Los Angeles around 4:30 - 5:00 a.m. on Monday morning and go straight to work. It was crazy, but I did it every weekend except for a couple of times when my friends would come to San Diego. Of course, they supplied my drug of choice.
This went on for about four months, until I was transferred to Anaheim, California, and I moved in with my Aunt and Uncle. I felt so lucky because my new boss was a cocaine addict, so I didn’t have to hide my addiction. Instead, we would get high together. That’s when things changed, and my snorting habit turned into a smoking habit with freebase (also known as crack before that process was given a name). Almost every night after work I would go to my boss’ house and party with him and his wife. He was probably in his middle forties, and I was twenty-one years old. When we got high, hormones started rising, and I began doing compromising things with my body. I had threesomes with he and his wife, and even one time, although under the influence of Quaaludes and freebase, I subjected myself to sexual pleasure with his wife. I don’t remember the event because I was so wasted, but I remember afterward feeling confused about my sexuality and I hated that feeling. I never again experienced that kind of intimacy; it was just not for me.
Although I was smoking cocaine during the week with my boss, on the weekends I would go down to Los Angeles, which was about an hour away. I would party all weekend snorting cocaine, not smoking it. As a matter of fact, people all around me would smoke it and I would get on their case about it. I acted as if I was totally against it, even though I did it all week long.