My name is Cassidy Newman and I am a drug addict. I want to start this by saying I am fully convinced from my experience, and the experience of others, that addiction is an actual disease. I do think that choices led me into discovering this, but I think there is something in certain people that is physically and mentally different. Once I did substances for a considerable period, there was an invisible line that got crossed, and I lost the choice of whether I would use or not use. After that line was crossed, it took something spiritual to guide my thinking and get me out of the cycle of substance use I was living in. I have only made it through the last five years without using any chemicals to alter my mind because of that spirituality and the process of recovery that led me to it.
I am from Niota Tennessee, a small town in McMinn County. My parents were pretty young when they had me. My mom was a nurse, and my dad was a cop. They both worked a lot, and I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. My Mamaw and papaw thought I was the greatest thing ever and they did a great job spoiling me. When I was about two my parents got divorced. My mom and dad both remarried many times which lead to me having a half-sister, half brother, and 13 step siblings over the years. So, my entire life I have gotten really close to people and then lost them. Another important thing about my childhood that attributed to my addictive behaviors later on was being sick. I was born early, had colic, always had stomach issues, allergies, and a surgery by the age of six. That led to me being on some type of medication almost all of the time. That was when I started feeling like I needed something to be ok.
My life seemed pretty normal for the most part and I was not exposed to very much at all until the age of 8. Before then I had an uncle and a stepfather that I heard a lot of bad things about drugs because of their lifestyles, but was never directly exposed to anything. Between the ages of 8 and 12 my life changed pretty drastically. My mom started dating a guy that had a 12 year old son, 14 year old daughter, and 16 year old daughter. I also had a best friend whose mother was an alcoholic. That was when the experimenting began. The first time I drank all of my friends had a little party. We mixed a lot of different alcohol together and each put some in a glass. All of my friends took one drink and thought it was nasty and stopped. I began to feel warm and incredible, and I drank until I was sick and passed out. And I loved it. I wanted to fit in with my brothers and sisters, so I did anything them or their friends did. I was very young, and they were shocked that I would do anything and everything. I loved being the center of attention.
Through this time, I also began experimenting with any drugs that were available, I was beginning to be promiscuous with my siblings older friends, and I also started becoming much more physically sick. There were so many things that happened in the next few years. I started high school, I got my first real boyfriend, I was responsible for my little sister for several years, I had gall bladder surgery, I lived on my own, my mom went out of town for work, and I started smoking marijuana daily. All of this was happening by the time I was 16. Right before graduating high school, I decided I wanted to be a pharmacist. Somehow between living on my own, taking care of a small child, being in a relationship, and doing drugs on a daily basis, I graduated high school with highest honors and got a scholarship to go to pre-pharmacy school and have it all paid for.
When I started college my drug use started to progress. I started selling marijuana to support my habit. I did a lot of uppers to stay awake to study and was also doing a lot of benzos to deal with anxiety. I was still smoking marijuana daily and I had a younger cousin that was staying with me and my boyfriend. My little sister had gone back to stay with my mom at this point. Growing up I had one friend that was consistent. Very few things in my life had been steady. My friend had moved to Tennessee from California when we were about 11. We instantly became more like sisters. For several years we basically lived with one another and were very close. She moved back to California when we were in high school. She had gotten pretty bad off on drugs as well and by the time I was in college she called to ask if she could move back and stay with me. I told her that I already had my boyfriend and cousin living with me and that she would really have to get off what she was doing if she wanted to come back. I was still under the impression my drug use was not very bad and she was doing meth IV and I thought that was very serious. A few days after I told her she could not come stay with me I got the phone call she had gotten a bad shot and died. My world was crushed. I felt so much blame. And that week I discovered Opana. I had done some opiates occasionally, but this changed my life and I instantly fell in love.
Over the next six years my life steadily went downhill. I graduated college but decided going to pharmacy school was not a good idea as I was already stealing prescription medications from my grandmother. I knew I would go to prison. I ended up using IV and it became my entire life. I started selling pills, selling my body, stealing from people, I could not keep a job, I ended up with an infection in my heart, hepatitis, several arrests and charges, losing a lot of friendships, and staying with random people as I could not keep a place to live. I put everyone I cared with at risk, I was a terrible influence on everyone I met, I took advantage of my grandparents that loved me more than anything in the world, and my life was wasting away to nothing. I was miserable. I tried many times to stop. I went to clinics and doctors and tried medications to get me off. I tried outpatient treatment. I went to inpatient treatment. But something just could not get thru to me.
Finally in 2016 drug task force was coming to every place I stayed, and I realized my drug selling career was taking me in a very dangerous direction. I went to treatment for the last time on September 13, 2016, more so to avoid prison than to quit drugs. But while I was there people from different recovery fellowships came in and told their stories. They all had one thing in common, they said they got on their knees and prayed. I became willing and got on my knees and said, “I don’t know what you are, or what you’re about, but will you please help me?” From then on things started happening. I couldn’t see it at the time but looking back they were nothing but miracles. I ended up in a sober living house and I started going to 12 step-based meetings. I have been a part of several different recovery fellowships and they have all helped me. I ended up taking steps through the fellowship of Drug Addicts Anonymous.
As I worked those steps, I became honest, open-minded, and willing. I had experiences that helped me gain faith in a power greater than myself. I did the process of an inventory and saw how my behaviors were patterns that developed way before drugs but ended up playing a part in my drug use. How I had acquired these characteristics to survive that were not very beneficial to any one but me, and how I had grown into an entirely selfish and self-seeking human being. Once I saw that, I was determined to change. The key was I could not do it on my own. It took believing in something bigger than me and a fellowship of like minded people that became my family. I started making amends and doing my best to repair the damage of my past. I got to spend time I missed with those grandparents that thought the world of me. I got to take care of them the way they took care of me. I got to change their diapers and brush their hair. I got to be the one that supported my Mamaw thru losing her husband of 68 years. I got to give her medication, I would have stolen in the past, that made her last days more comfortable. I got to feed her the last food she ever ate and I got to tell her “Thank you for loving me so much”. I got to tell her it was ok to go.
Over the last five years I have built an entirely new life. I am dependable and trustworthy. I have worked in a treatment center for the last four years. My body fought off hepatitis and my heart valves repaired themselves. I completed all legal requirements and am no longer on any type of probation. I am trusted to take care of so many of my friends children. I have relationships with family members that wanted nothing to do with me. I pay my bills on time. I show up for things. I keep my word. I do anything I can possibly do to help others. I continue to grow and have more people in my life that love me than I ever imagined possible. I have had the privilege of sponsoring other women. I get to see these women broken and lost and full of doubt. I get to give away what was given to me and watch them become mothers. I get to witness miracles in their lives. I get to see them become whole, get back confidence in themselves, and watch them make the world a better place.
I wish there was a better way to put so many things into words. I do not know a way to express the gratitude I have. I do not know a way to express what spirituality is to me. I do not know a way to express what active addiction is like or how it changes a person into someone they never wanted to be. I do not know an adequate way to express how recovery works or the miracles that happen because of that process. All I know is I had to get real low and alone to be open to a different path. I have to remember that I know and understand very little. There is a process that treats this disease just as medication treats other illnesses. As long as I follow the directions in that process, continue to seek something bigger than me, and love everyone I can as unconditionally as possible, my life continues to get better and better and there is a peace and a freedom that I never knew existed.
Do you have a recovery story that you’d like to share? Email Ashlee Crouse at acrouse@metrodrug.org.