Pubdate: Mon, 25 Jul 2005
Source: Chronicle Herald (CN NS)
Copyright: 2005 The Halifax Herald Limited
Contact:  http://www.herald.ns.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/180
Author: Brian Hayes
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

'I'VE SOLD MYSELF OFF '

Crack User From Age 13 Reflects On Life Ruined By Addiction

This is Mary's story. It's the sad tale of drug use and a fractured family, 
of the slow transformation of an attractive 13-year-old girl with a bright 
smile and shiny, shoulder-length hair into another statistic in metro's 
drug wars.

A photograph of Mary at age 13 and the image of her now couldn't be more 
different. The smile and childhood innocence are gone and her hardened face 
betrays years of torment as a junkie on the city's meanest streets.

Nowadays Mary, not her real name, looks nothing like the promising 
private-school student she once was.

Short, unkempt dark hair sticks out from beneath a woollen tuque, and her 
clothing is dishevelled and torn.

She has become a frail, sickly crack addict eking out a bleak existence 
supporting her habit.

"I've sold myself off. I've sold my soul, I've sold my body and I've sold 
my mind," the 30-year-old said of years of stealing and sometimes 
prostituting herself to get enough money for her next fix.

"I've been involved in a lot of (stuff) and how to deal with it is an 
everyday question.

"The reality of what I've been doing is very startling."

Mary, interviewed at a downtown coffee shop, traced her downward spiral to 
growing up in a volatile family environment.

"It was a quagmire of hostility," she said of her relationship with her 
parents.

"I guess in retrospect it seems like . . . I was (ticked) off with 
everybody and everything."

As she told her story, Mary fidgeted in her seat and nibbled on some 
pastry, her first food of the day.

By age 15, she said, she was out on her own living with friends. After 
dropping out of Grade 10, she worked the graveyard shift at a local 
doughnut shop. But she and her boyfriend soon headed to British Columbia. 
She recalls being strung out on heroin in Vancouver and earning $3,600 a 
month working a phone sex line to buy the drug.

"I had money to burn and drugs were easy to come by," Mary said. "It was 
interesting and easy work. Just acting."

She admits to being in a fog over the next two years and losing all sense 
of surroundings and time. But she remembers criss-crossing the country and 
even hitchhiking to Florida with her boyfriend.

Eventually, she returned to Halifax and ended up as a ward of the courts, 
living in group homes.

But within a year, she was off again, hitchhiking to Montreal. She was soon 
arrested for panhandling and the authorities sent her back to Halifax when 
they learned she was a runaway with a warrant out for arrest.

Back living in group and foster homes, Mary again dabbled in heroin and 
cocaine before making an effort to get clean, she said.

But she said "all hell broke loose" when she turned 18.

"I got pregnant and had a miscarriage five months later," she said. Within 
two weeks, her boyfriend committed suicide by jumping off one of the 
harbour bridges, she lost her baby and almost died when a fire gutted her 
hotel room.

"What does a person do?" she said. "After all that had happened, being 
pulled back into drugs seemed like the natural thing."

Like many addicts, she used her problems as a justification for going back 
to dope.

"I began taking heroin in moderation to cope."

Hoping to enhance her recovery with a change of scene, Mary earned enough 
money doing odd jobs and panhandling to visit a friend in Phoenix, Ariz.

"But it didn't work," she said. "Coming off Dilaudid (a heroin substitute 
used to reduce drug dependency), it got so bad I had to go into a detox 
centre."

There, she met a man who happened to be looking after a house. It was a 
perfect opportunity. She stole everything she could and used the money to 
buy drugs.

Again back in Halifax, Mary managed to stay clean for several years before 
her demons took over again and she resorted to turning tricks to support 
her habit. She recalls walking along a street one night and a car pulling 
over. The driver asked, "What are you doing?"

"That was it and I realized how easy it was," she said of turning to 
prostitution to support her drug habit. "Easy in the sense that it was a 
quick way to get money."

But she found herself in some dangerous situations.

"It was pure luck I wasn't killed," she said. "I thought it was because I 
had the street smarts, but that's bull."

While turning tricks, she was held at knifepoint on one occasion and 
handcuffed inside the cab of a tractor-trailer on another.

Mary said the long-haul driver made it clear "what he would do if I didn't 
do what he wanted. It was pretty alarming." She now brushes it off as just 
a case of not getting paid for her services. "After all, who could I 
complain to?"

In recent months, Mary has bounced from place to place, staying with the 
few friends still willing to take her in.

She fears going to jail on theft and prostitution charges and the court 
violations she faces.

Mary said she holds no animosity toward anyone and blames herself for the 
situation she's in.

She still keeps in contact with her mother and father, who are separated.

"My mother has been very supportive of me, but she's extremely frustrated 
over my situation," she said.

Last Christmas, Mary said, her mother bought presents and groceries for her.

She said she would like to return to school if she could win her battle to 
stay clean.

But she isn't sure she can do it. There are too many years gone by, too 
many drugs consumed and too many bridges burned. Like so many addicts, the 
drug war is a daily battle, one that takes place deep inside her, one that 
even she can't quite understand. 
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MAP posted-by: Beth