Holly's Story - Ingles House

I am a woman.

I have been addicted to drugs.

I have been addicted to alcohol.

I’m seventeen years old, and I’ve already wasted six years of my life.

When I try to remember those years I stumble over the remnants of memories.  When I remember those years, I only feel disappointment, rage, and despair.

When I was ten, my father became ill with brain cancer.  I wanted to numb myself and so I did what the adults did.

My first drink was my first drunk.  My first drunk was my first blackout… I never looked back.

Within a year I was smoking massive amounts of pot to go with the drink.

When I was eleven, my father died.  I was drinking and smoking non-stop.  It was a daily habit.  (It was my nightmare.)

My grades dropped.  I hardly went to school.  When I did go, I didn’t want to be there.  I wanted to be doing drink and drugs.

When I was twelve I knew a lot of different drugs:  mushrooms, acid, ecstasy, mescaline, cocaine.  That’s the one.  (Cocaine.) That’s the one for me.

When I was thirteen I was a full-blown addict.

Drinking and drugging were heaven to me.  I lived to use, and I used to live.

(By then I was dead.) By then, I didn’t love anyone.  Not myself, or anyone else either.

When I was fourteen I lived on the street.  I bounced from one couch to another.  Not eating.  Not sleeping.  Not caring.  Just drinking and drugging. 

When I was fifteen, my mum died… (of breast cancer).  I was left alone.  My brother handed me over to Children’s Aid.  He said, fend for yourself.  (I won’t forget that day.) 

I felt like an animal, shifted from one foster family to another, from foster family to group home, from group home to foster family and back…  all over again.

I was a wreck.  Everyone wanted to help me.  I wanted none of it.

When I turned sixteen I moved out on my own.

Parties every night… memories a blur of blood and tears, memories of beer, cocaine, crack, pot…  (memories) of rapes and beatings.

Memories… of pain so bad I never want to go there again.

Four months after I turned sixteen I decided that I had to change.  I got help.  I checked into a group home.  I got sober.

I checked into Ingles House.  I never want to leave.

Ingles House has taught me some simple lessons…  It’s only my ignorance that hurts me in the end…  Communicating with other people is hard work… Life is what you make of it.

I’ve returned to school part time.  I have a job working at a store in the mall.  It’s a change, earning my own money (honestly)… saving it… planning how to use it to make a better life.

I go to different schools to tell other kids my story.  (if they listen) they might not make my mistakes.

I’ve got big plans.  I can go to college… get an education… support myself.

I’m not the same person anymore.  I’m different.  I’ll soon be moving on, but I’ll always remember what the people at Ingles House have done for me.  Above all, they have shown me that I’m beautiful.

I am clean and sober for today and what I do today has a big effect on what I’ll do tomorrow.  I’ll survive.

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