Allison Brown

I'm 22 years old. I am the oldest out of 5 children. I have a step brother 23, biological brother 19, half brother 13, and a half sister 11. When i was around the age of 3 my parents got a divorce. So i've never known them to really be together. Both of my parents remarried in 2009. Just a few months apart. They both had been through different relationships, and i do remember some of the people that they both dated, but i dont think it had much of an impact on my life. Growing up I personally switched between my mom and dad's houses every week. Constantly two different sets of rules. My mom and my step dad were very strict as i was growing up. My step dad being very very controlling, and my mom doing whatever he said. He would make rules that even my own father didn't agree with. My dad was more laid back, and my step mom is.. well... different. For a few years being addicted to xanax. She has always been unstable. I seemed to always be grounded for whatever reason my stepdad could come up with. I didn't make terrible grades, and i actually tried to do better in school. Going to tutoring before and after school, but still struggled. No matter what i did i couldn't make my stepdad happy. So there for my mom was never happy with me much either. My dad and stepmom would let me get away with things that my step dad never agreed with. So they would let me do it, and i would go back to my moms to be grounded for it. As i got older i got more confused as to what was right and what was wrong for all the different people in my life. Also being the oldest i was never allowed to have my friends over, and i was NEVER allowed to do ANYTHING without a parent going with me. So that meant i couldn't even go to a friends house because my mom had two small children at home and couldn't go with me to do those things. I would go to school everyday, go home, and either watch my brothers and sister for my mom while she cooked, cleaned, or worked.... I helped raise my brothers and sister almost equally as my mom did. Unless i was at school or sleeping. She did random small jobs like selling Mary Kay or she was a secret shopper for awhile. That's when i caught her cheating on my step dad.  I was always in the middle of their fights. My mom would tell me all about them. Or they would be screaming and yelling in front of us. When my biological brother was around 8 or 9. My stepdad thought he was to much to handle in our house so he was sent to live with my dad, and came to my mom's every other weekend. As i got into highschool i kept to myself most of the time at school. Yet popular i was a lot more mature than my peers and couldn't stand the immaturity of most people my age. After high school i joined the military and went off to basic and AIT. That's when i realized what depression was, and that i had had it my whole life. When i came home i was a different person. I moved out on my own, and I started drinking a lot and partying a lot, which i never did while i was in highschool. I was 18 and for someone who was 18 i had more money then anyone else i knew at my age, from working through high school, but never doing anything, and from joining the military. My depression left untreated because i was scared to say anything to anyone in my family, and i started to spiral out of control. I was lonely and i didn't have many places to turn.. I started sleeping with a lot of people. I would even have sex with people when i didn't really want to. I didn't know how to tell someone NO or to STOP because i didn't want to disappoint anyone else like i had my mom and stepdad for most of my life. To them i never did anything right. I slept with a lot of people in my unit, and a lot of the guy in my group of friends. Even a few random people i met at a bar, but i mean who hasn't done that, Right? Only 2 years after i joined the military i started using Heroin. I tried it while I was in a relationship with someone that i had been really good friends with since the 6th grade. I hadn't even smoked weed or tried any other drugs before the day that i tried Heroin. I was immediately addicted, and i wanted more. I could never get enough. Along with dating that person and doing drugs, he was also abusive. Mental and emotionally and was getting physical. He even waterboarded me in the shower because i didn't wait for him to take one with me. I knew i had to get out of the relationship or he could really hurt me. I just didn't want to give up the drugs. I knew without him i would be able to have any and i didn't want to withdraw by myself. So i stayed a little bit longer. Till one day my mom and grandma had finally talked me into breaking up with him, and i did. I kicked him out. I then called my step mom and told her that i needed help because i was addicted to Heroin. For a week my family put me through their own rehab. I wasn't aloud to be by myself or even go to my own apartment alone. I stayed sober for 3 short months, and then started using with a new guy, and of course was having sex with him for drugs while i had another boyfriend. The only thing that i really remember from the times that i was using is how i was always sick and throwing up, and how that's the only thing that i wanted in life. i remember telling someone that i didn't want to get off Heroin. I didn't care if i lived under a rock in a hole the rest of my life i just wanted to do Heroin, because it always fixed everything for me in that year that i was using. I loved Heroin. I had never had something that had made me feel so happy and carefree in my whole life. Drinking and sex never made things that way for me. Even tho i tried to make them it. Heroin made me forget who i was and where i had came from, and it made me a different person with a different life. I went to rehab Jan 2016, and was there for a month. Got clean and came back home, and turned to drinking so that i could still have a head change in some way. I was drinking 2 bottles of wine a day. Even started some days at 11am. I couldn't mentally handle going to work either. Living with my dad he was constantly on my butt about going to work, and how there was no reason for me not to go. My dad tried his hardest to be supportive while i was in rehab and when i came home, but when i wasn't trying to help myself he just got frustrated and started drinking also. He turned really mean and negative. I was still trying to get better tho. I was enrolled myself in a drug abuse program, and was seeing a therapist once a week. Along with going to AA meetings.... Drunk..., but i eventually met someone that was sweet and treated me right. At first he let me walk all over him. I was still trying to get healthy, and only being home from rehab for one full month i wasn't no where close to being ready for a serious relationship like that, but somehow it has all worked out. As of today i am one year sober. Still with the same boyfriend, and still trying to understand how to handle daily stressors like a normal person. Without losing control and turning back to drugs or drinking. So my blog is to help me talk about those stressors in a healthy way so that i can stay sober, and maybe i can also help someone else. Just one day at a time. 

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