Thinking this would fun for Greg and I for Halloween, or maybe just a trip to City Creek Mall?  LOL

Really? Jail again??

The nice cop in Taylorsville informed me that I was going to jail.  He acted as if I should be surprised about that fact after I had already told him my license was suspended and I had a felony warrant. Needless to say, I was not surprised.  Off to jail I go, again.  This time I was only there for  6 hours. I have a spotless record with pretrial services (unfortunately).  Back to court I go!  My mom has decided this time, that she is not paying for a lawyer,  so I did have a public pretender. During all of this time of going to court and all of that crap, I found out I was pregnant.  Keep in mind that I wasn't very far along when I found out.  Pretrial was not drug testing me or anything, but I was not using at that point.  I went to the doctor, gave him my history and we determined that the baby had not been exposed to cocaine at all.  Thank God!!  With Parker on his way, I decided that I really needed to pull my life together and take care of these two beautiful kids.  What was happening wasn't fair to them.  I went through the court system and got all of my stuff taken care of and was on a really good path to recovery.  I'd had Parker by this time and things were great.  Then, my dad died.  I thought I could handle it, and I did for nealy 8 months.  We went by the cemetary at the beginning of May, 2009 and my dad's headstone had finally been finished and looked awesome.  I honestly can't tell you what happened other than the headstone suddenly made it real for me.  I left the kids with my mom and went seeking old friends and habits.  I was gone all night and all of the next day.  On my home that next night, I was pulled over by highway patrol.  Having no sleep for about 36 hours takes a real toll on a person.  I can honestly say I had not used since about 8pm that night, and he pulled me over at midnight.  Now, I have had several run ins with law enforcement.  On my first arrest, I went down to Sandy City the day after I got out jail, and told them how pleased I was with the way the situation was handled.  I don't hate cops or anyone.  However, Officer Cody Brown from UHP is the biggest piece of garbage I have ever met.  There.  I said it.  And no.  I am not upset with him because he arrested me.   I think he is a horrible person who enjoys destroying people further than they are.  Just my opinion.  He did the field sobriety which I obviously did not pass.  It took him 2 1/2 hours to get me from Vine Street and State Street to 3300 S and 700 w.  Really??  Every time we got to the jail entrance, he had to turn around and go back to "headquarters" for something.  This happened 2 times!~!  Really??  Needless to say, I have nothing nice to say about him.  I will say this much...thank God for the dash cam/audio they have in their cars.  He did receive a write up and had to write me an apology for the psychological abuse he inflicted upon me in those 2 1/2 hours.  Still have the apology!  LOL.  So, the third trip to jail was on 2 hours in and out (once I got there).  My mom picked me up and took me home.  The long and short of it is that I was convicted of driving with a measurable amount of metabolite in my system (kinda like a dui) and they took my license for 18 months.  Revoked this time....not just suspended! 

This January 1,2012, I was eligible to get my license back.  Now, don't everyone get all excited about me coming to drive you around.  I do have the super-duper interlock device on the car.  That little jem costs me 70 bucks a month.  I do sail right through dui checkpoints now.  LOL.  For those wondering what the interlock device is, it's a breathalizer that I have to blow in to just to start the car.  Then there are the rolling tests.  Lots of fun!!  LOL

On a serious note, I have now been sober since May 5, 2009.  We are coming up on the 3 year mark pretty soon.  I am very happy about my progress.  There are always those desires to use and there always will be.  I live for the day, and sometimes just for the moment.  I am having a ball raising my two kids and enjoying being sober and unslaved from the drug.  Will I ever use again?  I hope and pray I don't.  Nothing is for sure in life though.  People may think that believing that it could happen would lead it to happening.  What it does for is that I don't set myself up for failure.  I realize every day that it's a real possibily, so I am able to stay aware of the presence of it, as opposed to shoving it to the side.  Many have asked why I didn't love my kids enough to stay sober.  I did.  I just had my priorities screwed up.  I worship and always will my kids.  When you have guilt over doing something, a lot of times we wallow in the guilt instead of changing it. 

I have really enjoyed writing this blog.  I will now continue to put current events and post the good that is happening, because there is so much good.  I can't change the way anybody feels, and I certainly don't to tell you how to feel or think.  I would only ask that next time you see that "junkie", pause for 1 minute and realize that he/she is someone's daughter, sister, mother, etc.  She does have value and she is worth it. 

Love to all and God bless everyone!!

Back to Salt Lake I go...

I left David in Denver, as he was coming in about a week to be with me.  I arrived in Salt Lake about 9:30 at night.  My daughter wanted to go and see her dad, so we went up town to see him.  On our way home we got pulled over by Sandy Police.  They informed me that I had a felony warrant.  They allowed my mother and brother to come and get Maddy and my car, and off to jail I went.  I was in jail from about 1am until about 5pm the next day.  Pretrail bailed me out, so I didn't have to post anything on the 10,000 dollar bond I had.  (Eek!)  Long story short, when Wayne and I had returned the rental, he had gone back, taken the keys out of the box and taken the car again.  He then traded it to a drug dealer for drugs.  (I found this out from his brother, who refused to testify and told me that if he was subpeoned he would lie.)  So, I entered into a plea with the state that I wouldn't get in any trouble for a certain period of time.  All while this court process was going on, I married David Brewer.  That was a very poor choice on my part, but hindsight is always 20/20, right?  We were only together as a married couple for about 7 months, then I sent him back to his mother in Colorado via Greyhound.  Everything was going okay for a while and I was getting back into real life and the damn addiction reared its ugly head again.  I was still using infrequently, but as always, it came back with a vengence!  I ran out the time on my probation and was off the hook legally.  I was doing things I shouldn't and being in places that I can't believe I walked out of alive and was just generally off the hook.  Keep in mind, my mom had Maddy full time at this point.  I was still living with her, but not there much.  I ended up going to a hotel to make a drug deal.  When I got there,  my dude wasn't there yet, so I waited.  Of course there were people there using, but I wasn't at that point.  Before dude showed up, the cops came first.  No knock warrants are fickle little things....LOL.  One guy threw his dope on the table and went to the other side of the room.  Guess what the cops found first??  Yeah.  Dude's dope.  By now, I have to look out for myself wherever I go which means I don't "rat" anyone out. Cops asked who's dope it was, and nobody claimed it.  For those of you in law enforcement, you know that means that it's now community property.  Interestingly enough, none of us went to jail that day, nor did we receive a ticket.  We walked out of there and were told not to come back.  Much to my chagrin, I received an anonymous letter from some criminal attorney about 3 months later advising me that they would like to represent me on my pending criminal charge.  What??  I called the attorney and asked what criminal case.  He advised me that Sandy City attorney had screened the hotel incident and decided to pursue charges.  So, a warrent for possession of a controlled substance had been filed against me in court.  Now, who thinks I went and willingly turned myself in??  Anyone??  Not a chance!  I had the attitude of "catch me if you can!"  In Utah, when a warrant is issued, they also suspend your drivers license.  I knew that, but still had keys!!  I ran around for nearly8 months before being stopped for speeding.  As you can all guess, this would be where my 2nd arrest comes in to play. 

Back to Vegas

Wayne, Maddy and I rented a car and drove back to Vegas.  When we got there, my brother's partner, who didn't like Wayne, would not let us spend the night.  We were planning on couching it at my friend Gary's house for a while, but I didn't want to call him at 3 in the morning.  So we ended up sleeping in the car.  Yeah, fun.  The next day, Wayne and Gary got into a fight, so we were not welcome there anymore. With nowhere to go, and not wanting to return to Utah, we started driving and took the exit for Denver.  I asked Wayne where we were going, and he informed me that we were going to his brother's house in Denver to stay.  Nobody knew where we were, or where we were headed.  Wayne had become extremely abusive and controlling.  We stopped at a truck stop to get gas, and I snuck to a pay phone to call my mom and let her know what was up.  I was able to tell her we were on our way to Denver, before Wayne found me and hung up the phone.  We made it to Denver, returned the rental, and stayed at his brother's for a while.  Wayne was very into the dope at this point, but I wasn't using then.  Things spiraled out of control very badly, and we got kicked out of the brother's house.  We ended up staying in a hotel that you pay by the week.  Again, fun stuff.  With Wayne using and being such a creep, I did start using from time to time.  Wayne's brothers wife would take Maddy to play with her kids, and I would get loaded. He was still being very abusive, and I really would prefer not to write about some of the things he did, so use your imagination, I guess.  LOL  He never did touch Maddy, until New Year's Day.  He had been gone all night partying and came home wanting money.  I told him I wasn't giving him any.  He got really violent with me and Maddy got upset with him.  She walked over and kicked him in the shin.  He picked her up and threw her across the room onto a bed. (Thank God she hit the bed!)  I grabbed Maddy, told him he had crossed the line and that no one would ever hurt my kids and walked out the door.  I went downstairs and decided I needed to call the police at this point.  It had gone far enough.  The police came, and come to find out, he had a warrant out of Colorado for habitual DUI from when he lived there before.  With Wayne off to prison, I didn't know what to do.  I couldn't afford daycare for Maddy, but needed to work.  I did get a job at Safeway Corp. for a short time.  But, we were basically homeless, living from place to place.  My mom and dad decided to come for a visit.  When they got into town, Maddy and I met them at their total.  We spent the next three days with them.  I made the decision at that point, that Maddy needed to go back to Salt Lake with them.  I had some stuff to take care of before I went home too.  Maddy was with my parents for 2 weeks in Salt Lake before I made it there.  In those 2 weeks, I met David Brewer, who I married 6 months later.

Back home...

So the kids and I are back in Salt Lake.  We ended up living with my mom and dad for about a month.  In that months time, I found a job and got us an apartment in Murray.  We were doing really well at first.  I worked 10am to 730pm and that worked out well.  My dad had retired and so I got Galen to school, took Maddy to my dad in Sandy and went to work.  My mom would get home from work, feed Maddy and go get Galen from Boys and Girls Club (which is where he went after school) and meet me at home with the kids.  It was a great situation.  I received a letter from a person that I had met through Jeff that he had served time with.  His name was Wayne.  He was scheduled to get out of prison in two weeks, and needed somewhere to go.  In an effort to help him, I agreed to let him come stay with us.  That was probably one of the single biggest mistakes of my life. He was a really hardcore crackhead and didn't like to work.  In a nutshell, we went from having the ability to survive and live a good life, to struggling really hard.  I started using with him again, and it came to be that during this period of time was my heaviest using at all.  I stopped working and just spent my life using.  The kids were with my parents a lot.  We moved from Murray to Sandy and everything just got worse.  Jeff came to Salt Lake and got in the mix of things and that didn't help much either.  During this time, Galen's mom decided she wanted Galen back.  She went to court and regained custody of Galen from Jeff.  Partly due to the fact that Jeff didn't even show up for the court hearing.  Things went from bad to worse during this period of time, as I am sure you can imagine.  Wayne was a abuser.  It's funny because you really don't see it coming.  If they hit you the first time you met them, there wouldn't be a second time.  He would berate me, and being down on myself at that time anyway, I believed what he said.  It start out as physical abuse, just mental abuse.  It got to the point where he would literally throw me around like a rag doll. I was so underweight anyway because of the drugs, that it wasn't hard to throw me across the room.  The violence got worse and worse, but I stayed with him.  My relationship with my family was becoming a problem.  They were not happy about what was going on, so instead of running to them, I saw less and less of them.  I really didn't want to disappoint them and have them see what was really going on.  So, I distanced myself from them.  The addiction got worse and it was very much out of control.  I told myself I liked what I was doing, but I was actually hoping for a miracle.  The distance that I was putting between myself and my family is what took me to the next point in my life....leaving Utah again for Las Vegas with Wayne and Maddy.

And on we go....

Jeff and I made it to Vegas.  We ended up living with my brother Greg for a while until we could find a place.  That summer, Jeff's son Galen came to live with us.  I was thrown into parenthood at a moments notice and honestly didn't know what to do.  I was not his mom, and he reminded me of that every day.  He didn't like me at first, and I didn't know how to juggle having rules but also getting him to like me.  I hadn't used since the day we left Salt Lake for Vegas.  Truth be told, I didn't want to go looking and get in trouble.  I was still early enough in the addiction that I cared about whether or not I got busted.  During this time, I got pregnant with Maddy.  I stayed sober because there was still enough dignity in me that I didn't feel right making a choice for someone who had no choice.  Jeff actually brought crack home one time, and I refused it.  Maddy came into this world on October 26.  She was perfect.  I thanked God over and over for her being healthy.  I somehow thought that even though I didn't use with her, that there might be leftover drugs in my system or something.  I was truly happy in Vegas.  I loved the diverse culture, and I really liked the 24 hour city.  I was happier in Vegas than I had been in a long time.  I secured a job with  Cotera Productions which is a props n effects company.  We did all of the props for Oceans 11.  I got to meet a lot of actors including George Clooney and Julia Roberts.  George Clooney is a really neat guy.  Julia Robers, on the other hand, is a total witch.  I was the office manager, but I helped on set a lot because I needed the overtime.  I made good money, but Vegas isn't cheap.  Jeff was an alcoholic and gambler.  I know, Vegas probably wasn't the best city for him.  LOL  He would get a job, and lost it within about 2 weeks for drinking on the job.  Problem was, he was such a bad alcoholic that he had grand mal seizures if he didn't have a drink about every 4 hours.  So he stayed home with Maddy and I worked my butt to support us.  My working is probably one of the ways I was able to stay sober.  I didn't have time to get high.  Aside from the alcohol, I was very much in love with Jeff.  I put him in 3 rehabs in the 3 years we were there, but it never worked.  Somehow, I believed that if I loved him enough and made him go to rehab, he would someone get well.  I know differently know.  You can't make someone change.  They have to do it on their own.  Putting him in rehab was a big waste of money.  Rehab only works when you want it to, not when someone else wants it to.  I know now that has drinking really had nothing to do with how much he loved me or the kids.  It's an illness.  It takes over every part of your life and really screws up your priorities.  One morning he had been out all night drinking and gambling and came home as I was getting ready to take Galen to school, Maddy to babysitter and me to work.  I was so frustrated with him that I began to yell at him.  He came and got in my face and was threatening me.  I asked him 3 times to get out of my face, and he refused to do so.  So, I pushed him out of the way.  Being drunk, he was not very stable so he went all of the across the room breaking a tv and entertainment center.  It pissed him off to the point that he came over, picked me up by the neck and slammed me into the bathroom mirror.  He had never been physical with me before.  Galen heard it all and came running.  He kicked his dad right between the legs and dropped him to the ground.  Jeff got off and left the house.  I called Arizona Charlies's West to get a room for a few nights to decide what to do and be away from him, but my debit card was declined so I called the bank.  He had drained our savings account the night before by gambling.  I knew it was time to get out of there, and I knew I only had one option.  I called my mom in Salt Lake and told her what happened.  She had my brother Scott on a plane the next morning.  He got there and we packed up what would fit and threw it in my car.  Jeff didn't want to have Galen because he didn't know how he would care for him.  He signed a permission slip for Galen to come with me and live with me.  By this time, Galen and I were doing really well together.  We all piled in the car and headed for Salt Lake.  I cried the entire time on the freeway until we couldn't see Vegas anymore.  I didn't want to leave there at all, but I knew it was what I had to do.

And more....

It was during these party years that I had my first experience with one of many ex-convict boyfriends. I found I enjoyed their spirit for life, because they were not afraid of new things.  Now, that can go either way, I found.  I will insert here that I don't think a person should be labeled for their past.  (i.e. ex-convict).  I just use it because there is really no politically correct way of putting it.  LOL  His name was Michael.  He was a really neat guy, he was just as lost in life as I was.  He introduced me to cocaine and heroin.  Now, I tried Heroin twice, liked it too much, saw that without it people were really sick, and decided I didn't want to go that way.  I didn't want to be that sick if I couldn't get it no matter how it made me feel.  Cocaine, however, I really liked.  I started snorting it every once in a while for a few months.  It was not a lot, but coupled with smoking a lot of pot, it was probably too much.  He was on parole, and using drugs, didn't last long on parole.  He was sent back to prison for a parole violation a few months after I first met him.  While he was locked up, I found that I didn't want to go through the effort of locating cocaine, since I didn't have a dealer for that.  So I continued to party and smoke lots of pot.  While Michael was incarcerated, he asked me to be pen pals with one of his buddies who was an inmate at the prison as well.  His name was Jeff.  We wrote back and forth for about 6 months.  Through writing, we decided that we would try a relationship upon his release because we had so much in common.  Needless to say, when he got out (not on parole), we started a relationship.  It was Jeff that introduced me to crack.  Now, for those of you that don't know about drugs, crack is cocaine that has been cooked to change the chemical composition of it so that it is now hard and can be smoked.  He asked if I wanted some cocaine one night and of course I said okay, and he came back and told me I would like it a lot better this other way.  So, he cooked and I smoked it, and LIKED it a lot.  Now, you don't become an addict overnight.  We smoked the equivalent of an eight ball (which is just a measurement in drugs) over the next two days.  To help you understand the process I will insert here that it took two days to smoke the eight ball at first....now I can smoke one in about 4 hours time.  Yeah.  I was always exposed to LSD (Jeff was at 74 Grateful Dead shows....so he liked LSD) and mushrooms.  They were okay for occasional use, but I found myself wanting crack more and more.  I was even smoking less pot.  Keep in mind that he introduced me to these things, NOT forced me to do them.  Again, my addiction is my responsibility, no one else's.  I use this scenario to explain why it's my fault and no one else's.  You go to a dealership and purchase a car.  You buy it and leave the lot.  As soon as you are driving it, someone hits you and hurts you.  Is it the car salesman's fault for the accident because he introduced you to the car?  I feel it's the same concept with drugs.

While with Jeff, I started smoking crack almost on an everyday basis.  I wasn't working but he was.  He already had a son named Galen who would come over once in a while to visit.  We always made sure we were clean and sober when he was there.  I never did and do not think drugs around kids is okay.  The only thing I can smile and say during this addiction was that I never brought home to my kids, and I never was around them loaded.  Where were my kids?  We will go over that later.

During this time period, I decided I needed a change.  My brother was already living in Las Vegas, and I wanted to be down there with him.  So we made plans to move to Vegas from Salt Lake.  While making these plans, my grandpa Sjoblom died suddenly.  That was a very hard death for me to deal with.  I never knew my Grandpa Funkhouser, as he died when my dad was 18.  Grandpa Sjob was the only grandpa I knew.  I felt an incredible loss immediately.  We went to his funeral, and after the dinner, headed for Las Vegas to a new life.

The first years....

I sat down today and was trying to write a timeline.  Well, it didn't work that well.  You see, when you are actively using, time seems irrelevant and events just kind of blend together.  So, I thought what I would do is post different events in my life and explain what my mental state was and the circumstances surrounding those events.

Here we go....

I graduated from Alta High School in 1993.  I went directly to Southern Utah University in Cedar City that fall.  I was there for two years in school until a life changing event changed things.  I was sexually abused at a car wash while washing my car about 7:30 at night.  The police acted as if it was no big deal and then began to ask me what I was wearing, how I was acting and really weird questions.  They just shrugged it off.  So, I finished that quarter and headed back for Salt Lake.  I will also mention that I was raised LDS and while in Cedar City I left the church.  I left for a lot of reasons, but mostly because in Cedar City there's a lot of time to analyze things, and I finally came to peace with the fact that religion didn't work for me and that I didn't actually believe what I had been brought up to believe.  So, here I am back in Salt Lake at mom and dad's.  I got a job at JCPenney accounting center in town and began at the University of Utah.  As I neared the end of schooling, I found that the U didn't offer some of the classes that I needed at night.  I ended up going to University of Phoenix and completing my degree in business.  I then began working for IHC at Primary Children's Hospital.  I can tell you that was a very difficult job.  It's hard to watch kids be ill and some eventually die.  I was there only three years, because I couldn't emotionally deal with it anymore.  During this time, I moved into a little house on Ramona Ave and that's when my life really began to change.  We partied all of the time.  I had been smoking cigarettes for a couple of years, but I began to drink every once in a while.  Then eventually, people started bringing other things.  Marijuana was the first illegal drug I was ever introduced to.  I found that I loved being stoned...and began to spend a lot of time doing it.  Looking back, I would drink and smoke more when I had a bad day at work.  I don't blame my work or anything but me....I made my choices and they were mine alone.  I ended up quitting my job during this time and was not actively seeking employment.  That was very much a life changing thing.  I don't spend my time thinking what if because you just drive yourself crazy doing that, and how is there a positive outcome sitting around asking yourself what if you had made a different choice. I feel that the only positive outcome is in realizing your poor choice and learning from it.  Anyway, I ended up being loaded most of the day during that time.  I would justify it by telling myself that it was only pot.  I wasn't drinking much, so I wasn't an alcoholic so it must be okay.

I will stop there for tonight but not before telling you what it taught me.  We can justify the hell out of anything, but it doesn't always make it right.  I was being such a victim of everything.  I was a "sexual assault" victim and a victim of life.  I found that when you take on that victim role, you don't care about what goes on.  Being a victim knocks you down so much that you don't feel there is anyway to get up and so you really don't think through what you are doing, you just do it.  I will be totally honest and tell you that the time that the drinks and drugs were working, what had happened didn't matter.  I could put it away and like myself for a little bit again.  It's hard to explain all of the feelings that are associated with it. I don't want anyone to get the impression that I blame ANYONE for my actions.  I blame only myself.  Again, I made my choices and have realized through all of this that experiences are just that.  They can define in a good way or bad way, depending on how you work through them.  I hear so many people that use and blame the person that introduced them to the drug.  My feeling is that unless they held a gun to your head, then the choice was yours.  However, I didn't always feel that way.

More later.....it's bedtime for the kids!!  : ))  Love to all!

My beautiful kids!

Preface to journey

I am going to try and put some pictures here as soon as I learn how to do it.

To start out my journey over the past 14 years I must begin by saying that I am a recovering cocaine addict.  Yes, you heard me correctly.  A lot of people have been very surprised by that.  The neat thing about people knowing that is that it has changed a LOT OF peoples perceptions of drug addicts.  The majority of people assume that addicts are from bad parts of town, uneducated and come from parents who are unethical.  I have been proof that addiction can strike anywhere and it is no respecter of persons.  As I blog, and I will do one year at a time, you will see the process of addiction, recovery efforts and hopefully have a better understanding of me and drug addiction.  I began using marijuana and alcohol at about the age of 23, and it spiraled slowly out of control.  I did not set out to be an addict.  I used recreationally as most people do when  they begin on the road to hell.  I have been sober 3 years on May 5.  I want to include that I would be sober for periods of time here and there, and I DID NOT use drugs while pregnant with either child.  After 3 times in jail and a DUI  I decided it was time to quit running from everything that I was running from.  You see, I have 2 children to raise, and you can't do that very well high.  I would like people to understand that I did not love the drug more than my children at any time- my priorities were just really screwed up, and at some point the drug starts doing you instead of you doing it.  Regrets?  I have only one.  My regret is smoking the second cigarette.  I, for some reason, can't quit.  I try and try, but nothing seems to work.  I guess it will happen when it is time.  I believe that everything happens for a reason and that there is a reason for my addiction.  I believe it was a lesson in be humble rather than anything else.  I used to be somewhat closed minded and intolerant of certain people.  Drugs changed that.  I am who I am because of all of the experiences I have had in my life, so I live a life of basically no regrets.  Follow me on the journey if you would like, it might be interesting and eye opening!!

New week!!

It's Monday everyone!!  Lots of things going on this week so it's going to be really busy!  Here is hoping all of you have a GREAT week!  Lots of love, from us to you!!

I am coming up on my 3 year sobriety anniversary so I thought I might start blogging about my journey over the years.  There are a lot of people who have no idea where I have been in the last 14 years, but it's been a wild journey.  It took me a long time to come to grips with who I was and who I am now, but the healing has come and it's great.  I do not regret anything I have done in life because every single thing that has happened has taught me something.   I know that sounds crazy to some, but others will understand.  We make choices in this life, and there are consequences to those choices; I know that very well now.  So, if ya want to, follow me on this journey...you may even learn something!  LOL

Easter!

We had an awesome Easter!  Even though I consider myself Christian, I am not religious.  However, I see Easter as a new beginning, and a fresh start.  We celebrated our Easter yesterday starting with an Easter egg dive at Dimple Dell for the kids.  We had a family dinner at 5, after which we played volleyball, frisbee and just had a heck of a good time!  I LOVE my family!!  Hope you all had a great Easter!

I am finally here blogging!  Wish this old lady luck!!  LOL