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.
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