I am Hope: Growing up With an Addict

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Copyright © 2024 Stephen Hope

All rights reserved.

First Edition

ISBN: 978-1-5445-4530-1

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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or places, names, companies, or incidents is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

Introduction

1. The Addict in the Room

2. Life with Mom

3. Life with Dad

4. Junior High

5. Junior Year of High School

6. Senior Year of High School

7. First Year of College

8. Back Home for the Summer

9. Sophomore Year of College

10. Summer Internships

11. Last Year of College

12. Bear Din

13. Colt

14. Getting Back on Track

15. The Liberty Club

16. Snowdrift

17. My First Love

18. Health Issues

19. Moving Forward Once More

20. Ready for Opportunities

21. Wedding Bells and Family Fallout

22. The Demon Rears Its Head

23. With Hard Work, There Are No Limits

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Introduction

My mother’s drug addiction was my problem too. I was lost growing up. I stuttered. I was overweight. I was bullied, and I had no self-esteem. I felt like a burden to everyone. Being in that state of mind restricted my growth as a person. I was paralyzed by my surroundings. I didn’t see any chance for escape. Every bit of light and happiness in life was drowned out by my mother and her addiction. As a child, I looked to the people raising me for guidance, and it took a long time to figure out they didn’t have my best interests in mind.

If you were raised by an addict, or experienced other significant trauma in your childhood, you have likely experienced similar issues. This kind of childhood trauma is long lasting and forever affects the way you operate in life. Perhaps, like me, you struggle with confidence, trust, and the constant battle of life. Perhaps you are prone to mental illness, like depression or anxiety, as I am. You might be discouraged and wonder if you will ever recover and live a happy, healthy life. The good news, and perhaps also in some ways the bad news, is that the choice of where your life goes from here is yours and yours alone.

In the aftermath of an injury I’ll describe in detail later, I learned I had a reason to live. Through one parent kicking me out for a new wife and the other being strung out on meth, I realized my parents were never going to prioritize me; it was up to me to look out for my own best interests. I recognized that if I were going to do anything significant with my life, I needed to establish a new direction in the crazy world in which I was living. I wish I could say that epiphany changed everything and I have lived happily ever after since, but of course, that’s not how it works. Just as physical injuries create scar tissue, trauma creates emotional and mental scars. Learning how to deal and cope with my harmful past has been a journey, one that I’ll work on for a lifetime. I began to use diet and exercise to strengthen both my mind and body. I reached out to a few people in my life for help. I shared my vulnerabilities with friends I trusted. Slowly but surely, I began to heal.

I will take you through my life from the scared, sad little boy I was to the confident, genuinely happy person I am today. I will show you the damage addiction does to a family. I will admit to the mistakes I made and acknowledge what I learned from them. I will share with you strategies and practices that helped me along the way. I will also introduce you to the book that drastically improved my life by opening the door between nutrition and mental health.

Throughout my journey, I read several books written by authors who experienced circumstances similar to mine. These books helped me through difficult times and inspired me. Just as the authors of those books made themselves vulnerable for the sake of helping others, I wrote this book to share my story and inspire you. My intent is not to tell you exactly what to do to improve your life—only you can determine what works for you—but my hope is that my story provides a glimpse into the cycle of addiction and a resource to help end it. I want you to know there is hope.

I am hope.

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Chapter 1

1. The Addict in the Room

I was raised by a single mom. She and my father separated when I was a baby. She remarried several times and dated often, but those relationships didn’t last. As a single parent, life was hard enough for her, but when she developed a drug addiction, raising me became nearly impossible.

What makes an addict? Addiction is all about escape. It can start off innocently, perhaps with an injured knee or back that requires drugs to escape from the pain. Eventually, your injury heals, but you keep using the drugs. Or maybe you were dealt a shitty hand in life and just want to escape reality for a moment. But life keeps knocking you down, and so you continue using those vices. The more you use those vices, the bigger the hold it has on your body and mind. Your body physically yearns for the next fix. You might swear it will be the last time, but in that moment, you choose drugs over everything else. It’s a downward spiral, and gravity pulls more strongly the deeper you go. You start out using drugs as an escape, but the escape eventually becomes your permanent reality.

One unfortunate side effect of addiction is that the people close to the addict—friends, family, children—get chained to the addiction as well. When it becomes too hard to watch the addict self-destruct and refuse help, some friends and family remove themselves from the addict’s life. But the child of an addict is stuck. I should know; I was that kid. I could not remove myself from the environment my mother created. My mother’s life and mine were hopelessly intertwined. I was a victim of circumstance. I felt like the only way to escape my situation was to end my life. I believe my mom was aware of my depression, but since she wasn’t able to care for herself, caring for me was impossible. Drugs always pulled her back in; her priority was the addiction.

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Chapter 2

2. Life with Mom

When I was very young, my mother worked at Jones Carpet, a business owned and operated by my grandfather, Grandpa Jones. The warehouse was huge. I loved it. I could run around and get lost inside. I would sneak between large rolls of carpet, hanging out with or annoying the workers, depending on whom you asked. Plus, almost everyone there was family or felt like family. The carpet store became a safe place for me, a place I could go after school to escape my mom’s crosshairs. Even though Mom always complained about working for Grandpa—I’m sure working with her father, aunts, uncles, and brother could be frustrating—I believe working there kept her grounded. I believe things started spiraling out of control when she quit because she no longer had family holding her accountable each day. She never kept a steady job again. Leaving that environment was heartbreaking for me. I missed being around my extended family most days.

Me before drug addiction completely consumed my mother’s life.

Around this time, Mom’s marriage to a man named Larry ended. Having him around helped us feel like we were a family, complete with a dog. We made some good memories together. Larry and I planted a row of pine trees behind our house. He took me camping and even let me bring my good friend Noah. Things were normal until they weren’t. Larry’s violent side always bubbled just below the surface. I constantly heard Larry and Mom arguing, but Mom shielded me from it the best she could.

Then one day, Larry seemed to lose his mind. He went into a rage and decided to rearrange the house while Mom and I hid in the basement. I remember being scared out of my mind and hearing the VCR break. Mom made the right choice and ended it with Larry, but I was torn. I didn’t like the arguing, but he kind of evened everything out and seemed normal most of the time. I know it had to be hard being a single mom, and Larry must have relieved some of the burden. Unfortunately, once Larry was gone, I was the one Mom screamed at all the time.

Josh, Gunner, and me at Josh’s parents’ for a cookout.

Mom’s next husband was Josh, a good ol’ boy. He drove a jacked-up Chevy Blazer with a sound system that nearly blew the windows out. The SUV was so high off the ground I could barely climb into the back seat. Mom and I hung out with his family. We all went fishing, and I thought everything was calm and back to normal. Josh laughed when I told him how much I liked him being around because Mom took her frustrations out on him instead of me. But then Mom started really fighting with him. She yelled and told him he was lazy. She hollered at him about how she carried the family without his help. I don’t know if any of what she said was true or not. All I know is their marriage ended soon after the yelling started.

After Josh left, Mom brought home the occasional boyfriend. Every time a boyfriend or husband would leave, he would tell me, You’re the man of the house now. I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but I learned to hate the phrase. It scared me.

Having new people live with us off and on came to feel normal. The part that never felt normal, that always hurt, was overhearing my mom talk about me to her friends in the bathroom, which was right next to my room, when I was supposed to be asleep. Often, she told them I was fat or complained that having me ruined her life. I liked to tell myself she was just drunk and rambling to her friends, but it still stung. I hated hearing how negatively I affected her life. Hearing that over and over was one thing, but I also could sense her feeling that I was only a burden to her life. The drunken nights got worse and more frequent after she stopped working at Jones Carpet. It didn’t help that we lived within walking distance of the Days Inn Bar. Sometimes, she got so drunk her friends had to carry her home from the bar. I would run to the door, excited to see them until I saw my mom, incoherent and unable to stand or talk. I would ask if she was okay. Her friends would tell me someone slipped something into her drink or she just had a few too many and assure me she’d be fine.

Eventually, Mom moved into the basement and stayed there most of the time. She made frequent trips to bars and brought back random people. I’ll never forget Dirt, one of the guys she brought home from the bar. He had played in the band at the bar that night. He had dark, curly hair and dark clothing. I met them when they stumbled in through the kitchen’s back door, which led down to the basement. Mom introduced him, beaming with pride that he had come home with her. They continued their path down the stairs and slammed the door behind them. I walked back to my room alone and got myself ready for bed.

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Jobs came and went for Mom. She could never show up on time. Our financial situation got worse and worse. Eventually, she was put