In the second installment of Cosmopolitan.com'stwo-part series, Jenna Morrison, 23, a single mother of two from Kenton, Ohio, reveals how sharing a heroin addiction with her older sister Kaylee compounded her problems for years.
I was the middle of three children: My sister Kaylee is 28, and my brother Max is 22. Max has never had a drug problem like Kaylee and me. He saw what happened to us, and he went in a totally different direction.
When we were little, my mom was a nurse and my dad was a vice president at a college, so neither of them was around very much. They got divorced when I was 7. After that, we bounced back and forth between my mom's house and my dad's, which was hard for us. I was probably about 14 when I started doing drugs. I started with party drugs — ecstasy and mushrooms and acid. When I was about 13 or 14, I was prescribed pain pills for the first time. I started my period when I was 10, and I had bad cramps. Without telling my mom, I saw a doctor at a family planning clinic, who prescribed Vicodin. The next year, I was prescribed pills twice more, after I had surgery on my face and after I got my tonsils out. They gave me Percocet, and I took them three or four times a day. When I was still having pain, my doctor wrote me another script for Vicodin.
The hospital hadn't prepared me for what would happen when I finished the prescription. I remember feeling sick afterward with body aches and flu symptoms. I was really jumpy, hot and then cold, and sweaty. I didn't know I was withdrawing until someone told me. Kaylee is older than I am, but I started doing drugs before her. Not long after she saw what I was doing, she started. By my junior year, we were doing about 20 Percocets a day. We were buying pills off of friends with money we stole from my mom. For a while, we stole from her pretty much every day. We would also ask my dad and my grandpa for money, and use whatever we received as gifts from birthdays and holidays. We were probably spending $400 or $500 a week between both of us.
GETTING HOOKED
I got on heroin before Kaylee did. I was 18, maybe 19, and it was around Valentine's Day 2010. I was sick off of pills one night. A guy who was friends with my family said he had heroin and that it would make me feel better — so I let him shoot me up. I thought, If it's going to make me feel better, that's all I care about. With pills, I would have to wait for the high. With heroin, it's one second and it hits you. It was easy to get hooked on, because it was cheaper and easier to get. So many people in my town were buying pills at the time, there weren't enough to go around. But you could get heroin so easily; you could go down to Columbus and get 20 balloons.
I ended up getting together with that guy, and he got me on heroin really bad. Coming down was awful. I'd have extremely bad body aches, diarrhea, and chills. I would go days without eating. When I'd get really hungry, I would go to the McDonald's and get a cheeseburger. But then I'd get high and it would make me throw up.
One night, my mom walked into the bathroom and found me and the guy shooting up. That's when I went to rehab for the first time. When I was in there, my sister called and said, "I tried heroin and got hooked." I was so mad. I knew I would get hooked again.
When I got out of rehab, my sister and I were both on heroin bad. We were stealing from my mom, writing checks and returning stuff, using her credit card and returning stuff, asking my dad for money. In a year, I'd estimate that we stole something like $30,000. My mom pressed charges on us, and we were indicted. Four months after that, I was charged with felonies for a bunch of things — including possession, stealing money, stealing drugs, forgery, and stolen checks. Over a period of several years, I went to jail about five times. At one point, my sister and I were in the county jail together, as bunkies. I got out and just remember crying and crying. I turned into a very ugly person. I probably weighed 100 pounds, my skin was terrible, my arms were scabbed and bruised. I felt like a drug addict, worthless.
TRAPPED AND LOSING HOPE
For years, I went through a cycle: getting clean in rehab, then relapsing, then getting clean, and then relapsing. I have two children, and through both my pregnancies, I was on heroin. I know people will read this and think, How could she do that? But when you're an addict, you reason with yourself. When I was withdrawing, I needed heroin to feel better. Then you think, If I feel better, then I must not be hurting the baby. I just wasn't thinking straight.
I was only 28 weeks pregnant with my first son when my water broke. He was 3 pounds, 2 ounces, and was in the NICU for 30 days. They sent me home without him and I was a mess. I stayed clean a little while, but when I was by myself and in pain from having the baby, it was hard to cope, and I relapsed again on pills and heroin. Eventually I overdosed and got another felony charge for possession and violation of my probation. This time I was sent back to jail and then to the WORTH [Western Ohio Regional Treatment and Habilitation] Center, a correctional facility. By the time I got out, my son was about to turn 1. My mother had cared for him while I was away. I got back together with my boyfriend and ended up getting pregnant again — but almost from the beginning of my pregnancy, I was using heroin again, up to several times a day. I didn't care about myself. I felt like a failure for not being there for my son that first year. Another children's services case was opened on me, and my boyfriend left me again, for the last time.
That was my breaking point. I called my mom and I was like, "Help me. I can't do this again." Kaylee wanted to get clean finally too — she'd told my mom the same thing. So we went to a free, religiously affiliated treatment center called Freedom Hall together. It was the best thing I've ever done. Out of all the rehabs I've been to — and I was in rehab 17 times — it was the only place that ever made me want to stay clean.
STARTING OVER
My life changed after Freedom Hall. Not long after that, I told my parents about an extended-release form of Naltrexone, this drug you can take that curbs your cravings. I've been on the medicine since January 2013, and I've been clean for longer than I've ever been in my adult life. Unfortunately, Kaylee has not been so lucky. She was recently sentenced to four years in jail.
Staying clean and sober is going to be a lifelong battle for me. When I first came out of Freedom Hall, I felt disconnected. I stopped going to my 12-step meetings, and suddenly I had all this time on my hands. To fill the void, I started drinking. Luckily, on the Naltrexone, you feel sick after you drink, so I stopped pretty quickly.
Now, to help me stay clean, I check in with the people who helped me kick the habit in the first place — my old probation officer and my old counselor. I'm even thinking about trying to get a psychiatrist to help me work through some more things. When I was on drugs, I used to cuss a lot, backtalk a lot, steal, be rude. Those are the things I want to continue to change.
Figuring out what to do with my life has been hard. Is it my purpose to help other people? I'm not sure yet. Right now, just trying to accomplish things feels good. When you're on drugs, you constantly fail. I started school again in August. It's a little scary. I don't want to fail again.
But I have drive now. I'm excited to finally finish college, to graduate, live on my own, have my kids, and not worry about this anymore. I don't ever want people to see marks on my arms ever again. I met a guy a year ago. He doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, doesn't cuss. I'm so blessed. I'm with somebody I never thought I'd get to be with.
It's taken me a long time to accept the fact that I've messed up so many years of my life. I know I can't hang out with people my age who can casually drink and party. I do worry sometimes, like, maybe in five years, that I'll fall right back into drugs. What I learned in the past year is that you can't keep putting everything before your sobriety. When I started working and socializing, and putting that before me getting better, I would always lose it. Also, my religion helps me now too.
My relationship with Kaylee is still not perfect. My mom sometimes says things like, "You've done the same things Kaylee has done, you just didn't get caught," which hurts. My parents tried to help us. My biggest problem with the way they treated us though, was that they couldn't separate us in their minds. My parents feel bad for Kaylee, which I understand. She's lost her kids, and her life is a mess. I worry about her.
Earlier this year, my mom and I were invited by the Ohio governor's office to talk to students at a local high school. I felt like they really listened to me. Afterward, I had a line of girls come up to me and thank me. Sometimes I think about all the people I know who still don't have help. Heroin was such a problem in my town; all the people I used to use with, most of them are still struggling. I really can say that I never thought I was going to get clean. I feel lucky. I'm ready to move on.
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