I sat in the corner of my room near the window, with a cigarette between my fingers. I was shaking and I was scared-- I needed to get help, I need to want it, I could not sit here and let this happen.

I was out of a home, I barely had money to even support myself, so that when  I turned to my friend Karen for help, I was thirteen at the time still young but I thought I was an adult and that I could do things on my own. My mom disowned me and so did my grandma; neither of them fully trusted me anymore since I started using drugs --, they did not trust me not just for what I done to myself but for what I done to them. I started young --, I started selling the drugs and I also started doing them. I was able to get them so easily because of  the people I lived with. I didn’t live with my mom or my grandma, so I was able to get more into drugs. At this time I lived a double life --, on the outside I was picture perfect not a care in the world, but behind close doors I was an addict and I could not tell myself any different.

I have been an addict for ten years still living a double life, still not trusted by my own mother and grandmother. I needed help, I wanted it. I would stay clean for a couple days possibly weeks, but I would fall into the same hole again. I found drugs, like meth, a security blanket for me it pushed all my problems aside. I must've tried to quit a thousand time but I would still end up down the same path, back into using and selling drugs. It a way I would escape from reality. It was a way I was able to live and to have money. I’m not saying it was my best choice in the world but it was something.

Soon enough I managed to tell myself I needed help, I needed to want to get help. I would try to tell my mother this and she would not believe me because of all the s*** I put her through. Then I told my grandma -- she also didn’t believe me. So I had to do it on my own and prove to them that they could trust me again.

I went into rehab I needed to save my life before I died. While on drugs I was not the same Tasha; I did not even know who I was myself and neither did my family. I fought with my family so often, at the time I had two kids and I remember my ex husband remarrying and I remember yelling at my kids step-mom saying “  they are not your kids”. Now looking  back on that event I realize that if my kids had not been with her, I probably would not have them today.

I would go to rehab for thirty hours a week and talk about my addiction and how to fix myself. I even met people that were just like me. I met people who supported me. While I was in rehab I never had that connection with my kids so I carried around a stuffed teddy bear for about a year to get the nurturing side of me back. Then on September 1,  I was officially clean, from everything. I was finally myself -- I was me.

My mother and grandmother finally were able to trust me, and I was able to get my kids back, find a home, get a job, and have a family. I was finally free. I was able to be me, enjoying my life without drugs.