Falling Apart In My 50's

If your reading this and your a 20 something, READ AND ABSORB PLEASE! Take care of your body, it will come back to bite you in the ass if you don't!

Now that I got that out. I am literally falling apart at only 54 years of age. Why? Well lets see... I am 70 lbs overweight, I have osteoarthritis, diverticululosis, Gerd and a plethera of other things. I was a chronic overeater(still having problems in this area), drinker, gambler, shopper and smoker. I started with cigarrettes at 12, stealing them from my mom and smoking them in the field at school. I moved on to Methamphetamines at 15 and did that for six years, only quitting long enough(9 months) to have a baby at 18, then right back at it to lose the weight I gained(80 lbs). I quit drugs and smoking when I was 21, and took a ten year sabbatical to raise my son. I married a man because I thought my son needed a father figure...that turned out to be a huge mistake! After that I met a woman and fell in love, then we decided to moved from Sacramento to San Diego because she had grown up there and said that I would love it, so we flew there and spent a week to check it out, and she was right! I loved it so much, I decided right then we had to move there! We decided that she should go on a move ahead of us to establish a place for us to move to. Then I decided to continue to work at the video store I was working at, so I could send her some money to help with rent and bills until we could get there. I sent my son to my brothers temporarily, and for the next 3 months I took showers at my brothers, ate fast food and slept in a dark, cold house because the neighborhood was riddled with tweekers, and i knew if I left for too long they would find a way to steal everything I had(I watched a "moving truck" take everything from the house nextdoor not realizing they were stealing it all). I did all this, so I could save every cent possible for our move. I was very excited to be getting us out of the city I had grown up poor in, was raising my son in, and start a new life. We arrived in San Diego on his 14th birthday(August 16, 1998, he was born in 1984) and things went well for about 8 months (she and I were together for a little under 4 years), I was working, coming home and just doing the norm, then I came home one day to find my son and my girlfriend laughing hysterically in the kitchen. I started laughing and asked what was so funny and she proceeded to tell me that she got my son "high" on pot. I immediately became infuriated and that was the end of our relationship, how dare she just "decide" without consulting me about MY son's health and well being, he was only 14 and she had no right to make an executive decision that would alter his mental state and it was also very illegal! I was shocked that she would think this was an okay thing to do! I kicked her out, and told him that he could be arrested if caught, and I also tried to show him the adverse effects it would have on him over time, but it was too late, he was in love with the feeling of being "high" and there was no stopping him from doing it. I threatened to have him put in a rehab, he refused and said he would run away. I grounded him, tried to keep him from hanging out with the bad element, even tried to have the police arrest him and keep him in jail but they told me I would have to pay out of my pocket for that, which I unfortunately could not afford to do at the time, so as hard as I tried to stop him... nothing worked and I eventually just gave up! By the way...never give up on your children, this IS A GATEWAY DRUG TO HARDER DRUGS! anyone who tells you that's not true is a liar! I watched as he spiral into popping handfuls of pills at parties, and drinking heavily on almost a daily, he did meth, coke, oxy, and an assortment of other things that he sat down and told me about when he was drunk one night, all I could do was sit there and try not to freak out, he then assured me that he had quit doing all but the drinking, and I had no choice but to trust that he was telling me the truth...but all kids lie! Don't just take thier word, because they will lie to you, simply because they think we are stupid. Also, stay involved in every aspect of thier lives, NOMATTER WHAT! If your child isn't telling you "I hate you" at least weekly, then you aren't doing your job as a parent! Also understand, your children are NOT YOUR FRIENDS!! It's your job as a parent to guide them into becoming responsible adults and respected members of society! ok, I am done ranting on that subject.

Then along came this man who used to come to my store and specifically ask me to help him find good movies to watch while he was working the graveyard shift as a security guard for border patrol, he turned out to be a severe alcoholic. I should have seen the signs, since I grew up with an alcoholic mother, but I was too 'in love" to pay attention. Here is where life turns into a big blur of living at a bar, drunk off my ass for the next 15 years. I was partying every single night then we would continue to party after closing with the bartenders! I didn't see at the time, that the example I was setting for my son was a really bad one, or that I was considered a negligent mother. It really never occured to me...as stupid as that sounds. We ended up moving in with this man in 2001 after he divorced his wife (yes, I was dating a married man) and that is where it all went terribly wrong.

February 16, 2003 is a date that will haunt me forever. I will never forget..."Breaking news" watching a helecopter circling around a car that I reconized as my son's friends car, and on the ground next to it, was the victim of a fatal shooting, they had covered this person with a sheet, all except for a hand that was not covered. I started to freak out because I thought that might be his bestfriend on the ground! I immediately started to call my son Chris' friends to find out where he was because he didn't have a phone at the time, I wasn't getting any answers, so here I am on the phone to anyone that would answer, pacing around in my living room witnessing this whole scene unfolding on my television and it felt like everything was moving in slow motion. I remember calling all of his friends trying to find out if that was his bestfriend that was on the ground, it seemed like it took forever and finally my sons girlfriend calls me sobbing and she tells me...that hand under the sheet...is my child. I screamed so loud that I startled my boyfriends father who was sitting at the table behind me. It felt like the air was literally sucked from my lungs, I couldn't breath, I suddently got sick and dizzy, my vision became dark, I could feel my legs go out from under me as I fell to the floor. I woke up about 10 minutes later, with my boyfriend standing over me, and for a second I thought maybe I was dreaming but no...it was still true, my 18 year old baby was dead.

He was a typical 18 year old kid, being young and dumb. I was supposed to be the example and my irresponsible drinking and partying all the time, didn't teach him anything but what not to do! I have spent the last 18 years blaming myself for his death, and it has taken me that long to forgive myself for not being a perfect parent. Unfortunately kids do not come with a guide, and not that this is an excuse, but I had him young, and raised him almost alone because his father was either on drugs, or in prison. I was not taking my son to a prison to see him, and his father didn't care anyway, so I felt Chris was better off without him in his life. Now I will tell you the story on how my only child died and hope that it resonates with anyone who has a rebel child. He was helping a friend move that sunday (he died 6 months to the very day he was born) and the last words we spoke to each other before he was killed that night were, me: "be good and be careful, I love you", he said "I will, love you too" and then he was gone...forever. They had gotten the friend moved and decided to celebrate by going to a guys house here in our city and partying. He apparently got very drunk(.18 BAL) and decided that they needed more alcohol and three of his friends agreed, his bestfriend drove, stayed in the car while one of the other two boys helped him steal some alcohol from a large grocery chain store. There just happened to be a police officer who was off duty from another county inside. She saw what was happening and decided to follow them out. They got to the car and were unloading a full cart of beer as well as a handbasket full of Jack Daniels, when this officer rounded the corner, she had already drawn her service weapon and apparently told them she was a cop, but they said they never heard her. My son being drunk decided to run at her and try to scare her away which caused her to shoot him four times. two bullets punctured his lung and broke his ribs, one bullet hit his chest area, and the last bullet ripped through his arm and broke his elbow. The coroner said he was dead before he ever hit the ground, so he didn't suffer. I spent the next 6 months living in a bar, I was there from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. the next day, I spent the first three weeks looking for him to come to my room and tell me about his day and say goodnight..he never came. The realization that there would never be a wedding, grandchildren or watching my son become a man, I fell apart. I also decided one night in a drunken stuper to attempt to kill myself but failed because I was wasted drunk and couldn't figure out the safety...thank god. I spent 3 years in court only to lose, because my son was painted as a white supremacist piece of garbage and I was the low life mother that raised him to be trouble, so they just assumed he got what he deserved because he probably was doomed to destruction later down the line. A reporter who was doing a story for the paper on him, told me the that my lawyers aid had told him that. Isn't that great? Anyway, moving on..

After over 6 months of reckless behavior, I woke up one morning and asked myself how he would feel to see me drinking myself to death, and I decided that I needed to live like he would want and expect me to live, with respect and honor, so I quit drinking that day. I was also working in the bar as a karaoke host at the time, and a fill in bartender...I got fired for fighting with the husband of the owner. He was a complete dick, but none the less, he was still half owner. Thus ended my career in my favorite bar, bartending and karaoke hosting and on to a career where I found I really belonged...grooming pets!

I began to mentally heal some, I was on the right track, I changed most of the destructive behaviors wreaking havoc on my life and began a new chapter that would have me working hard to become a great groomer. Well what most don't know about someone like me, is that people like me, are really great at self sabotage. I at some point, I don't know exactly when, decided I didn't deserve all the good things I was recieving and started to drink again. I let that distract me from work and eventually I was fired after a year. I decided at that point to go back to bartending for the next four months at a VFW until I was hired at a big box store, the VFW is also where I met my current husband who is an alcoholic, and we made a perfectly drunk pair. We drank together and had a blast. We would come home from work and both get completely wasted drunk every single night, play cribbage, go to bed, and do it all again the next day...that lasted for 10 years! We were living together for 7 years before we got married and on the 14th of March 2021, we will have been(mostly) happily married for 6 years. I had quit gambling, drinking, and smoking a year before the pandemic hit, because I used to love to get super drunk, call my bestie and head to the casino. I gambled away at least a grand a week. My husband couldn't sleep nights because he couldn't figure out why we couldn't pay the rent, yep! I did that! I quit February 11, 2019 and recently celebrated two years off a bet. I relapsed recently with alcohol for a couple months but am currently in AA and haven't had a drink for almost 30 days, and I have recently found a belief in god that I never had before, and great things are happening everyday for me now. I also have finally made peace with all the damage I did in my life, but the physical as well as mental damage all the drinking and drugs have done, is irreversable. I can reduce the pace it will excellerate at with some great self care from here on, but there are things that I did to my body that I can't undo. Drugs and drinking excessively WILL have adverse affects later in life, things like, losing your memory. I can't remember peoples names that I have known for years! I have trouble sleeping through the night, I can't wear regular tennis shoes without specail $1,000 inserts in my shoes, due to chronic osteoarthritis in my feet, they have also collapsed under my weight so now i am very flat footed. I also have arthritis in my neck, wrists and hands, so when it is really cold I feel it all over, and the constant aches and pains are excrutiating and at times will bring me to tears. Take some advice from one who knows, take care of your mind and body now and you will live a long happy life, don't, and you will end up just like me...or worse. Oh yeah, I almost forgot the best part...I have been told that I will most likely be in a wheelchair when I am in my early 60's! I am currently doing all that I can to slow the process. Let's pray it's not too late.