When I was 7 years old that was the first time I drank to get drunk. The last thing I remember is telling my brother, “Well, I feel like I’m taking off in an airplane.” You know, unbalanced.
When I moved back to California when I was 13, I started doing a lot of pills. And that progressed pretty quickly. Ecstasy, Xanax, you know doing all this stuff, a lot of Mollys. At that time when I was 14, I did meth for the first time. And as soon as I did it I knew I want to shoot this up.
When I was 19 years old, I got pregnant with my daughter in rehab. I was 30 days sober, three or four months pregnant. My son’s dad came around and I relapsed with him. He was telling me to get an abortion after going through my son’s pregnancy and not getting high at all. Using what an innocent baby inside me I knew I had become very bad.
I had a lot of guilt, a lot of guilt, a lot of shame. Before I would judge people. Like, “How could you get high with a baby inside you?” But it wasn’t until I was in that position myself I couldn’t stop and it was embarrassing. As a mother that already failed my son, I had lost him, I had lost my family and lost everything.
I called Wavelengths and Warren took me in right away. By the next morning, they picked me up at that point because I did transition still sober. My insurance wasn’t really wanting to pay a whole lot but they gave me a higher level of care that I needed despite any insurance paying or anything. They took me in.
They really welcomed me and they made me feel at home. They took care of me. Warren and Adam use to take me out to eat all the time because I was pregnant and hungry. They just feed me, you know.
This place is like a family. So when you’re so alone and you feel helpless and there’s nothing else you can do, you have a family here. You walk right in and we make you feel like family, you’re welcomed. And there’s a lot of hope here with all the success stories in the way that everyone treats each other and how well respected you are as client and staff. It’s an amazing place that you won’t find anywhere else.
