Child of an Addict
BY EVAUGHN GLOE
I’m a child of an addict.
So of course I’m an addict too, it’s sad to say. It’s crazy how I have to get fucked up to feel good. To not feel the pain. To get rid of all those nasty scary thoughts in my head. And by that I mean the dark side taking over me like it did my dad.
The way I grew up wasn’t as exciting as you’d like to think. I mean, of course I’d do anything to grow up rich and preppy and popular and have everything in the world that every little child dreams of…especially having their parents happily married and living as one big happy family.
My mom left me when I was, what, a year old? But I mean, I don’t really know, that’s just what I’ve been told. My dad has been there throughout my life off and on. So I’ve always been a daddy’s girl and never had a mother figure. Yeah I know, shocking huh? It’s affected me a lot through my life as well. Growing up I’ve witnessed my dad do drugs, beat his girlfriends, and go in and out of jail. It’s definitely been a big impact on my life as a child til now.
Especially the drug part. I guess in my family in my blood line there’s a history of drug addictions and alcoholic problems. Which explains a lot on my part.
I clearly remember this one specific day in Johnson, Arkansas living in a two bedroom house with my little brothers and dad and his girlfriend as if it happened just yesterday. Even though I was only about six, since it was such a big thing, I remember every detail like I remember what I had to drink five minutes ago.
My dad was cooking crystal in the kitchen while yelling and arguing with his girlfriend and I turned up the radio just a little bit louder to pitch out the screams and yelling. There was the smell of the crystal cooking, like vaporization. My little brother was crying too and I was so young but I acted as if I was older while I was holding him in my arms with tears coming down my face, telling him it was okay and to not worry. What was not to worry? My dad was cooking crystal… arguing with his significant other in the kitchen…
Just as things were bad enough I hear a bang on the door, saying, “Open up, it’s the police,” with cops surrounding our house like a bunch of rats looking for food.
“Evaughn baby come here please-” My dad was hurrying, trying every way to hide the drugs he was cooking – hide the drugs? At my age back then I didn’t even know what the word “drug” meant. What were drugs?
Running through the house panicking and everyone scattering with the music playing in the background was like watching a movie playing in slow motion, I dropped my baby brother and hurried to my dad once he called my name.
“Listen baby, I need you to hide this for me please hide it somewhere.” My dad handed me a washcloth filled with somewhat liquid but hard crystal rock substance. It was warm, not too cold but not too hot either. So I rushed almost tripping and falling into everything before the cops knocked open the door into the bathroom behind the laundry basket and hid the washcloth far in the back and put clothes on top it hoping the cops wouldn’t find it… but they did.
This a big part of my childhood memory.
I had my first cigarette at the age of nine, thinking I was as cool as my dad watching him do it too. I thought it was okay for me to do it. But the taste of the cigarette wasn’t too satisfying at all. It taste of burnt bread and ashes and made me cough like hell. I mean since it was my first time trying a fag for my first time. Fag, another name for cigarette. I didn’t even smoke it I only took two puffs and I was done! Once my dad found out, he whopped me with a bamboo stick. No not a belt, not a paddle, no, a bamboo stick while he was strung out on meth.
I really don’t remember much of it but the fact that I was in pain. I was crying like bloody murder as if I was getting killed or something. I was in the living room, bending over the couch arm hearing wind from how hard he was hitting me on my bottom. As he was hitting me all I could do was just cry in terror thinking, What did I do so wrong for him to be hitting me like this? This is my father? Someone who made me and he’s hitting me with a bamboo stick- why not a belt? Why not just talk to me? I’m a young child for god’s sake.
Of course I was trying to get away, to run, but the more I tried, the harder the whoops got. Think how bad that felt at the time? Hurt as if I got stung by a thousand bees.
And now…I mean, what am I really doing with my life? I guess I don’t know my own strength. I try and try to push myself harder as if I’m still backtracking my own mistakes. Backtracking my own mistakes? What the hell is that suppose to even mean? Ok yeah, my life isn’t as rough or tough as some people I may know but is this their story? Didn’t think so…
I hate the fact that I have to get faded every day even though I go to Youth Bridge, a place to help addicts or young teens to quit doing drugs of any kind. But the feeling I have when I get high is like no feeling ever.
The first time I got high was when I was thirteen years old. Barely becoming new to drugs, sex, fighting, and even alcohol. One hot summer night around midnight right after everyone went to sleep, me and my best friend Kimberlee decided we were going to sneak out of my house through a window small enough only a cat could practically fit through to go kick it
with some guys we went to school with at the time, and to get high.
Once we got there they already had everything ready. Ron which was Kimberlee’s boyfriend at the time took a hit first, acting like everything was cool. So of course once it was about to be my turn I felt like a “cool kid.” Then it was Kim’s turn, and then it went to Joe which was someone I was dating at the time, then me.
As I took in a hit I didn’t know how to do it, so Ron taught me. He said, “Hold your lips like this and put your finger on the carb and inhale.” I was just about to inhale the smoke and I started coughing, not a sudden low cough, I coughed loud and obnoxiously. Then they all started laughing. Once I passed the pipe I felt tingles through my body, and my vision was off and my head felt different.
Because of my family’s history of addiction, ever since that night, I started smoking more and more each and every day. Making myself into a pro pothead. Getting high feels as if I’m floating on air, and the tingles in my body feel as if I’m in another universe filled with a whole different oxygen level. As I’m writing I can’t stop thinking about how I want to leave school already just to go take another hit of marijuana.
Oh yeah, I probably never got to mention what my addiction was- it’s marijuana. But what’s so big about smoking marijuana? I mean everybody does. It’s the fact that I’m trying to not be so addicted to it. I’m not trying to be like my parents and make it become a habit of doing it every second of the day and spending my whole paycheck every time I get paid.
But then again I think to myself, why would I want to stop? I mean all my life, ever since my family found out I smoke marijuana, they always told me I’m just gonna be a failure in life, I’ll never be anything, I’ll just be like my parents, I’m never gonna make anything out of myself.
Here I am about to graduate high school, getting my shit together, and in less than a few weeks will be turning eighteen, have a boyfriend who cares for me, who I’m happy with, and we’re about to be getting our own place in this summer by June or July. What more can they say now? I made it, didn’t I? I didn’t get pregnant by the time I was in high school, I didn’t drop out of school even though I wanted to I don’t know how many times I can count using my hands and toes. Shit, I’ve even run away and still made it til today. I even smoke but I still made it.
Knowing the fact that I can prove everyone wrong even though I’m such a bad kid like my family says and smoke, I’m here and I made it with a smile on my face and my middle fingers up in the air saying, “Fuck all y’all, I made it.” You did your part on raising me and sheltering me, and I did my part on making sure I graduated with a diploma in my hand and made sure I stayed out of jail- maybe not out of trouble, but I made damn sure I never got locked up.
So ask me this, what’s so bad about marijuana? Nothing- but if you have an addiction history in your family, be careful of who you trust and are friends with. Marijuana can turn into something else, and that something else can turn your life around.
About the Author
Evaughn Gloe is an eighteen year old graduate of Archer Learning Center in Springdale, AR.
HYPERNOVA LIT 
Proud of this baby. Proud of you.
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I really felt this message
I’ll never know this person but for some reason I feel connected to this person in more ways than one.
Maybe they helped me out with my past/present issues by writing this..
I can relate to this on many levels, me nor my past has ever been perfect in any way possible.. but I’m still here on this planet.
One day we will meet on the other side and everything will be okay
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🖤
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