Why I love crack cocaine
My Gutsy Story® by Jessica O’Gorek
“I DO NOT ENCOURAGE THE USE OF any legal, illegal or recreational drugs, period. This is a story and not a love confession for crack cocaine. I condone no mind altering substances, not even alcohol, which is why I haven’t even had a beer in over TEN years!”–Jessica O-Gorek.
At eight years old, my parents divorced: strike one. At ten, my mother was bi-polar and had spent a good six months in Western State Mental Hospital then took off to Richmond where I didn’t see her for a good year. I was told she was sick and couldn’t handle raising me at the time: strike three. At twelve, I decided I wanted to smoke cigarettes and being the all-knowing teenager, I would proceed to replace the love I was lacking from my mother by getting it from boys. So I started having sex and sneaking out in the middle of the night: strike four. At thirteen, I met my future husband: strike five, six and seven. At sixteen, I got drunk for the first time and spent a good half an hour retching in my boyfriend’s front yard: lost count! At seventeen, my father didn’t know what to do with my sorry ass anymore so he left me at his house and went to live thirty minutes away with his girlfriend. At eighteen, I got married, bought a house and two acres in the country and smoked a joint for the first time: Strike infinite!
What follows is a whirlwind story about spousal, drug and all forms of abuse, combined with motherhood, addiction, recovery and chasing my ultimate dream of becoming an author.
Now, where was I? Oh, right, eighteen. I quickly learned that my husband and high school sweet heart is a controlling, physically and emotionally abusive redneck and that the only way we could tolerate each other was by smoking a lot of weed. Twenty: It’s time for a baby! Yeah, I thought maybe a crying, stinky swaddled mess of adorable would save our marriage. Ha! Thankfully, my daughter, combined with a new drug, cocaine, would be the beginning of the end of my first pitiful marriage. When he decided to hit me in front of her at ten months old and strangled me because I wouldn’t let him put coke on certain body parts, I decided it was time to leave.
At twenty, I took my girl and ran over to where my dad moved. I met up with my other high school sweetheart, got my own place for the first time and got clean for about six months. Then I met White Boy Larry, the equivalent of my pimp in disguise. White Boy Larry was his code name to get into the crack house where he introduced me to my new lover, Crack.
Crack and I got along splendidly! He would keep me up all night, make me feel like superwoman, helped me lose weight, and cleaned my house, the perfect life companion, right? Our relationship was one of few words and little emotional growth. He always seemed to know what I wanted, when I wanted it and I couldn’t get enough of him! If he was gone, even for a second, I would miss him so badly! I would go out at all odd hours of the night to try and find him and bring him safely home. The only issue was he wanted me all to himself and would rarely give up any space in my brain or heart so I could share it with my daughter.
After six months, our beautiful relationship began to take a serious nosedive. When he found out I was cheating on him with Sam, my soon to be second husband, he got a little angry. When I told him my daughter meant more to me than him, he got even angrier; so angry that he kept me up for three days, stressed me out so much I developed hives and couldn’t’ eat or drink anything!
Finally, with Sam’s encouragement, I was able to break up with Crack. Sam told me I had an addiction to Crack and that I needed some serious help to get over him. At ninety pounds, with hives and an empty shell of a soul, I made a decision to enter into substance abuse counseling with sixteen other addicts like myself.
That was in 2003, at age 23. I had a few epiphanies while in counseling. As I sat in a room with sixteen other ladies, the counselor told us all that one of us would still be clean within one year’s time. As I looked at the other ladies with their scars and tats, the empty sadness in their eyes reminded me of wounded animals in a cage. I decided that I would be that one person and that no one would stop me. For once, my stubbornness was on my side and not against me.
I quit using all legal, (alcohol included) and illegal substances. I became a wonderful mother, married Sam in 2005, quit smoking cigarettes in 2007, and became a religious exerciser and a vegetarian. Today, I have been clean for eleven years, I run 3-5 miles a day, 4 days a week, I earn a dependable 50K a year, I have a car that’s paid for, my own place, a fabulous 13-year-old girl, I’m a published author and I just took a huge leap of faith by leaving my second husband because I wasn’t in love anymore. My next step at self-preservation is getting off my anti-depressants and working my way to the top of a best sellers list!
So I love crack cocaine because it took me to the dungeon so I could appreciate moving up to the tower of the castle. Without starving in its shadows, I never would have been able to be thankful for any light that crept through between the bars of my dungeon cell. It has taught that if I love myself, everything else will fall where it’s meant to. Not always where and when I want it to, but where it’s meant to.
JESSICA O’GOREK BIO: I was born in Chesapeake, Virginia in 1979. I was raised within the American Indian religion and was taught great respect for the earth and all its living beings. I grew up admiring my father, Barry Weinstock, as an author. He took me around the country to different places so he could write his Wilderness Survival books. When I was twelve, I started hand writing novels. My first one was two thousand pages.In October of 2012, I lost him to lung cancer. In his hospital bed, I promised him I would be a famous author one day. He looked at me with all of wisdom and sadness and replied, “Honey, I don’t doubt it.”
The dedication in my first published book, Gemini Rising- Ethereal Fury reads, “I did daddy! I finally did it! This one’s for you.”
- Please check out Jessica’s website
- Twitter: @geminirising1
SONIA MARSH SAYS: Jessica, I loved your honesty about the bad stuff you went through in your life. Not many are willing to open up to the extent you did and that’s gutsy. Thank you for sharing a tough part of your life with us, and how you succeeded in getting out of your journey towards hell.
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Our December 2013 stories have started with Marian Beaman and Fee Johnson, and Ian Mathie sharing their “My Gutsy Story®.”
