July 29, 2007 — My story begins at age five. We lived in middle suburbia Dayton, Ohio. I was the youngest of three children. It was 1961 when everyone thought that the streets were safe for children to play. I was one block from my home and my friend’s grandfather raped me. I had family members molesting me. There was nothing but confusion in my life and I didn't understand why this was happening to me. I also smoked my first cigarette. I was raised in church until my parents divorced at age eight. From there I was out of control.

By age 10 I was drinking and trying what drugs I could get my hands on. I can remember buying cigarettes for thirty-five cents a pack, no questions asked, and a bottle of MD 2020 was about a dollar that any wine-o would get for you if you bought him one to. My mom was a nurse so there were pills around the house and if it said for pain then I new they were good. I was the life of the party at age ten. I had the stuff and the boys really liked me. By age twelve I had a miscarriage. I can still remember looking at it in the toilet wondering what it was that came out of my body in so much pain. I called my mom she said not to flush the toilet and she rushed home. I had my first D & C at age twelve.

One day we went to Indiana to visit family. When we got to my uncles house he took me in the bedroom to talk to me. I thought finally a chance to tell them what was going on with me, why I was the way I was. But, that was not the case at all. I still remember my uncle’s cubby finger pointing at me telling me that boys didn't want girls like me, and if they did it was only for one thing, that I was a whore and a disgrace to the family. Not once did he ask me how I became the person I was at age twelve.

My life was a mess and I didn't know what to do. So I did what I knew best, found comfort in the bottle and what drugs, pot I could find. That was pretty easy for a girl that put out.

I was no good in school either, my grades were D's and F's. At age sixteen I quit school. My mom signed me out. There was no point. I went to school to party and ride around getting high. I missed the first semester of my freshman year, all but one class - gym. I have never been to a school dance or a prom. Then the real party girl showed up. I wouldn't listen to my mom at all. She would tell me to be home at 11 and I wouldn’t come home at all, sometimes for a couple of days and that was to shower and change clothes and out the door I went. I was the daughter from hell so she threw me out. I stayed here and there, mostly with men. Then I started stealing to get by and I got caught and went to jail. It would not be the last time either. Mom came and got me out and I was off again. This was my life sleeping with men, alcohol and drugs at age sixteen.

My mom became the director of an alcohol center and visited the mission to help people. She was also diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. We didn't find out till about three years later. She didn't want us to know. My mom got involved with one of the alcoholics and they got married. It wasn't too long after that she sold the house and moved to Florida. My safety net was gone. My sister and I got a place to live and she worked and took care of me as I partied too much to work. I was taking acid and black beauties and whatever I could get my hands on. Our apartment lasted about one month. We missed mom too much, so we decided to move to Florida. My stepfather didn't like my sister and I, we were whores, so there was no love lost there. About two weeks after our arrival my stepfather went out for a loaf of bread and cleaned out my mother account of her life savings never to be seen again.

I didn't know any one there and I desperately wanted to turn my life around and be a good daughter. So I went back to school. But I have one of those personalities that attract people of all kinds. I meet DC she was a year older then me I was seventeen and we became best friends. At that time you could drink at the age of eighteen, not a good thing for me. So I was off we started drinking and smoking pot. Hitting the bars, they didn't card me, and I had a fake ID any way. DC played a twelve-string guitar, and she was good. We would hitch-hike to the beach and hit the bars. One day I kept my sister’s car and DC and I skipped school. We went to her house and smoked some pot and them left to go to my house. We were on tropical trail and that’s the last thing I remember. I woke up in the hospital at ten-o-clock looking in a mirror with my neck laid open. The next day they told me that DC had died. Could my life get any worse, yes it could and did. My poor mom -what was I doing to her. I then went through a lot of court tickets and then they arrested me for manslaughter by a motor vehicle. I was in court for two years and they through it out because they had already tried me on the tickets, so I got off on a technicality. Then I was sued for the next two years. By the time it was over I believed that I had killed my best friend.

I was nineteen and felt my life was over. Drugs and alcohol were my best friends. They wouldn't leave me. I met a man from California and he was a truck driver getting a divorce with two kids. About a year in we moved to California where I was introduced to methamphetamine, my drug of choice. I fell in love. I was ten feet tall and bullet proof. I did anything for this drug. I was an IV user and I couldn’t get enough of the rush. It controlled me - every part of me. In 1980 we were selling ounces of Meth and I got a bad feeling about a deal that was about to go down and I was right. They tore my house up and took him and me to jail. There I was three hots and a cot again. This man cheated on me and beat me and I stayed because I didn't deserved any better or so I believed.

A week later I was on my way to Florida. I just kept running from one town to the next and one drug to the next. In 1983 I met the man of my dreams. He didn't do drugs. We met in a bar in Florida and three months later were married in California. I caught him with a girlfriend of mine. I stayed with him after all he didn't do drugs. I put blinders on about what I had seen after all I did love him. All of my men cheated on me why should he be any different. We moved back to Florida because he hated California It was too fast and too liberal. He was a hard working man and loved Budweiser as much as he loved me. So I became an alcoholic and would sneak around smoking pot when I could find it. Bill had told me that he would never hit me and one night we were drinking vodka and he blacked my eye, again I thought why should he be any different. We lived in Florida till about 1986 and I talked him in to moving back to California. We had a good life at first but I couldn’t get him to stop drinking. I thought if we had a child he would quit. So I got in church but for all the wrong reasons. I knew that God could do anything so I wanted God to make my husband stop drinking and bless me with a child. I met a lady in church that had property in Northern Calif. and we would go up there and ride dirt bikes and four wheelers. We loved it there and so when she moved we moved with her. Bill was still drinking. I had quit again. Then he went to work as a truck driver and was never home, the loneliness set in and I was off again. We separated many times and I even divorced him but we always found our way back to each other. I had met some people that were dealing in Meth and we would go horseback riding with them. I started dabbling in the Meth a little and I new better but I did it any way. I was tired of him being drunk all the time and belittling me all the time and knocking me around. So I got my Meth friends together and some trucks and moved out everything. I lived with a drug dealer so I had it all the time. I was an IV user again and slowly killing myself. I got so out there that I robbed people's homes. The law was looking for us so we went in hiding for a little while which meant that we couldn’t get the Meth we needed and things got bad. He wouldn’t give me any and I got in his face and he took me down. He busted up my face and I grabbed a piece of a garden hose and he pulled a gun on me. That was the chance I had been waiting for to end it, but I couldn’t all I could was run. I didn’t want to die that way over a fix, and not by his hand. A girlfriend of mine was there and she took me to her house I was in a bad way needing a fix and busted up to boot. She got me some Meth I can still remember that feeling. I would put enough in the spoon to get a good rush and nothing. I did it again and nothing what was going on. She put me to bed and the next morning I tried again and again nothing. So I put all I had and it was more then enough and still nothing. I thought I was dying and I wanted to. I lay back down in hopes that I wouldn’t wake up. That evening I called my ex-husband and we talked. He wanted to come get me. He thought I was dead. I told him no and I would call him tomorrow. I went back to sleep hoping not to wake up. I called my husband back and I let him come get me and take me home. He had quit drinking. He said during my recovery he would watch my chest rise and fall to make sure I was breathing and he did that for two weeks. He asked me what I wanted to eat and I told him Milky Way Dark and Sprite. For two weeks I would get up to use the bathroom and on the way I would get a candy bar and a Sprite go to the bathroom and by the time I got back to bed they were gone and I was back to sleep. This was June of 1992. When I finally got up I asked Bill to take me to the doctor. I wanted to have some tests run. HIV came back clear. I couldn’t believe it but I had Hep B and C. The doctor said that if I took care of myself I would live a long and happy life. We left Calif. in June of 1992 and came home to Kentucky. We were married again in 1994 and in 1995 I had to have a hysterectomy. I found out that he was cheating on me again and he would stay out all night. So I threw him out and filed for a divorce again. I thought he would quit drinking and come home, but that was not the case. He had a girlfriend in Campton where we were working and she was with child. We have been apart for ten years. He would tell me that I would never find anyone as good as he was that I would never be anything. At this point in my life all I had experienced from men was abuse verbal, physical and mental.

But I fell apart when he didn't come back. I started drinking 7year Jim Beam and Bud Lite along with pain pills and nerve pills. It was on again. A friend of ours starting coming around and then got in trouble and went to prison for five years. I would go to the jail to see him and we got close or should I say I got close and he used me. I got an AT and two DUI's. For four years I would go to whatever prison he was in and do things that could have got me sent to prison, and all the time I thought he loved me. I moved back to Grayson and started going to AA and got in ACTC to make something out of myself. One day I got a letter from Robert saying that I had to quit school so that I could get a real job. Well I dumped him and that was the smartest thing I had done at that point in my life.

I was in AA for about a year and I new who my higher power was but I couldn’t get enough of God. So I started going to church at New Beginnings. I struggled with my walk at first. I just wasn't worthy of a God so loving and forgiving. All I could see was the whore that every one saw. I was never going to be anything and why would a God so good and so wonderful waste any time on me. Then I started really reading my BIBLE and going to church every time the doors opened. God had put me in that church with Kyle Burchett and my spiritual family that prayed for me and loved me unconditional. Then I knew that God was with me all along. He had his hand on me and heard my prayers. He wasn't finished with me yet he loved me just the way I was. God is taking everything that I have been through and turning it around for the good. God cried when I was raped and hit and the drugs. I am here today by the GRACE of GOD. I can do all things through CHRIST who strengthens me. I don't see myself as that girl with a big L on her forehead any more I am a child of GOD, and I embrace each day that he gives me to serve and do his will. I love who I am today and where I came from because it is who I am. Just to let you know the Hep B and C - God healed my liver there is nothing too big for my God - nothing. Great is his faithfulness for his mercies begin afresh each morning.

You see I know that there are many woman and men that have my story and my prayer is that this story gives them Hope because you see that is all I had when I was living in the world. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind to what is good and acceptable will of God. We have a support group at New Beginnings on Thursday at 12 noon. Please come join us.