This isn’t written under my real name. You don’t need to know it to understand the story. If you already know the story, you probably know the name anyway. I started writing this last spring, got halfway, then stalled. First because I didn’t feel “recovered enough” yet, then because I was quietly sliding back toward relapse without admitting it. I didn’t realize how enslaved I still was until I’d rebuilt the same old pyramids of chaos. I’m finishing it now with the news that one of my rehab roommates was just found dead in her backyard. As risky as putting this out there feels, I have to. Too many people never get the chance to tell their story. So here’s mine—raw, ugly, and finally honest.
Miami’s cocaine era gets described as glitzy, gaudy, violent. My personal version was all three—except it started in Connecticut and ended in Miami, with every shade of insanity in between. A shimmering mirage of glamour I chased until it nearly killed me.
When I met my husband, life was already circling the drain. I was selling cocaine out of my apartment, hadn’t paid rent in months, and was doing a post-bachelor’s program just to claw my GPA back up enough for a teaching certification. I’d done so much coke in my last two years of college that I never once showed up to biology. Freshman year? Dean’s List. Three years later? Police blotter in the school newspaper. Seriously.
He rushed in like a knight in shining armor. I bought it. He’d been clean from cocaine for eight years. He promised to take care of me. And for a while, he did. I trusted him completely—my way clearly wasn’t working. So I followed his lead, did whatever he wanted. It worked… until it didn’t.
The first time I visited South Beach for the Boat Show, I fell madly in love with the place. We schemed to get him an in-house position with one of the most prestigious fast-boat companies in the world. It took a year and a detour through North Carolina, but my plan worked. (That’s one of my problems: my plans usually do work. It’s what I want that’s usually the disaster.)
My life became about his career, his happiness. It never quite filled the emptiness inside.
I obsessed about cocaine the entire time I was abstinent. I never addressed the underlying causes—the thoughts, behaviors, traumas—that led me there in the first place. I just went on the marijuana-and-wine maintenance plan and tried to ignore the cravings.
When we finally moved to South Beach, I convinced him to “just do it one time.” The cocaine felt incredible after the long break. We talked all night, staring at the Miami lights from our balcony. Here I am, Miami. I’ve arrived. That old feeling returned: I could do, be, have anything.
Then came the comedown. Nose burning, throat raw, ears ringing, heart racing even though the high was gone. I hated myself. Relived every terrible thing I’d ever done. Lay there unable to sleep, fighting with him, crying. I felt like I wanted to die. And I couldn’t wait to do it again.
The company we’d pushed so hard to join—I obviously can’t name it. The irony? Its name has been intertwined with cocaine and Miami for decades.
The problem with my story is chronology is impossible because I was high for so long. After we bought our house in 2007 came the summer of drugs. (Not my first or last.) Days spent begging my husband to bring beer on his lunch break, sleeping, playing Keep Breathing by Ingrid Michaelson on repeat. Really, days spent waiting to get high. I needed cocaine just to shower or clean the house. Sometimes we went out. Mostly we didn’t. Every day we swore it would be the last time.
I remember the day I wandered the house hoping to find even a crumb, only to pull an ounce out of a shoe. The rush when I unearthed that bag felt like a million slot machines hitting jackpot at once.
Eventually I couldn’t even stay clean when my mother or sister visited. Or when married friends came for dinner—one of them a DEA chemist from the Miami field office (largest in the nation). I wanted to stop, but we rarely made it a week without using.
I started therapy. Told my therapist I “only used cocaine on weekends.” (Weekends that usually started Wednesday and ended… whenever.) She suggested rehab. I said no, no, no.
Then came the fight over the last gram on my birthday. Broken finger. Divorce lawyer. Restraining order. That was 2008. We got back together. Around Christmas it got ugly again—no presents, plenty of drugs. He’d lost his job at the boat company. We’d gone from Black AmEx parties on the Gansevoort rooftop to our house becoming the place where scantily clad girls spilled cocaine on the floor at 11 a.m. on Sundays. I rarely left except for Publix or 7-11. My dealer delivered. I couldn’t go a day without drinking. My skinny jeans hung off me. I thought it couldn’t get worse.
I was wrong. Rock bottom always has a trap door.
Another fight—should’ve called the police, but didn’t because drugs were in the house. Things smashed. Phones thrown in the pool (black-green by then because we stopped paying the pool guy). I was thrown in the pool. Car repossessed. Mortgage unpaid for months. But we always had drugs—fronted, pawned, whatever it took.
I called my therapist in tears: “I’m ready to get help.” I knew I couldn’t get sober without being somewhere I had no choice.
I walked into a Broward County treatment center on January 6, 2009—scared, stoned, shaking. My family was proud of me for the first time in years when they agreed to pay for a month. “They’re going to tell me I can never drink or smoke pot again!” I wailed as we pulled in, certain that was worse than death. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. All I could think about was drugs and alcohol.
Slowly, that changed. I started sleeping. Waking up happy to be alive for the first time in memory. I went to two AA meetings a day. Four hours of group therapy. I began admitting faults, being honest. I wrote letters to family and remaining friends. A small spark of hope grew.
After almost four months, I was ready for a job. I started at a timeshare magazine company. I worked on my divorce. I worked the steps. I made friends. I felt pretty good about myself. I still thought I was “different”—narcissism whispered that because I wasn’t on heroin or crack, I could have “just one glass of wine” after six months, or rehab, or some magical milestone.
You may believe relapse begins the moment one ingests a drink or drug. That’s what I always believed.It’s a myth.
Relapse doesn’t start with the first line or sip. It starts with that quiet, dangerous thought: I’ve got this sobriety thing down.That tiny spark of overconfidence leads to complacency. You stop doing the things that kept you clean—meetings, therapy, honest check-ins, working the steps. Old behaviors creep back in, slow at first, then faster. They chip away at your self-esteem until the fear and self-loathing become unbearable. That’s when the thought of using returns. Because it works. It soothes the pain like nothing else ever could.
Against every piece of advice I’d heard in treatment, I got a new boyfriend who was also in recovery.I’d been so miserable in my marriage for so long that I felt entitled to someone who was actually nice to me. I didn’t care that he distracted me from the hard inner work. In fact, I welcomed the distraction. The rehab living facility banned dating while in residence, so I found a halfway house in Delray Beach that allowed my dog—and my boyfriend.
My soon-to-be-ex-husband started paying my rent again. I leaned on him emotionally. The narcissism and histrionics flared right back up. I sometimes snorted my sleep meds. I stopped following program suggestions—texted or mocked people during the meetings I even bothered to attend. I obsessed daily about walking into a bar. Felt the siren pull of the Walgreens liquor store every time I went to buy cigarettes.
Above: A visual reminder of how fast things can spiral when you stop doing the work.
I firmly believe the only thing keeping me sober during that stretch was the desire to pick up my six-month chip and get applauded. I made it to six months—just so I could say I did.But did I really?That week I’d gone to a Kava bar three days in a row. I didn’t feel sober after shell after shell of that muddy drink. I chugged Monster energy drinks. Brewed triple-strength valerian tea (the herb they make Valium from). I never found a new therapist after cycling through four at treatment—I couldn’t afford it. But I could afford Juicy Couture, True Religion jeans, Starbucks, and cigarettes.
The gap between how well I thought I was doing and how well I was actually doing grew to cartoonish proportions.I took a new job at a burger-and-beer joint. Because, seriously, I could handle it.Fourth shift: a few sips of beer. Then a few glasses. That seductive omnipotence and goodwill flooded back. After that, I drank every shift. Told no one at work I was in the program. Told no one in the program what I was doing at work.
One Saturday the halfway house gave special permission to work late. I got cut at 10:30. With $300 in my wallet, I called my boyfriend.“I’m buzzed,” I said. “Come see me—I’m out early.”
He showed up. I kissed him. He said the three little words every addict longs to hear:“Let’s get high.”
Did I forget to mention my new boyfriend was a chronic relapser?I sincerely believed we’d drive to Miami, grab a gram, do a few lines, and I’d be home by 2:30 a.m. when my shift “ended.”That’s not how it works when you’re using with someone who’s already surrendered to the idea of a life in the program. AA teaches that once you take that first drink or drug, you’re powerless over everything that follows. In my experience, that mindset creates a free-for-all: “Since I’m getting a white chip anyway, might as well go all out.”That mentality is how people die.
We never made it home that night.When we ran out around 7 a.m., we got a motel room, more liquor, and crack cocaine.
Around 11 a.m. we drove to five different pharmacies for needles. Spent the rest of the day smoking crack, drinking, shooting pills.
I’ll never forget that moment: wrapping the belt around my arm, watching him cook it on the bottom of a halved beer can, needle sliding in, blood flash, rush spreading through my entire body. I fell back on the bed mumbling, “Oh my God that feels so fucking good.”I have no idea how long I lay there like that. I didn’t feed my dog that day. That’s where my addiction took me. It happens that fast.Wallet and bank account? Empty. All I had left were track marks in each arm.
I’d recorded some of our antics on my phone’s video camera. When I stumbled back to the halfway house, one of my roommates came at me like a hellhound while I tried to sleep. She grabbed my phone, wanting to call my sponsor to check my story. I screamed and wrestled it back.
Next morning I lied to the house managers. They didn’t buy it. In the chaos I packed a bag and fled to my reluctant ex-boyfriend’s house—without my phone. My roommate used it to text my husband, pretending to be me. And yes—she sent him the video.I deleted it without ever watching. Too disgusted. He has a hard copy somewhere. Apparently it was “quite entertaining.”
I made one correct decision: called a sober woman I knew with a few years clean. She picked me up, took me to a meeting. I found a new halfway house.
My ex said he forgave me for the video. I thought he’d changed. He looked better—therapy, anger management. He had a girlfriend, said things were getting serious. But if I said the word, I could come home. He swore no more cocaine. I was all he wanted.
I said yes. A few days later, I moved back in.
Home appeared to be an oasis of creature comforts. The night I arrived, the pool sparkled bright blue under the lights. The house was spotless—clean cotton-scented candles flickered in every room. The fridge was stocked with Fresh Market prepared foods and Dr. Brown’s soda. A fat bud of purple haze lay drying under a lamp. A bottle of pinot noir was decanting on the counter. The flat-screen was ready, DVR still programmed to record my favorite shows. My dog scampered off to reunite with his brother and sister. My husband smiled, kissed me, started unpacking my things, washing my clothes. I stepped into the bathroom for a shower and found it stocked with overpriced Lush products. It was the perfect bribe.It was all a mirage.
I kept the burger-and-beer job for a few days, commuting to Boca, thrilled to have a car again (mine had been repossessed during rehab). Every day and night we smoked pot and I drank. I came home on a Tuesday. By Saturday we looked at each other and—don’t know who said it first—“Should we?”Our addictions answered for us.
He hadn’t paid the car note, cable, or electric in months—just kept up the illusion of “doing great” to lure me back. Things only got paid once they were shut off. The car was repossessed again a week after I returned—iPhone still inside. The perfect dinner at Tryst, the Boca Town Center night, the oasis I walked into? A house of cards. It collapsed fast, sped up by the fact that we were using again.
Honestly, I’m not sure he ever really stopped. Every time we ran out (whether bought or fronted), he’d disappear into his office and magically produce more. It always belonged to “someone else.” I realized he’d been playing middleman while I was away—something I refused to let continue, no matter how badly I wanted to get high. I’d heard enough jail stories in rehab.
My birthday came. Nobody knew where I was. I’d told one friend I was moving back in with him. Her reply: “Are you insane?” That was the last time we spoke for months. My family wasn’t sure I was alive. I was barely human at that point—an empty shell, slave to chemical relief. My mother joined Facebook just to make sure I was still breathing.
Within four weeks my phone was shut off for non-payment. He started walking to 7-11 to call our dealer. I walked to 7-11 for wine—12 blocks each way. Sometimes the dealer stopped by to see if we needed anything. Often we had coke but no cigarettes. Sometimes coke but no potty pads for the dogs, no food in the house. Sometimes no cable, sometimes no electricity. The A/C unit died. No money to fix it. Only money for coke, which we got fronted constantly—so any cash that came in went straight to the dealer. He showed up at the house every day. It was almost my only contact with the outside world.
I started going “to work” with my husband—if you can call daily hustling for jobs he’d have laughed at in our previous life “work.”
I remember the first time the electricity went out so clearly. We sat in the house sweating. Friday night. Air thick. Pool filthy again. Bank account overdrawn. His was gone. No money, cigarettes running low. So we did the only thing that made sense in active addiction: got cocaine and cigarettes fronted. That’s how good customers we were. It arrived, and now we were hotter than ever—but cared much less. I played solitaire on my phone (laptop had a virus back in Delray, needed a new hard drive—$80? Out of the question). We spent more than that in an hour on coke and Xanax. I took Xanax all night to fight the paranoia.
I’ve heard it a million times, and I’ll say it again: I shouldn’t be alive.
The only joy left was walking to the library—checking Facebook, taking out books and DVDs (until the player broke too). It would almost be laughable if it weren’t so painful to remember. I had a few friends left. It wouldn’t be long before I alienated them too.
Thanksgiving was coming and the cupboards were nearly bare. I remember genuinely fearing we’d starve. I wasn’t being dramatic. My anxiety hit new heights. Just writing this is excruciating—I’m reliving it from a place of relative ease and comfort, disgusted to the point of nausea that this was ever my life.
My mother emailed: there were better options. I ignored it for months, but it lingered in the back of my mind.
A business associate of his promised everything would change. He and his girlfriend brought groceries (and coke) two nights before Thanksgiving. I sat in my overpriced house (we were squatting—mortgage unpaid for over a year), designer purse on the table, designer sweatpants on, holding my hybrid dog, watching them unload food. It was mortifying.
We started driving to Cutler Ridge every day to his custom bike shop. That’s when we began doing coke all day, every day. Again.
We stopped sleeping in the same room. Stopped talking. Only hostile abuse or cold manipulation. I was so far removed from my emotions that the only ones left were fear and rage. I started to realize one thing: this was absolutely, positively never going to work.
I remember looking at him on the couch and thinking, “I hate you. I hate you so much.” I wished he were dead. In that instant I realized how pathetic that was. I wasn’t captive in that house. I was captive in my mind.
I met someone at the bike shop. Another anti-social narcissist—but I didn’t see it then. Started spending time with him behind my husband’s back: drinking, blowing lines, taking tons of Xanax. As much of an asshole as he was, he did one crucial thing: helped me do the most important thing I ever did—kick my husband (and cocaine) out of my life for good.
I came home the night before with at least 12 shots of rum and four Xanax bars in me (a quarter of one would probably knock a “normal” person out). Husband had called pretending he wasn’t home yet (he was). I said I was home. He called back: “Really? I’m in the living room.” We shared one Metro PCS phone at that point—I had it. He used whoever drove him home from work’s phone.
I’d gone skinny-dipping on North Beach with the other guy. Hair matted, wet, coated in sand. Reeked of seawater, booze, sweat, sex. He called friends over, unsure what to do with me. I was belligerent—cursing him to hell, practically foaming at the mouth. A friend showered me, extracted a promise I wouldn’t leave. I fell into bushes promising. The minute they left, I slipped out to walk 8 blocks to a friend’s to call the other guy. Fell every step. World sideways. Walked into traffic. Clung to bushes. Showed up bleeding from chin, knee, elbow—bruised all over. Used his phone, demanded Taco Bell, got returned home. Mercifully passed out for about 14 hours.
Two days later I kicked him out for the final time. I didn’t expect him to believe me—but I didn’t expect him not to either. We fought all morning about the same things we always fought about. It doesn’t bear repeating here or anywhere. The last thing I said:“I don’t know where my life is going, but I don’t want you or cocaine to be a part of it.”
He packed a bag—like so many times before. Only I knew this time was different. He said he’d come home at lunch to retrieve it and go to a hotel. I spent the day with a friend, downing shots of rum, never quite drowning the panic. Or the exhilaration.
I stopped by the house at four—bag still there. Put it on the porch. Checked again at nine—still there. Asked my friend to wait in the driveway. Started shaking, vomiting all over the lawn. Walked in. He’d gotten a haircut, bought me cigarettes. The morning note saying he didn’t want me for the 897th time was still on the counter.
I told him my secret: I never dropped the restraining order from the year before.Half an hour to get out or I’d call police.I finally exhaled. I knew it was over.
I called my mother the next day. We arranged for me to fly home. Spent the next ten days mooching off the other guy, packing. Then it was time to say adios to Miami. The other guy thought I was coming back to live with him. I knew I wasn’t—but clung to it as a reservation to use. I flew home December 23.
Christmas Eve: sober, with 18 relatives. Best Christmas in nine years. Went to a few AA meetings up here, then decided it wasn’t for me. I didn’t want to sit around trading war stories after calling myself an addict/alcoholic. Felt degrading. Built my own program: acupuncturist, therapist, psychiatrist, great PCP. Read a lot. Started a new blog. Worked out. Cooked dinner for family. Quit cigarettes. Reconnected with old friends (online and IRL). One said, “Is that @JaneDoe tweeting? Miami hath frozen over.” Signed up for a writing workshop. Got a little part-time job a mile from my mom’s. Took real care of my dog again. Opened up emotionally. Forgave myself. Became a living amend to myself, family, people who love me. Got the divorce moving again.
After about a month stone-cold sober, I started drinking—cautiously, minimally. I have rules now. If I can’t handle it, I know where to go.
Today I’m happier than I’ve been since childhood. In therapy twice a week. Currently no meds, but open to them. New writing opportunities appear daily. Trying to make it as a writer. More importantly, trying to make it as a human. I have people who care about me. I care about other people. Most importantly, I care about myself.
Sometimes life is a little boring. But I’ve had enough drama for this lifetime. Where to from here? The possibilities are endless. Nothing can hold me back.
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