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Some people call my parents enablers here, but anyone who has children would agree that grandparents provide a better atmosphere for their children than DSS possibly could. At this point, Maddie was too young to realize her Mom was seriously screwing up. But that would change as she got older and her Mother continued to screw up.

Back to Will. I should have known it was not true love when I overdosed at the local Hilton and Will didn't bother to come upstairs and check on me because he was too busy having cocktails downstairs with a rival lady. I had let him know that I was not feeling well before he descended to happy hour. You would think that my powerdialing his phone would have tipped him off that something was wrong.

I'm not sure if I was aimed to go downstairs to get him when I headed for the door in our hotel room. I was dialing his cell when I passed out just shy of the door. I came to long enough to drag myself into the bath and turn the cold shower water on. Clothes and all, I drenched myself
into a shock strong enough to wake myself and get into bed.

When Will did finally come around, he found the voicemail of me passing out amusing. I begged him not to leave me and to awaken me every 15-30 minutes to check on me. He promised he would and I awoke sometime later to an empty room. Comforted by the fact that I had awakened at all, I went back to sleep and awoke again a few hours later to Will back in the room with a male buddy of his. They were sitting at the table snorting the white powder as if I were in no way at death's door.

Fortunately for Will and unfortunately for me, Will redeemed himself when this happened a second time at a nearby La Quinta. I was trying to come down off of a two-day bender by taking Clonopin (a downer similar to that of Xanax) with Grey Goose. I was not a big drinker and sporadically took downers.

So, for me, the mix was deadly.

Lucky for me, Will enjoyed watching me sleep and realized when I stopped breathing. He administered CPR until the paramedics arrived. He did so with such force that my chest plate sustained bruises for weeks. The doctor informed me that had Will not done CPR, I would have died. I woke up in the ER with a tube up my nose, my mother and my godmother, Aunt Priss, by my bed praying for me. I will have to say that God answered their prayers that day.

I was not admitted. It was merely a stay in the ER for several hours. Will sent me two dozen roses to the hospital. I can honestly say that Will was worried about me. A good friend of his called me the next day.

“Will said he couldn't live without you, Faith. He couldn't quit crying!” Will's friend Otis told me.

“Really?” I drawled. “Funny. He didn't show up in the ER.”

“Aaw, Faith. You know that boy loves you to death.”

“Yeah?” I snorted dryly. “Well, Otis, I had two dozen roses to look at, but y'know, they didn't talk to me and they didn't comfort me. They didn't make up for Will's absence.”

That was the beginning of the end for Will and me. It took me over eighteen months to admit that Will's only true love in life was cocaine, with himself running a close second. That boy truly was in love with himself. He got more manicures than two straight men should ever admit to.

Ending that relationship was difficult. I really loved Will. I took to my bed for two months with depression. Eventually, I turned to more drugs to get over him.

Things began to look up when Joel came into the picture. Joel and I were past co-workers and friends so when we re-connected, he saw my angst and automatically reached out to help me. Joel's capacity for compassion was deeper than I'd ever seen in a friend. He just seemed to know when I was most vulnerable to using and would take me out for Italian food or a movie or simply invite me over to his place to chill out. He also understood about my grief over Will because he, too, had known romantic heartbreak.

Joel was battling alcoholism. “I have no choice but to quit,” he told me in his laid-back way. “Abstinence is the only thing that will save my life. Alcohol has done a number on my liver.”

Joel, a preacher's son, battled conscience, as well as temptations.

“I'm going to come over and nurse you through withdrawal,” I insisted during one serious post-hospital episode. “You know what the doctor said. You drink, you die.”

“Yeah,” Joel agreed. I spent those four days keeping a journal of meds and treatment and keeping him from giving in to the horrible cravings. “No. You cannot have just one beer, Joel. No way.”

In turn, Joel was vigilant over my behavior, turning me away from the hard stuff.

We were two lost sheep trying to help one another.

But I had moments when I simply let go and used. At such times, I did not answer my cell phone and locked myself away in my room. Mom and Dad never knew exactly what ailment I had that made me so “sick.” It was so easy to fool them in their innocence. I wasn't proud of it. I simply walked through the darkness, seeing no further than the end of my red nose.

During one of those nights, my cell phone rang and rang. Irritated, I picked it up and gazed blearily at the caller ID.

It was Joel. I didn't answer but did later listen to his message.

“Faith, this is Joel,” his words slurred. “Call me.”

“Drinking,” I muttered, angry and disgusted, never connecting the dots of “the pot calling the kettle black.”

Three days later, Mom knocked on my bedroom door.

“Faith,” she said and something in her voice, shock, disbelief made me uncover my head. “When have you seen Joel?”

I peered at her through a sleepy fog. “I don't know — why?” Then I saw she had an open newspaper in her hands.

“Isn't his name Joel Johnson? Lives on Mulholland Drive? If so, he's dead, Faith.”

“No!” I sat up and snatched the paper from her hands. It was there, in bold type: Joel Johnson … died January 20 at his home …

It was the evening he'd called me.
His body wasn't found for two days.

“Oh, Mama!” I wailed. “He can't be.”

“I'm sorry, honey,” she said, her voice breaking because she, too, loved Joel. She gathered me into her arms and we cried together, grieving the life gone too soon.

And secretly, I grieved that I had not answered his call that dark night.

Had I done so, he may still be alive.

The next years were a typical “drug cliché.” I lost everything bit by bit, the co-op, the cars, pretty much every material possession I owned.

Even my clothes and purses disappeared. I found out my cousin Chloe unashamedly took advantage of my altered state. Sometimes, during holiday gatherings, I would stay in my room. Other times, I would be gone partying, and Chloe would turn my closet into a shopping spree. The irony in that situation is that this same pilfering girl would guard her possessions like a prison guard when I visited their home.

But the worst of all was losing Maddie. Jack finally got wind of my “extracurricular activities” and demanded custody of our little girl. Mom and Dad were devastated
because they'd tried so hard to pull me from the pit and had protected Maddie with their lives.

But, bottom line, I was not, at that time, a fit mother. I knew it, but facing that truth was the most painful moment of my life.

To escape the pain, I dove into drugs with a new passion. I spent three months after Maddie was taken from me so high I never touched the ground.

The next most difficult loss was the trust of my family. When your family finds out you are a drug addict, you don't have to steal anything from them to lose their trust. It just automatically goes.

Gotta stop for now. Head's spinning from all this.

I'm back after a nearly sleepless night. Boy, did the crap hit the fan last night.

The one place I swore I would never go was back to my parent's house. Unfortunately, when I hit bottom, it was the only place left to go. The one place that there is nothing to do but lie around and watch TV. Talk about depression, that place is purgatory. My father sees me staying there as an act of grace, but it's basically jail with cable. His idea of keeping me away from drugs is keeping me away from life. My psychiatrist told him as much and that just offended my father. Nobody is going to tell him what to do.

We are alike in that respect.

It was during one of those times of being a nonperson, a thing, that I decided one day to hang myself on the ceiling fan. I waited for Mom to leave to visit Noni. I stared at the contraption for a long time. I had been thinking about it forever. Suddenly, I knew I could do it.

I had not, before, wanted to die. I'd simply not wanted to live, y'know?

Today, I wanted to die.

To check out.

The last thing I remember is stepping off the chair and dangling. Everything went black. Next thing I knew, I woke up in the ER with a king-sized headache, a raw neck and an extremely bruised ego.

God. What a fiasco
. I don't even want to think back on it.

So I won't.

So now, two years later, things came to a head as Dad and I faced each other in the den and I asked for fifty dollars to pay the random court cost.

“It was just yesterday that I gave you forty dollars for a monthly drug test.”

“Yes, but I'll lose my driver's license if I don't pay this.”

“And, tomorrow, what'll it be? Huh, Faith? I'm a senior citizen, an old man who works and handles my responsibilities. I ask nobody for anything. Never have. And this is just not right.” If he said this once, he has said it a million times.

“Dad, I appreciate you letting me stay here while I get back on my feet.” I replied with all the respect I could muster up. It wasn't convincing enough.

“Faith, you're ruining our lives. Your mother and I are being punished for all your mistakes. We're constantly paying your attorney and court fees — all because of your mistakes, and I see no appreciation!”

“Dad! I'm always thanking you for everything you do for me. You just don't seem to hear it.”

“It's not always what you say, Faith. It's what you do. Like helping around the house more without being
asked. It's your attitude. Little things like being kind and considerate.”

“Don't I try to do things for you, Dad? You won't let me.”

“It's the way you go at things, Faith. It's chaotic … I don't have any peace. No sanctuary. I'm getting old and I'm tired. It's time you get out on your own and make your own way. I've given and given and given.”

And in that moment, like a starburst, I got it. I really
saw
the fatigue in Dad's lined face and the cry for help in his tortured eyes. I
heard
the desperation in his voice — the plea for mercy.

I nearly collapsed from the impact.