Love, Justine

December 22nd, 2017 

Friday

Day 172

Mr. Big isn’t here today. I told him I needed to talk to him after the meeting last night, but he didn’t make himself available to me at all, which I am mad at him for. I needed to talk to him because there’s this little girl. This sweet little blonde haired, blue-eyed girl at Crossroads named Barbie. She’s meek and mild and sweet and wonderful and people feed her drugs because they think that it’s funny to exploit her. She relapsed last week, and showed up at Crossroads this week broken and ashamed and scared, and all I wanted to do was hug her and tell her that was scary, right? So let’s never, ever, EVER do that again, okay, please?

She started with marijuana, reasoning that it wasn’t meth (her drug of choice), so it was okay, and then ended up doing a lot of other drugs on top of that, blacked out, and drove, and had sex…it was bad. 

But somehow she made it back to Crossroads, where I asked her why on EARTH she hadn’t gone to the meeting Tori and I told her about two weeks ago. She looked down and quietly whispered something about working a lot, and I fairly shouted, “Meeting makers make it! If you have time to get high, you have time for meetings!!”

This asshole drug dealer was texting her pictures of pills as we were talking. I talked to her as much as I could, and asked her if, wouldn’t it be nice, in 20 years, she could say to somebody: You know why the last time I relapsed was my last time? It was 2017, and I was 19 years old, and I took all these drugs and blacked out and did all these things and realized that this was not a way to live, but a way to die? Oh girl, I’m so scared for you…I don’t know what else to do, didn’t know what else to do, so I gave her my number here at the Center and have been praying ever since that if she were to call, that somebody would give the phone to me! 

AND THAT’S WHY I NEEDED TO TALK TO MR. BIG!! 

LIFE AND DEATH!!

I don’t know why, but Barbie and I connect on some sort of deep level, and I can’t change that and I care about her and I want her to do well…she has two jobs and is taking classes…poor girl. I don’t even know that she’s tackled Step One.

But Mr. Big isn’t here today. And it’s Friday, so he won’t be back until Monday. So I’m furious. And scared, with my stomach in knots hoping, HOPING that she can make it through this weekend without using, or if she does call, then somebody will put her through to me.

Pink surprised me again and wrote a sincere and smart essay on respect–1000 words! It was awesome, and she asked me to read it last night. She seems to really be on the road to wanting to make progress. I hope she can walk the walk.

We’re watching “Save the Last Dance” right now. Slumber party day. Everybody’s sick and I’m sore as hell–hope I didn’t catch the flu–even my shoulders hurt.

Oh. Gert’s making us do group–Nickolai is being grumpy about it. Securing Housing Participant Workbook–this should be fun. I can’t breathe out of my nose. Oh, listen to this–over fifty years ago, the United Nations issued a Declaration that having a home is a basic human right. 

Huh.

Then there’s reality.

A movie on finding houses–hm. It has a bunch of people talking on it about being homeless.

Well, that’s not helpful at all.

Gert asked me my input and I told her–being poor is a full time job. I know. I did it.

Group over. New group on following rules. Nickolai says that this essay she has to write on following the rules makes her legs restless and her blood itch. She says she wants to scratch her veins. Crafts do that to me. I hate crafts. What a pointless, idiotic thing to do. I know, that’s mean. I hate crafts. Nickolai does too. Twenty more minutes left in this group–it’s dragging really bad. Now Pink is reading her (brilliant, I think) essay on respect to the group.

Joey left today–stupid probation wouldn’t let her go to Florida to be with her family on Christmas, so she has to spend it in Potter County all by herself, poor girl. She says she’ll call us with her address, though, so I’ll have to write her. 

December 23rd, 2017

Day 173

Saturday

1pm

Red gave me the nicest gift for Christmas!! A wooden sign with my favorite Bible verse on it!!! And a necklace! How super nice of her! Omg I’m so grateful!

I slept all day on the couch in the Common Room–I’ve been in a lot of pain today and yesterday. We’re watching a movie about Ray Charles with Jamie Foxx in it.

It’s good.

Today’s been pretty awesome actually. I got to sleep, lunch was good, and now a movie with a great Christmas gift! Merry Christmas to me! I only wish I could get ahold of the kids. I called everybody’s home and cell phones–no answers. I talked to Tiger yesterday, but she didn’t feel good and didn’t say much. Pink has been bullying Tori lately, which I didn’t know about. Tori told me today. I’m going to have to talk to Pink about it somehow, but I don’t want Tori to get the backlash.

Bitch.

December 24th, 2017

Day 174

Sunday

Christmas Eve.

December 25th, 2017

Day 175

Monday

Christmas Day at the Women’s Center. Who would have thought I’d be here for Christmas.
Happy birthday, Jesus.

I made homemade stuffing for lunch, which is weird because there’s not turkey to go with it. 

Ham.

Yuck.

We’re watching “Flight” in the break room. Nickolai has been sleeping all day. I was going to wake her for a cigarette, but she looked so peaceful I didn’t. The weather is bad–very windy and snowy. 

Slammy and Gert are on today–it makes me feel bad that they have to work on Christmas.

December 26th, 2017

Tuesday

Day 176

4pm

Dyeing my hair. Back to blonde. Mr. Big is still here for some reason and he won’t give me the scissors so that Torie can cut my hair. 

I’m pissed. 

8pm

In house NA meeting–Nickolai is super pissing me off right now–she’s throwing a fit because we couldn’t go to an outside meeting and she just won’t stop. I mean–DEAL with it, woman!! She’s acting like a child and I’m so disappointed in her behavior that her negativity is rubbing off on me–which PISSES ME OFF.

She’s better than that.

I told her to put her Big Girl Pants on and stop whining about it, but she just WON’T. 

Ugh. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr………………

Anyway, now Tori’s telling her story because she has six months clean on Saturday. Tori beats herself up for not being there when her daughter was a newborn. She’ll have to forgive herself at some point. She was introduced to Vicodin at 14, for God’s sake. She got clean and stayed clean for years, but when she relapsed, it was with heroin. “I was sick and tired of being sick and tired,” she said. Now she’s talking about how happy she was to get her ass back when she started to gain weight at the Women’s Center.

Of course, being so thin that you can count your ribs is not funny.

Good meeting.