| A family problem
Rachel Kinsey says drug addiction runs in her mother's family, although not in her immediate family. Kinsey, 24, started drinking alcohol at 14 and smoking marijuana at 15 — "definitely a predecessor for everything else I used." She began using Ecstasy and cocaine at 17, then heroin at 18.
"I did graduate high school, and I went off to college, but I withdrew after a month," says Kinsey, of Richmond, Va. She used the diagnosis of mononucleosis she'd received the week before college as an excuse.
"I don't think I was ready for the responsibility, and I wanted to continue to use while I was in college. I was at the point where I just didn't care about college. I was already using heroin."
She moved in with her boyfriend and his father, both of whom used heroin. At 19, she got pregnant. She moved back in with her mother, substituted methadone for heroin and gave the baby up for adoption. Practically as soon as she delivered, she was back to using heroin.
About five months after her son was born in May 2003, Kinsey entered inpatient addiction treatment. During the 30-day program, she became involved with a man who went back to using cocaine after ending treatment. Kinsey says she didn't want to go back to using cocaine or heroin, "but for some reason I thought it was OK to drink and go back to smoking weed."
When she turned 21 in fall 2003, "it was off to the races. For some reason, I felt (turning 21) gave me the right to drink if I wanted to."
From January to August 2004, Kinsey says, she was charged three times with driving under the influence of alcohol and marijuana.
'Not worth the risk'
With the help of another stay at a treatment center, Kinsey hasn't used drugs or alcohol since Aug. 25, 2004, the day after her last DUI arrest. She's halfway toward graduating from nursing school and works as a nurse tech in a hospital. For the first time, she has signed a lease on an apartment and pays rent.
She can't drive until September 2008 and then only to work, to school and to 12-step meetings.
If she had to do it all over again, she says, she never would have started smoking marijuana.
"You never know where it's going to lead you," she says. "You don't know that you're not going to become an addict, so it's not worth the risk." |