I Was Addicted To Meth For 7 Years And No One Had Any Idea

Ever since I was a little girl, I never felt enough. Not pretty enough. Not smart enough. Not thin enough.

When I was 24, I began taking a diet drug combination called fen-phen. It not only suppressed my appetite, but it gave me energy and focus. I lost 10 pounds in just a month. A year later, it was ruled unsafe and taken off the market.

I gained the weight back. I became preoccupied with losing it again. Although I was not conscious of it then, I see now that part of my obsession with losing weight stemmed from the core belief that I was not enough. I thought being thin would fix that.

I was “dating” a bad boy at the time. Our relationship only lasted a summer, but we were together long enough for him to introduce me to methamphetamine, which he sold. I hardly drank and had never done any drugs, much less one that was considered so addictive and dangerous. But my boyfriend told me that I wouldn’t have any problems — and that it could help me lose weight. Those were the magic words I wanted to hear. Though I was nervous, I told myself that it would be OK and I could finally be free of those 10 pounds I’d been trying to shed. I wasn’t going to smoke or inject it — I’d just snort a line or two — so how bad could it be?

I’ll never forget the first time I tried it. I crushed it up and cut it into lines with my library card on my yellow Formica kitchen table. I remember the burn up my nose. My heart racing. My blood pulsing through my veins. The rush of adrenaline. I felt alive, smarter, prettier and — within just a few weeks — thinner. I not only lost the 10 pounds, but I felt so good that I decided to go back to college.

My plan was to quit doing meth after my first semester. The first semester turned into the second, the