This part of my story gets truly ugly. This is the part of addiction that hurt me the most. And also helped me the most. It makes sense at the end, I promise.

I’ve used this term in the past and still do when I try explain how the drugs ravished and stole my child. I watched the illness start slowly, and then almost overnight it seemed progress to full blown “zombie”. It’s so similar to all the popular zombie media it’s uncanny really.

This is what I watched opiates do to my beautiful, bubbly, happy sunshine. She started off seeming a little “off” around 15 or 16. The beginning stages. It started with a feeling that something wasn’t right. I thought perhaps just some mild teen angst and some experimenting, just a common cold. Something to keep an eye on, but nothing too out of the ordinary. When she turned 16 and found out she could legally leave my home and my rules, the transformation really began.



(The beginning)

She came around less and less. When I saw her, each time she was thinner, but more so than that, I noticed her eyes. They slowly died. All the spark was gone for the most part. Once in a while I’d see a glimpse that was so quick I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined it or not. Gone were the days of incessant chattering and infectious laughter. Now she brought contagious chaos and pain wherever she went. Her disease was eating her soul. And in turn, mine. I had no medicine for this, Dimetapp wasn’t going to cut it like it had when she was a baby and sick.

When she moved back home, I saw the full blown zombie my old daughter had become. Instead of craving brains, she craved drugs and like a zombie, she had no remorse about how she had to get them. None. She would empty my bank account then throw my useless debit card back at me with an evil grin. I bought a safe after multiple attempts at hiding my valuables failed. She spent hours prying open the fire proof, flood proof safe with tweezers and a butter knife until she got what she wanted. Her “brains”. I couldn’t protect myself or my family from what she had become. I couldn’t protect her from herself.



The zombie “attacked” whoever and whatever she could for her fix. I watched her get arrested again and again. I watched manipulate anyone and everyone. Not a care in the world about it. Just “how will I get what I crave?”. Who the fuck is this person who looks like my kid? This is NOT her anymore. She’s gone…all I have is this empty person who resembles her.

I grieved for the loss of my child. I missed my other half. I missed our “caraoke”. I missed watching “American Horror Story” with her. Instead she became a character in her own horror story. I missed going to the beach with her, listening to that laugh! I missed having her care about me, about ANYTHING but drugs. I almost died, and instead of having my daughter at my side for comfort, I spent that time posting “missing person” online and with the police to even be able to find her and tell her she almost lost her mom. She came to see me once I think when I finally found her, it may have just been a call. I don’t even really remember…



Now I’ll explain why the “zombie addict” is a good thing. This is how I could separate the horrible shitty behaviors that go along with addiction from my daughter. I had to think of her as 2 people; my love and the “zombie”. Ava would never do those things to me. Ava loves me more than anything. The “zombie” loves heroin and crack more than anything. That is how I could cope and help her without resenting her actions. This is how I could love this empty person who no longer cared about me. This is when I realized I had to do whatever it took to get her back from the disease that stole her. This is when I said “Fuck you heroin, not this one, SHE’S MINE!”



(The day that the zombie almost won)



FUCK YOU HEROIN! GOT HER BACK!