Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Chris Corzine
Series Code: CLR
Program Code: CLR00094A
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00:11 Welcome to Celebrating Life In Recovery,
00:12 I'm Cheri your host. 00:14 Today we are talking about, is the meth? - meth! 00:17 Oh Man, You have got to join us, because you know what? 00:20 It is all over the country and we are going to see 00:22 what it does to people and to families. 00:53 Welcome, have you ever met someone that as you're talking 00:56 you are thinking we are so alike. 00:59 I feel like if they did a DNA test, we would be related 01:03 somewhere, and I met Chris, I exactly felt that way 01:08 about you, from the first time we met. 01:10 Oh that is quite an honor, because like I said I was 01:12 star struck by you because I've been a fan for a while. 01:15 From the show because you watch the show before. - yes. 01:18 Well you are legendary in recovery circles, and when 01:21 I first - how far is that? - yeah you are. 01:23 When I first started getting involved in recovery on my 01:26 own and also in Christian recovery, everybody said, 01:29 have you heard of Cheri Peters? 01:31 You have got to see her show, so you are out there. 01:34 Your name is out there. 01:35 You know what is really interesting about that is 01:38 I'm hoping, like I just got two letters handed to me 01:40 as we were getting ready to do this and it was from 01:43 different people that were coming out of a various things. 01:46 One says I feel like I am in a boat in the middle of 01:49 nowhere and I don't know where to land. 01:51 When I look at this program at least I know there are 01:54 people that have landed and have gone before me and 01:58 that there is hope, so I'm hoping with this program 02:01 does with those in recovery is that God knows exactly 02:04 where we are at. 02:05 He knows exactly where we are going to pull in to and 02:08 until we figure out how to stand on our own two feet, 02:12 is let's do that for each other. 02:14 I'm hoping that we do that. 02:15 On this set we have got your boss here. - that's Kent. 02:20 Your folks are here. - my mom and my stepdad. - cool. 02:24 And some folks that you work with in counseling. 02:28 Andrew and La Donna. - so I wanted to say, and Tom 02:31 works at 3ABN and also works with you. 02:34 So I want to say in the whole café they are all connected 02:39 to you in some way, which is a cool thing. - it is. 02:42 So you are going to tell your story, and tell your story 02:45 in a way that even the audience will feel that connection. 02:47 - no pressure there. - I want you to be brilliant and 02:51 normal, no. - and be real. - and all that stuff. 02:55 You know I want you to, because you know I know 03:00 about recovery is that I know the more people can get 03:03 to know us and our journey, the more they are proud of God 03:07 and our recovery, that's what I love about recovery 03:09 is that part of it. 03:10 I think to me my story starts with my earliest memory 03:14 of childhood, and I guess I was about five years old. 03:18 Maybe a little older, my mom would remember this very 03:21 well, but I remember coming home from school one day and 03:24 my dad being passed out drunk in the chair. 03:28 For some reason, I don't know exactly what he did, but 03:31 he scared my brother and I so bad that we were hiding 03:33 around the side of the house, it was wintertime. 03:35 We hid out there until mom came home and what I didn't 03:39 know until later was that mom was a Christian woman and 03:44 strong and everything else. 03:45 My dad of course was an alcoholic, she had to call 03:48 people to come and take him into treatment himself. 03:51 So I think a lot for me that is where my story starts. 03:53 My earliest memories of my dad being intoxicated, 03:57 and that was scary. 03:59 Unless you have been raised in an alcoholic home you don't 04:03 realize that it is never one way or another in your home. 04:06 The assessments you have to make from the time you are 04:08 really little, change every time you open the door. 04:11 - right. - every time somebody comes in the room. 04:13 And that is what people don't understand unless they have 04:15 been through that you do not know what kind of freak show 04:18 you will walk through the door and find every single day 04:20 when you come home from school. 04:21 It keeps you like in this constant state of arousal of 04:24 fear, is dad going to be drunk today. 04:27 It's dad to be sober today, because when he was sober 04:31 he was amazing and fun and wonderful man, but he wasn't 04:35 that way very often unfortunately. 04:37 I loved him very much. - but when he was drunk it was 04:41 really difficult. - yeah, yeah. 04:44 But that is all I knew. - yeah, I remember talking to 04:48 somebody I worked with one time and she said, 04:50 she wouldn't even come out of her room at night from when 04:54 she was a tiny little girl that she had a potted plant 04:57 in her room and if she had to go to the bathroom she would 05:00 pee in the plant rather than come out because it was so 05:02 abusive to come out if dad was drunk. 05:05 I'm thinking that for normal people, they have no idea 05:09 what it feels like to live under that kind of fear. 05:13 That kind of I don't know how to act, I don't want to be 05:17 yelled at, I just don't, I just don't want to go out 05:21 there. - right, right. 05:23 Well mom, my mom left my dad. - how old were you when 05:28 she left? - I think I was about five mom? Yeah! 05:32 Yes I was about five, I just remember he was the cool parent 05:36 and he was always taking off and hitchhiking across 05:39 country, he probably was in rehab and lying to me. 05:43 Which is true. - but I always thought he had this 05:45 glamorous exciting existence. 05:47 He was off hitchhiking across the country, but I honestly 05:49 think he was in rehab, wasn't he mom? - yeah! 05:52 Mom's like shaking her head, but yes hon he was. 05:55 Yeah and I can remember having to go visit him in the 05:58 hospital after a car accidents and everything. 06:00 He was good at his craft of drinking, he was very good at 06:04 it, but she left him and we were about five years old. 06:08 He moved away, we used to get to visit him quite a bit. 06:13 Some of the earliest things I remember about my dad is he 06:17 was really inappropriate with the things he would say 06:21 around me and my brother. 06:23 In what way? Talking about all his different sexual 06:27 partners and the things he was doing behind my mom's back. 06:30 You know, very crude language. 06:33 So I grew up with this mixed message of one thing 06:37 coming from my mom who by this point was taking us to 06:40 church and I accepted Christ at a very early age. 06:44 The first time, you know how that goes! 06:46 I remember at one point, even as a child, wanting to be 06:50 an evangelist and would line up all my friends and I give 06:53 them the what for and would preach to them and make them 06:56 listen to me, but on the other hand I would spend weekends 06:59 with my dad and he would be talking about some girl 07:02 over, talking about his different sexual exploits. 07:05 Really explicit, sexualized talk in front of us. 07:08 Just for a lot of people, do you know now that, that is 07:12 a form of sexual abuse? - yes that is what I was getting 07:16 ready to say, I have learned since then. 07:17 I've done research that's sexual assault, when you are a child 07:22 even just hearing these things - it's to sexualized. 07:25 It is, it is, kids aren't supposed to hear that stuff. 07:28 On top of that, he started, well I guess he kind of 07:31 started making passes at me. 07:32 That is the cleanest way I can put it. 07:35 I was just a kid and I was confused and I didn't 07:40 understand, so by the time I was 12 years old mom had 07:45 married my stepdad and they moved away. 07:48 He is an amazing man, kind of a hero of our family. 07:52 But I still wanted my dad, and I will go see him on the 07:56 weekends and I had started sniffing gasoline. 07:59 So I was doing inhalants by the age of 12. 08:01 I would go and run off and hide in culvert and sniff gas. 08:06 And why? Why what was up? - I don't know. 08:09 So there was no understanding or connection to what that 08:14 was doing for you? - I liked the high. 08:17 You know it is almost like, I don't know if it is just 08:20 something that gets in our blood when ever we come from 08:23 an addict family, but - genetic, generational. 08:27 - generational curses, I call it all of those, behavior. 08:31 But by the time was 12 years old I was sneaking off and 08:34 starting to get high and I was smoking pot. 08:37 My dad's behavior towards me got more and more sexualized 08:41 and he started touching me. 08:43 So anyway I was drinking and doing a lot of things 08:49 I shouldn't have been doing at a very, very early age. 08:54 What is really tough about... as this sexualized behavior 08:58 starts to manifest into some physical behavior, something 09:01 I can point at, is we think it started then and do not realize 09:05 that you were groomed for years before that. 09:08 By the time it was a physical touch you are already prepared 09:12 for that. - right, and of course when you are a kid and 09:16 that is what your dad thinks you are worth, that is what 09:20 you think you are worth. 09:21 So - I'm sorry about that. - me too, me too. 09:25 So I started by the time I was dating I didn't hold on 09:30 to my virginity very long. 09:31 So by age 15 I had given that away and for some reason, 09:37 and I don't understand why, I decided I wanted to go and 09:41 live with my dad, my older brother had gone and lived 09:45 there and he stayed sober for a year. 09:47 Every time I would go visit it would look so cool there, 09:50 my dad is now sober and he threw my brother a kegger party 09:53 for graduation and he was remarried and I thought it 09:59 looked like it was a cool place to be. 10:00 My mom and my stepdad, I consider my dad, were taking me 10:06 to church - boring. - and I would get out - too strict. 10:11 Yes, yes, they always wanted me home and know where I was. 10:14 I didn't have those rules over at my dad's house and dad 10:17 would let me smoke in the house and I thought that was 10:20 the coolest thing ever. 10:22 He knew when I smoked pot and he thought that was cool. 10:25 He would feed is when we had the munchies, me and my 10:28 friends so I wanted to be there. 10:30 Ignoring the fact of all the warning signals, I remember 10:35 my mom of course and stepdad didn't want me to go but 10:39 I thought it was going to be different. 10:41 I thought he was going to be different and mom had warned 10:43 me that she thought he was drinking again. 10:45 I of course didn't listen to her. 10:47 Did you move in there? - well the day we got there, me 10:50 and this guy that I was dating drove me to Centralia, 10:54 Illinois and the day I got there I walked in the door 10:57 and there was this sign hanging. 10:59 He had hung a banner that was half hung, and half was 11:03 under his feet saying welcome home Chris. 11:05 He was passed out in the chair and had a bottle of Jack 11:08 Daniels in his hand, and as like a burning bush for Moses 11:12 which was no more prophetic than that was. 11:14 You know, it was like God trying to tell me - run. 11:17 - get out, get out and instead I was too proud to have 11:20 to go back and tell my mom that she was right. 11:24 So instead you just cleaned him up. - yeah. 11:27 I moved in and I was 16 at the time and I remember the 11:32 second night there he went out and bought a bottle of wine 11:36 for me and my stepmom, because he was drinking again. 11:39 I remember I was sitting there being really uncomfortable 11:42 thinking this isn't right, but we are doing it. 11:45 Because I don't know why, because we loved him. 11:49 It was these crazy mixed messages while I lived in that 11:54 household and he would once again all this sexualized talk 12:00 towards me and so I was dating a lot and had no regard for 12:05 my body, you know. 12:07 I started, I became very promiscuous. 12:11 I would like to, to me sometimes I hear people making 12:16 judgments on kids that are just running around and crazy 12:21 out there doing things, and to me I know I had never met 12:25 one that is acting out to that level that doesn't have all 12:29 that history, not one. 12:32 Things don't happen in a vacuum. 12:34 - yeah, talk about that for a minute. 12:36 Because I think we tend to, what rises up and we hear 12:40 somebody use, whether it's male or female is that we want 12:44 to make a judgment, we want to say something. 12:47 I think all of heaven says oh, please don't. 12:49 This child is damaged so much already, and unless you can 12:52 approach them in love, unless you are going to reach out 12:55 and offer them a lifeline for some time. - right. 12:57 I think that that is where a lot of times we go wrong is 13:00 because everybody wants to concentrate on their behavior. 13:03 The more you concentrate on the behavior, from the Bible 13:06 it tells us the more you look at the law, the more you are going 13:09 to instead of concentrating on the love of Christ, 13:11 and just going in with love, love, love. 13:13 Because kids don't act that way unless they are hurting. 13:18 You know you can't give yourself to everyone and not lose 13:23 your self-respect and not be steeped in shame. 13:25 The more you feel ashamed, the more you drink, the more you 13:29 drink the more you sleep around, it is just cyclical? 13:33 Kids are even cutting, they are doing all that kind of 13:36 crazy behavior because they just feel worthless. 13:39 Right. - you stayed with drinking though? 13:42 Oh no. - yeah because very seldom is it one drug anymore. 13:47 No! I started with sniffing gas, then went 13:52 to smoking pot, then went drinking, and there are certain 13:56 people you can tell being around them have propensity 14:00 towards uppers and others you can tell? 14:02 Well I like anything that made me go faster. 14:05 I geared towards cocaine and was doing that whenever 14:09 I was still in high school and started doing hallucinogenics. 14:14 I actually broke into a car and stole the speakers out of 14:18 the backseat and left my purse in the People's car that 14:21 had my driver's license. 14:22 Criminals are not real smart. When we are high we are not 14:27 bright as fog. - well from that I ended up having to 14:31 join the military. - you either going to the military 14:34 or you go to jail. - yes, yes my dad worked out that 14:37 arrangement with the judge. 14:39 So I was in the delayed enlist- ment program in the military, so 14:42 I was leaving my father's house behind and by age 17 14:45 I was going into the military, which anyone knows who's 14:48 gone into the military knows there is no place to teach 14:51 you how to drink like being in the military. 14:53 Oh man - yet I joined the Air Force and really endeavored 14:58 oh my alcoholism than and still was to hallucinogenics and 15:03 everything else so I stayed in there for four years. 15:05 I ended up living in Florida after that. 15:10 So you just did one term - oh yeah, they were ready for 15:15 me to leave. They kept giving me drug tests, they knew 15:18 I was doing something but they never caught me at the 15:21 right time, yeah they were ready for me to leave. 15:24 It still amazes me that I got an honorable discharge. 15:27 It was like suckers. 15:29 I had a friend and we were so strung out and she said 15:32 we are just going to join the service, and somebody said, 15:35 it was like a buddy plan you can get into, you joined 15:38 together, and at the last minute I just said I don't know. 15:41 I've not been disciplined at all of my life. 15:43 So she joined and I didn't, I use to get the letters from her. 15:46 They want my hangers an inch apart from each 15:49 other and Na-na-na-na, and bouncing quarters on my bed. 15:52 She was smoking weed, and she didn't get an honorable 15:55 discharge, but you know what it is a crazy place 15:58 to go from addiction and crazy behavior to a very, 16:02 very structured discipline. 16:04 I was in the Air Force and once we got past that six 16:06 weeks of basic training, it wasn't so disciplined. 16:09 I have never drank more than I did whenever I was doing 16:12 tech school, and they gave me a top secret security 16:15 clearance and let me go over seas and track aircraft. 16:18 Can you believe that? - and you are wasted. 16:20 - yes I know and we used to all laugh about it. 16:23 Excuse me is another plane, no it's a bird. 16:25 All right, all right. - so like I said they were glad 16:29 for me to leave, they didn't miss me after they let me go. 16:32 So you left and went to Florida? - right I ended up in 16:35 Florida doing the last hitch of my military service. 16:39 Well I went to bike week in Daytona and met this man and 16:44 fell in love and he drove tractor-trailers. 16:47 So he loaded me up and moved me to Minnesota. 16:51 It was like a nonstop adventure, and I ended up liking 16:55 Florida so much I went back there. 16:57 I was bartending and through bartending. 17:01 Still with this guy? - no. - okay because I was like 17:04 what happened to the tractor-trailer? 17:06 Well he would roll in and out of town just rip my heart 17:09 out every once in while but no I went back to Daytona and 17:11 I bartended and from the bartending that was just, 17:15 I was having a blast. 17:17 I had all the drugs I wanted and I was doing a lot of 17:21 cocaine at that point, all the alcohol I wanted, 17:23 men and everything. 17:26 Eventually the guy from Minnesota came back around and 17:32 introduced me to meth. 17:34 Oh, meth is such bad news, I mean all of it is bad news 17:37 but meth just grabs a hold of you. 17:39 That was, to me that was like the turning point. 17:44 I was doing anything I could get my hands on, but I hadn't 17:48 settled on one, if someone would ask you what my drug of 17:51 choice was earlier, you had asked me all of them. 17:54 I would just flit around, I was always high. 17:57 I remember going in to get my drivers license pictures 17:59 taken all hung over and messed up looking. 18:03 - I could just see that, go ahead, smile. 18:06 They will go well that's what she really looks like, 18:09 they would let me know. - she is high, look at her. 18:12 I lived like that, it was my life and when I found meth 18:16 it was like as soon as I did that first line it was like 18:20 everything I thought I had ever been looking for I have 18:22 just discovered it, everything else including the alcohol 18:25 I thought that meth cured my alcoholism. 18:28 That is because you lie to yourself - yeah as oww 18:31 I don't hardly drink anymore and I don't get drunk. 18:34 I have to say with people that don't know about meth or 18:37 some of those drugs, is that it just gives you an 18:39 endorphin rush, your dopamine levels skyrocket, serotonin, 18:44 neuro-chemistry just gets, everything is just skyrocketing. 18:50 So you do have this euphoria that is unbelievable. 18:53 For hours and hours and hours, yet that is what I used 18:57 to tell everybody, I was cost-effective addict 19:01 I started doing meth and stayed on meth daily for 19:06 11 years. - wow, your teeth look great. 19:10 That is what everybody says to me, you still have your 19:12 teeth. - yet because most of my sisters done meth for 19:15 about 35 years, she doesn't have her teeth, her hair is 19:17 falling out, got Aplastic anemia, she's 70 pounds. 19:21 So I mean it is one of those drugs that really robs you 19:24 physically of everything including your mind in the end. 19:28 Right, and that is funny because towards the end I was 19:31 getting what I call light gray patches in my brain where 19:34 I would try to talk and words were coming out backwards 19:37 and scrambled, I knew,- you can hear yourself. 19:40 - I knew I was hurting my brain and I had a tendency to 19:43 forget to unlock my motorcycle. 19:45 I would get on my bike and go to take off in the neck 19:48 would be locked and I know it's getting some brain damage 19:51 from it but I just kept going. 19:53 It was getting really sad, I remember sitting one day 19:56 thinking it was going to be so sad when I would be in 20:00 my 50s, 60s maybe if I live that long, still having to 20:03 score drugs all the time just to maintain. 20:05 Right, so what is amazing to me is you had you that 20:09 underlying awareness, that I am aware that this could be 20:14 my future. - oh yeah I couldn't see anything else. 20:17 I didn't see any way out of it. 20:20 I tried a few times to stop, as well like you know the 20:24 main reason I tried to stop actually was because my dealer 20:27 would run out temporarily and I would be like well it's 20:30 a great time to become sober. 20:31 It would consume me, I mean it would consume me. 20:35 What is it like for somebody that doesn't know at all, 20:37 what is it like when you don't have the drug? 20:40 I describe it like a fingernail that would scratch on the back 20:43 of my brain, I mean just coo, and I would have the phone in 20:47 my hand and just dial, dial, dial. 20:49 - Just trying to find anyone - then you sleep and you 20:53 wake up eat and obsess, obsess, and obsess. 20:56 It is like the only thing you can think about, so it is 21:00 pretty miserable when you are without it. 21:02 And willing to do just about anything for it? 21:05 Yeah, well that is what ended me up, getting me in 21:09 trouble is that I like to think that I was a pretty highly 21:12 functioning addict, because through all this I held down 21:16 jobs, bartending, being a drug addict and alcoholic I got 21:20 fired a lot, not surprisingly. 21:22 I would get jacked up behind the bar and they would be 21:25 that was enough of that. 21:27 I still always had a job. - right. 21:29 The last place I was working I had lost my job and 21:34 I think I had said something inappropriate 21:36 to someone, imagine that! 21:38 I know now, I think back because through all this my mom 21:43 and my stepdad never stopped praying for me. 21:47 - that's amazing.- they lived in Illinois and I think 21:50 had mom known what I was up to it would have killed her. 21:52 She had no idea, but she knew I wasn't living right. 21:55 She knew I wasn't living for Christ. - she probably saw you 21:58 now and again but couldn't tell it you were so out of control. 22:00 Right, well I avoided. - and you lie like a dog. 22:03 - oh yeah, - no, no I'm fine. 22:05 You don't want to be around Christians when you are living 22:08 so unholy, and every time I would get around them I would 22:10 get really angry inside and I know now it was the 22:14 conviction of the Holy Spirit. 22:15 So I would avoid them, and when I did see her I felt so 22:19 dirty, I admired her so much, and always wanted to be like 22:24 my mom because she was such a godly woman. 22:26 Her spiritual giftness was just sweetness and servant 22:30 hood and all these things that I wasn't. 22:31 Instead I used to tell people that I got my dad's desire to 22:36 party and my mom's guilt, so it was like a bad combination. 22:41 But I admired her so much and she never stopped praying 22:46 for me, so she came to a point at one time where she told 22:50 me that she got on her knees and told the Lord whatever 22:54 it takes to save my daughter. 22:56 About that point I had lost my last job, was out of money 23:01 to buy dope and I was getting ready to go to school. 23:05 I had completed one degree and was getting ready to start 23:09 another and I called up my dealer and offered him $2000 23:14 that I had coming in from student money to hold for me. 23:17 You know quote unquote hold for me, of course we know what 23:20 that means that I wanted him to front me some dope and he 23:23 could invest that and do whatever with it. 23:25 I wasn't even thinking of the investment part I just needed 23:28 some dope, so anyway he agreed to do that. 23:31 un-be-known to me they had my dealer's phone tapped. 23:34 - wow - and they were just getting ready, the federal 23:37 government, this was DEA was getting ready to throw the 23:40 net over the local kingpins. 23:44 So right after that they showed up at my front door and 23:47 knocked on the door and I opened it and they pulled me 23:51 out the door arresting me with charges of conspiracy to 23:55 traffic of over 500g of methamphetamine. Federal charges 23:59 We are going to break right there, I want to break and 24:03 come back because I know right now everything looks 24:06 hopeless and God does His best work when it looks 24:09 hopeless. So if it is looking hopeless in your life 24:11 you've got to stay with us because it is absolutely 24:14 amazing what God can do. |
Revised 2014-12-17