We got together what few belongings we thought important. I was able to persuade my next door neighbor to give us a ride to wherever it was that we were going. The apartment was destroyed, and we were burned up, and my brother had just over dosed. Life was kicking our asses now, and we had to run. Run from the using, run from the consequences, run from the fear. We had to go somewhere. We had no where to go. We ended up packing my neighbor’s car with a few suitcases and some of my friend’s artwork. And we headed west, into Coweta County. My mother had told us about a hotel in Newnan that rented out rooms by the week. That is where we headed. And you can only imagine the kind of hell that awaited us. My mother agreed to pay the first two weeks of our stay and after that we were completely on our own. “Sure we can do this, we’ve got two weeks to find some jobs and take over the payments, we’ve got this.” We did not have this. We checked in and started carrying our things upstairs and got settled in. I had roughly 17 dollars in my pocket. I walked to the neighboring gas station and spent what little dough I had on two packs of camel lights and some black can steel reserve malt liquor. Priorities, right? With my plastic bag in hand and a fresh smoke on my lips, I strolled my way back toward the hotel, and noticed something on the opposite side of the parking lot, on the top level of the open air walkway. Someone was obviously selling dope right out of their room in the same hotel I was now going to be staying. I could literally open my room door and see all the traffic in and out of the place. Someone was selling crack in a big way, less than 50 feet from where I slept. I had no idea who this person was, and had no money, but I did have something that almost guaranteed me a piece of that crack, some liquid courage and the gift of gab. I slammed the tall can of 211 and lit up a new smoke, I was going to meet the neighbors. Down my stairs, across the parking lot, up the stairs and to the door. I knocked and it was immediately opened. I was invited in right away….

You should all know how the rest of this goes, more crack, more booze, no change, and more struggle. My hostage finally has enough, calls her parents, and she leaves. Back to Indiana. I end up homeless in Newnan with no where to go and a garbage bag full of clothes. My only option was to call my grandmother, get my little brother on a Greyhound with me and head back north too. Defeated, empty, lost, and broken. Once again, you would all think that a chain of experiences would make me stop using. But there you go thinking again…

I was the hostage all along, to this disease, this monster that lives inside me. And I just wanted someone to be miserable with me, to help keep my mind off how miserable and self destructive I was.Misery loves company, and so does addiction.