It's been more than a year since Tysha died from a drug overdose. As friends go, we weren't that close, but the amount of self sacrifice she would go through to help me was amazing. There was never nothing I could ask that wasn't too much.

Taking drugs isn't a denial of life, it's a speeding up of life. It lets you bypass all those needless bad times and intensifies all the good times that happened. Everyone I know that's lived a life of addiction has lived a full and complete life in their brief 20 or 30 years of existence. I wish these people weren't gone. I wish they were still here with me. I miss all of them.

My decision to slow down the pace of my life and take things one at a time is a hard one. I don't know if I can stick to it. A quoted figure for addicts that want to recover is a 10% lifetime success rate. It isn't a good figure. I know from personal experience how easy and how glad I am to slip back into the old pattern. I hope I don't, but there's always another try if I do.

I miss all these people that lived and are living happy and good lives.

Tysha - deceased
John - deceased
James - deceased
Erin - alcoholic and vicodin addict
Jade - cocaine and ambien addict
Tonja - recovering alcoholic
Aaron - recovering alcoholic and cocaine addict
Allen - recovering ultram and benzodiazepine addict
Jen - recovering Ultram addict ?
Diana - recovered ?