Char
CHAR

Hi. My name is Char - my addition to heroine started at age 15, and I left town with a guy. First I started tooting. Later I became out of control and then I went to coke. After the tooting I moved to needles. In 1989 I didn't know I was HIV positive until I had my baby. I didn't want to know and I wasn't going to accept it. As the days went on and on I had covered my addiction, then I started smoking. The addiction got worse and worse. I then started drinking. I was an alcoholic. Then I looked in the mirror and I said Oh, no. I saw a mark on my face and I said I have to do something about my addiction because this ain't me. Then I had my baby. I then knew I had HIV. So I said well I may as well continue doing what I'm doing. I was drinking, drugging and carrying on. My shingles got worse and worse so I decided to get into the treatment center. I stayed in treatment for a year. My worst addiction was to alcohol. I was an alcoholic, my drug of choice. I had a hard time.

I was 15 when I married a boy. I was so in love with him. He was 39. I moved to Washington with him. I was snorting and that was doing me no good.

Then I wanted that first hit, you never get that first hit again. I decided I was going to get myself together. I would get into fights and more fights, got my jaw broken, hanging out in bars. I had no income and I didn't know where to go, so my boyfriend told me to go around the corner and maybe they could help me. I walked in the door and my face looked like a balloon - where some girl had hit me in the jaw and it was broken. I walked in and asked if anyone could help me please. I had no medical card, no nothing. There I met this man and ever since I've been with him.

I've been clean for 16 years now. I never went back home. I then moved to Aurora where I was I was curious about why they were going into the room and what they were doing. Come to find out they were shooting cocaine. Then I met this girl and asked her "Let me try some of that." So I tried some of it. I tooted but I didn't like the toot so I began to shoot. Come to find out she had HIV and at that time I didn't care. We shared the same needle. She was a chubby girl. So I tried to steal people's money. I would just take their money and run out the door. It had gotten really bad, worse and worse. I didn't think I was going to live, taking people's money. One day I got in a guy's car. He had asked me to go and get him something, and I didn't get the right thing. He drove me out on Rt. 30 and I jumped out of the car while the car was moving. I saw a friend and waved the friend down and that friend saved my life because that man was going to kill me.
While in the hospital (after I had my baby), I asked the Doctors a lot of questions. What is HIV? He answered something that is going to kill you and I still didn't pay any attention. I kept on doing what I was doing. I thought that was going to solve some problems. The Dr. kept calling and calling asking when I was going to come and get treated and I still didn't go till I got ready.

Then I started taking my medications so I began to start accepting what was going on in my life. Do I want to live or do I want die? So I chose to live. By the way, you don't have to have HIV to leave this world. I was thinking I didn't want to die right now. I got a disease and I'm afraid to tell anybody. Neither my mother nor my family. When my mother first found out I wasn't welcome in her house and that really hurt me.

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