traceyh415

I've been working on material for a new book. Would love your thoughts.- Love Tracey That morning started like any other morning. It ended in the emergency room. Copious amounts of caffeine washing down the remnants of last night’s lack of sleep. My blanket is covered in sweat. As I rolled over, I can hear my son let out a little sigh. He gets sweaty, too. A different kind of sweaty from a 200 pound woman. Small children look like cherub angels from Renaissance paintings or ceramic Precious Moments figurines. I look like an out of shape exerciser in too tight clothes on a hot summer day. I pull my yoga shorts up. I will have to tip toe past him to get out the door.       I’m 48 years old resting on a tiny mattress on a bunk bed. The bunk is about as comfortable as it sounds but it is what I am working with at the moment. The springs sticking in my back are a minor irritation I consider worth the physical discomfort. I just need to get access to the ...

This is my question readers- If you knew everything you know now about opioids- would you try them again? What role did they play in your life? I ask this based on a conversation I had with a friend the other day. We were in a coffee shop that is semi well known for having steady traffic of both recovery people using the tables for step work and folks who are actively using that need the key to the bathroom to do their thing. "I used to shoot so much dope in that bathroom..." he said. This spiraled into a whole conversation about mental health and substance use. I've said this before, I'll say it again. Opioids, specifically heroin, probably saved me from killing myself. This is simply because I had no access to mental health care. In fact, I wasn't even fully in touch with what was wrong with me. I would just wake up with an impending sense of dread. Yes, I chose opioids but in my young mind, there was nothing "addictive" about them. I 100% believed...

Hi friends- I’m working on material related to grief. I’d love to hear from you- how you are coping with loss in the middle of the overdose crisis. In the meantime, here’s an interview I did today  Here

It is dark outside. This is the time of year when the darkness swallows me up from all directions. My friend Korri and I went out to brunch this afternoon. We hadn't really seen each other in a few weeks. I got three pieces of bacon, two eggs sunnyside up, dry wheat toast with smuckers jelly added for sweetness. He got the same combo with a side of pancakes and sausages. His coffee had the typical too much cream and heaps of sugar I try to avoid. I like my coffee like I like my shots of dope- dark. The conversation went from potential Christmas presents for our respective kids, to what we are reading, to debate about whether cordoroy ever went out of style. As we head down to finish our work related business, I see a flicker on the sidewalk. There is blood dripping down a wrist. I would love to say I saw the details in the man's face but I did not. All I saw was him switching his fluid from one to syringe to another. I imagine him fishing for a vein in this cold weather, wa...

The fan is whir-whir-whiring. The slow breeze is traversing the room, hitting my toes. I have them sticking out of the sleeping bag. I am overheated. I am cold. I am stuck to the bed. The springs of the mattress are poking into my leg. I reflexively turn my body away from the light. A passing car is illuminating my predicament. It's 2:35 am. I feel myself slightly sticking against the plastic sheet. It's the kind they use for the kids that wet the bed. There is condensation slipping down the window pane. There is a little snore a few feet away from my head.

As an educated young woman, there were many things I imagined for my future. I was a nerdy, mostly chubby school girl that walked out of high school with idea I was going to make it in the world. Never did I imagine that I would spiral into an entirely different life. With a copy of a book by Dorothy Parker tucked under one arm and my Walkman in the other, I moved out of my parents' house just shy of my 18th birthday. I had always been overweight and awkward, the center of negative attention. When I drank those first few beers of freedom, I felt relieved of these burdens,My parents, while sympathetic, had no idea how to deal with cycles of eating and chronic depression. In some ways, I was ahead of my time. I was a cutter before I even knew that was something other girls did when they needed relief. I discovered binging and puking with the help of a school friend. I also knew about laxatives and over the counter diet pills. I would spend hours reading books, watching mo...