LOTE: Hello My Name is Kimberly-Part 1

Episode 171: LOTE: Hello, My Name is Kimberly-Part 1

Welcome to a new season of LOTE, a show within a show. 

In this episode of LOTE, we re-introduce Kimberly Elledge! It's been a while since she shared her story, and it's so powerful that we made it a two-part series.

This episode isn't just about looking back; it's about the shared laughter and healing Courtney and Kim have found through their candid conversations and the strength they have drawn from their sisterly bond.

What you will learn in this episode:

• Kimberly's Story 

Thank you for listening.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:48

This is Courtney. This is Kimberly. You are listening to the show within the show. Living on the L-Edge. Come live with us.

Speaker 2: 1:56

We're talking about the road to recovery and sobriety and how to vibe and maintain a happy and healthy lifestyle.

Speaker 1: 2:08

Welcome to another episode of Living on the L-Edge. This is episode 171. Sister Kim.

Speaker 2: 2:18

Yo, let's go New season.

Speaker 1: 2:21

Who dis New season five? Can you believe it?

Speaker 2: 2:26

I can't. That's incredible, we out here.

Speaker 1: 2:29

We are out here. I think last time I called you, Sister Kim Kim, you said stop referring to me like that, because it felt very what is it Mormon?

Speaker 2: 2:38

No shade, but culty, I don't know, I just didn't. It was weird and I like it.

Speaker 1: 2:45

All right, we won't refer to you as Sister Kim. Thank, you. You're welcome, but somebody on the streets might refer to you as Sister Kim. Anyways, you're welcome, but somebody on the streets might refer to you as Sister Kim.

Speaker 2: 2:53

That's fine, they can refer to me what's up.

Speaker 1: 2:57

Exactly, Sister. Have you enjoyed the break I?

Speaker 2: 3:00

have enjoyed the break. It's been nice, we had a nice little break. I think what you do with your break is good because it gives you time to like, refresh and reset. And then the podcast it's not like redundant, it's not like I look. I look forward to these episodes with you, cause at the end of the day, it's really just like you and I having conversations and I just feel like it's a great bonding sister project.

Speaker 1: 3:25

Yeah, yeah, I agree, it's always good just to anybody to, if they want to do it or can do it to take a break, cause it's a lot of talking. I mean, we love talking, it is a lot of talking and we love to talk and have the gift of gab, but you, sometimes you just need to shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up. Yeah Right, exactly what you guys aren't going to see is my sister and I are wearing some Live it On sissy and we're just we're going to recap and this is going to be a two-parter, so you will listen to episodes 171 will be part one and then episode 173 is going to be part two. So, kim, let's take it back to when you were conceived, oh, when this little angel came out of the womb.

Speaker 2: 4:30

Let's take it back to when you were conceived, oh, when this little angel came out of the womb.

Speaker 1: 4:34

Let's take it back to conception.

Speaker 2: 4:38

Yuck, those two fucking boomers going at it. I cannot.

Speaker 1: 4:43

Oh man, we still need to get. We need to get some stories out of mom.

Speaker 2: 4:47

The attraction yeah, we got to have her back on the pod because I want to know I have questions about that marriage and relationship and how those two joined forces.

Speaker 1: 4:59

I actually had a girlfriend the other day asked me she was like what was like how did Ed and Deb like what was the attraction? I was like she's because I just can't see it. I was like I don't know. I'm like all I know is that my dad was a manager at Red Lobster and my mother was a hostess and it was before. When you could have. That was totally cool to have a, to have a hookup like that back in those days.

Speaker 2: 5:24

Yeah, Back when the service industry, I was like people just have they still do. But yeah, it was okay for the manager to fuck their hostess, Then they weren't going to get me too. It was consensual, Everything was fine.

Speaker 1: 5:36

Everything was fine in the late 70s when they met at Red Lobster, but that is for another day, so let's take it back. Kimmy, when was love at first sip for you? I want you to share your Drew Barrymore story because I don't know if a lot of people know the story of when you had your first sip of alcohol.

Speaker 2: 5:56

I was seven, it was the 80s. It was a time to be alive bitch, we were thriving. No, but honestly, I was seven. I remember I was at a New Year's Eve party with my parents and I remember going and picking up how they'd have those plastic like little cups of champagne and I got to stay up late and everyone was drinking so I thought it was juice or water and I picked it up and I just remember like those champagne bubbles hit my nose and it made it feel all tingling. I took a sip and I loved it and so I drank that little glass and then Kimberly wanted more because it was delicious. So then I went around and was just like grabbing the cups and no one was paying attention to us kids.

Speaker 2: 6:43

I remember my friend's mom found me. I was like ET sitting in the closet like hiccuping, I was drunk and she was like, oh my God. And so then I just got put to bed. But really I remember that like it was yesterday. It was wild and yeah, that was when we lived in Toronto, canada. So that was really my first time remembering getting fucked up. The turn up was real, that New Year's Eve.

Speaker 1: 7:14

Your first, my first banger. Yeah, your first dance with the devil was at age seven.

Speaker 2: 7:18

My first dance with the devil. And then we lived in Toronto and as kids Courtney and I and my brothers we moved around a lot because of my dad's job and I didn't start getting really. It was like the quintessential suburban misfit, like I started huffing gas and smoking weed in middle school and that was like yeah, then that was when we were, then when we moved to Michigan, when we were on Thoreau.

Speaker 1: 7:51

So in your middle school days that's really when you started to turn up.

Speaker 2: 7:56

Yeah, and as you guys know, as you've listened to the podcast, my parents got divorced and through that divorce we had a traumatic event happen in our household and experienced suicide for the first time. So my mom had a breakdown, dealing with a divorce and her assistant and our babysitter committing suicide in our kitchen. So my mom was hospitalized and we were really like my parents were divorced. So my dad had to step up to the plate really as a father for the first time and he took care of us financially but he had to take us to school and feed us and he just worked all the time and traveled. So he actually had to be a parent but he did the best that he could.

Speaker 2: 8:41

But he, we were dealing and my dad wasn't very at the time, in tune, emotionally, intelligent, so us kids weren't really being taken care of. So we dealt with that trauma on our own and would have to go visit our mom in Shady Pines because she was sick and having to get better. So that is when I, my middle school, started messing around with marijuana, messing around with the boys, and then we got into from middle school, went into high school, and high school I was like very tumultuous time for me because I really didn't wasn't a healed person. I had gotten myself, institutionalized myself and went to a psych unit in Beaumont, in Royal Oak, michigan, and because I had a breakdown and just was not dealing well as a child and there was a lot of unhealed trauma and I came out of there and went straight into high school and that is when I took off like a bat out of hell.

Speaker 1: 9:52

Yeah, this is very interesting because we have okay. So, going back real quick, we did an episode last season about suicide, okay, so we're just going to. I'm just going to add a trigger warning in here. There was a lot going on during that time.

Speaker 1: 10:08

My parents had were getting a divorce and then during that time, when our babysitter committed suicide, the police department brought my mother into the house to what they had thought was a homicide. So, seeing that, because they had to walk her through to make sure that there was nothing stolen or whatnot so that really triggered my mother into this mental breakdown. She should have never been taken into that house to see that scene. So, cut to then us having to live with our dad in a two-bedroom apartment, us three kids, trauma, but you going into the hospital of whatnot. That was the start, too, of you were dealing with your eating disorder, and I just want to point this out because a lot of women and I don't think this correlation is there, I don't think this is a lot of talked about, but a lot of women who have drinking problems had an eating issue first, and I believe you and I have, we've always had that eating issue and then it stemmed into other substances.

Speaker 2: 11:20

Yes, it was like a. It's like your first drug hit of addiction Cause that's like a whole nother cycle in itself, but it's all coping and stems from trauma. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:31

So really that was your first. The dance with the devil was at seven, but that was just a party. Yeah, that was just a party, in all honesty, but it was really going into with the eating disorder and then going into high school or middle school, then high school and then just letting loose.

Speaker 2: 11:55

Just letting loose. And we are. Obviously I'm a Gen X baby, so our parent, we ran for ourselves. My mom was a single mom. She worked from morning till night. She was an entrepreneur. She grinded hard when she got out of the hospital. I remember her first job she was a bank teller and she started her own business and she thrived. She was a force Incredible. I think Debbie and Ed, they really instilled work ethic into us when we were kids. I totally forgot she was a bank teller.

Speaker 2: 12:31

Yeah, it didn't last long, because mom can't work for anybody. Like she really has to work for herself. She beats to her own drum and she said fuck this. And started working for a company called Herbalife and played the fucking game Like she really slayed. So, but with that starting your own business and being so driven um, she you know, and literally doing it on her own and dealing with these kids, cause we were fucking maniacs, like we were wild. So she was in her office, she was in the house, but we really like had the run of the joint. Yeah, so we would do whatever. I mean our friends could come over, because when she was growing up she couldn't have like friends over. So our friends would come over, but it wasn't like a party house because my mom doesn't drink. Mom doesn't drink, she doesn't do drugs. She's she never had, she just it doesn't. She always said alcohol doesn't shuttle with her.

Speaker 1: 13:29

She legit was allergic. The broad would get sick off of two. She would puke violently after her second Bloody Mary in the 80s. So she quit in 88, 89.

Speaker 2: 13:40

Yeah, it wasn't for her and I think she just drank to be able to hang out with my dad to like fit in, because that was the culture. She was a corporate housewife but she was like fuck this, it just did not suit her. She was a corporate housewife but she was like fuck this, it just did not suit her. And Debbie was with the shit, she was about that house life. So, yeah, so high school we just I started, I started experimenting with drugs and where we live, we're outside of Detroit no-transcript.

Speaker 1: 14:21

Crack cocaine Right, so that's where. But did you experiment that with that in high school? Yes, okay, and then. So then crack cocaine was there. From you, tell us about love at first hit with crack cocaine, because I want people to understand that dynamic that don't know.

Speaker 2: 14:41

We were doing blow, a lot of blow in high school and like doing it in school and whatever you could get whatever you wanted whenever you wanted. So it started acid, mushrooms, wheat, like all the basics and then for some reason it just cocaine got introduced into my friend group and a couple of the boys sold it and we were like, fast, as a couple of them end up, we're selling to the college kids like we were. Really it was they should make a movie about like my friend circle, because it was fucking wild. And I just tried it in high school because the boys were trying it, because I think they one of my friends was selling it. So I I'm interested and I want to see what they were doing. And I tried it and I remember I was like, oh, that's fast. It made me nervous because I was like, oh, my God, that is. And we're also in the suburbs and we grew up a little bougie. So I was like I was disgusted with myself. That is not, and this is before I really understood. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter what you're doing, it's all the same. Addiction is all the same, it does not matter, right? But I remember I fucking loved it. I was like that is fucking incredible and I'm a speed girly. I always like I'm not, I don't really like downers. It worked. I remember loving it and I really didn't get into smoking until I was in Colorado, when I lived in Denver, colorado.

Speaker 2: 16:09

But up until then I had lots of. I was in a couple serious relationships and the men that I dated were great. I was definitely the problem. I was the fucking problem. Oh, because I was wild and I was also dealing with healed trauma from my childhood. So I dealt with some sexual abuse when I was a kid, when I was four and when we lived in Texas. So I was sexually abused by a priest and at the school that me and all my siblings went to. And I fully believe that God gives you what you can handle and I was the chosen one. But that didn't come out until like my early late adolescent, early teen years when I finally admitted it Cause it was just like too much to bear. So I was dealing with that and I hadn't started dealing with a trauma therapist until my late thirties. Like this is all just just. Finally I finally healed from the bullshit, okay, before we go on.

Speaker 1: 17:08

Are you good with this coming out?

Speaker 2: 17:11

Yeah, I'm fine.

Speaker 1: 17:12

Okay, I'm not laughing that's because you're chugging it, but I just want You're chugging your beverage. That's why I'm laughing. You guys that we're going to keep this in, but I just want to make sure, before we go forward, that you're cool with this.

Speaker 2: 17:25

Yeah, it's part of my story and I know we can touch on that too, like in another episode. But yeah, it's a reason why I wasn't just like out here fucking being like this party girl and stuff. I was really struggling and the way that my parents, when they found out about it, handled it was all fucking wrong and I just always in my family our dynamic have been like like different, like when I was a kid. The way I handled my emotions was different, the way that I approached school. Everything was just different when it came to me.

Speaker 2: 17:57

Not like I was a difficult child, I was just like sensitive and but that's because I was like carrying the secret, because I was told, if I told anybody that I would go to hell, and and I we also like my mom would make us on Sunday like we would have to go to church. So all week I would, as a child, like would, and this was like a totally different church. We were baptized Episcopal and it was just I would start getting anxiety around Tuesday or Wednesday because I had to go into a church and see a man in the cloth and it like triggered me every Sunday. So my mom never really understood what the fuck, what is your problem? And I would just like shut down.

Speaker 1: 18:37

Yeah, and the Sunday church went on for a very long time, so it was hell.

Speaker 1: 18:43

Yeah, yeah. So that was like yeah, you went through a lot and I think that when it comes to that topic which we will discuss, if you want, to another episode, but there's where it's I don't think, unless you've been through it, what people need Ugh, it's, Ugh Jesus. Are you going to cry, Corny? Don't cry, I know, but this is their story and I just I don't think that people don't like, people don't get like when that's done to a child.

Speaker 2: 19:24

You're just robbing somebody of a whole future. Yeah, it's a sick. It's a sick world out there, sister and I just I'm glad that it was me and not my siblings, not you guys. It's fucking crazy, it's, it's demonic. The fact that anyone could do that to a child is fucking rowdy.

Speaker 2: 19:38

But a lot of people too, with addiction, are victims of sexual abuse, like the statistics. So it is maybe a conversation we will on a different podcast, but that resonates with a lot of people, because a lot of people suffer in silence and you don't have to because you didn't do anything wrong and are definitely a victim, and all of those people have a special spot in hell coming for them. So everything works out the way that it should. But I don't look at myself as a victim anymore and I did work with. I finally got right and actually I've been in therapy my whole life and never took it serious.

Speaker 2: 20:17

I wish if I have one regret in life, it's I wish I would have like when mom was putting us in therapy all those years. I really wish that I would have utilized it, because it would have saved me a lot of suffering. I don't care about how my story ended up, because you and I always say it was the best of times. It was the worst of times. I'm where I am at today because of, and I'm the person that I am today, this majestical beast that I am, is because of everything that I went through, and we've gone through a lot. So it's I just wish I have no regrets but when. I just wish I would have utilized therapy and been honest in therapy and just healed some mother wounds, father wounds, the abuse, the, the all of that. I wish I would have dealt with it earlier in life, because I would have saved myself a lot of suffering.

Speaker 1: 21:11

Yeah, so that's a good, that's a good disclaimer here. If you're in therapy, utilize it and just be honest.

Speaker 2: 21:19

Don't be a shit bag. Yeah, you have, there's HIPAA laws. They ain't going to tell nobody Like, just use it. You're spending the money. You're taking the time of your day and my advice to anybody is just be honest and try to in therapy and try to figure it out.

Speaker 1: 21:36

Try to figure it out.

Speaker 1: 21:39

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Speaker 1: 23:15

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Speaker 2: 24:35

Fucking life. Man Dealing with life, yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:39

It led you down a path and then you're coping. You get into your adult years drinking cocaine usage. Then you go to Colorado, and when you moved to Colorado that was when crack cocaine is like candy out there.

Speaker 2: 24:59

No, I made it candy because I cooked the best crack. I was really quite the chemist in the lab how that addiction just started took off. I was doing copious amounts of cocaine and if anybody has been to Denver, colorado, you guys know it is the fucking Wild West. That city really is lawless and anything goes. It's fucking insane, corey, you've been a few times.

Speaker 1: 25:25

I know Some of the best weekends I've had in my life I was out in Colorado. But yes, that's like insane. And this was when Colorado, because you moved out of Colorado after a few years, after that big boom. So do you think that Colorado just, or Denver, I should say?

Speaker 2: 25:44

I was there before they legalized marijuana. I was there, people were moving out there, so I was there like a couple of years before that fucking boom. Yeah, rent was cool. It was like manageable People were like living their best lives they still are but it was just different. And then the city fucking exploded. It was like manageable People were like living their best lives they still are but it was just different. And then the city fucking exploded. It was insane and it was cool for me because I had already you know me, I infiltrate fast, so it didn't take me long to get in and move and shake and, as you all know, or if you don't, I'm in the service industry. I got, I was working, I got my Psalm out there, I was working, I got my psalm out there. I was starting to get after it out there and make a name for myself as a bartender. I was with the shit, but with that, wherever you go, your bartenders are local celebrities. So you go here, you know them.

Speaker 1: 26:32

So I was definitely on the scene and everybody parties, and then I was and I want you to understand something about my sister, and we've joked about this on a lot of LOT Kim could get hired and I'm like cleaning toilets and then, within a matter of a month, she would be in a management position. Oh yeah, kim would be running the company like it was like. And anytime Kim's gotten a job, I'm like don't worry, you'll be right She'll be like I'm nervous. I'm like why are you nervous at this point? Going to be running the?

Speaker 2: 27:09

place in a month. So she does say that and I don't like to start new jobs because I just I One is probably a little bit of my ego because I don't like, cause you know, you got to go in and you got to play the game and you got I'm old school, so you got to earn your stripes. But for me it's just. I have always been confident in what I can do. And as a service industry worker and you're the same like we are really good at our jobs when it comes to that my dad was in the service industry. He, you're the same like we are really good at our jobs when it comes to that. My dad was in the service industry. He was vice president of operations for giant restaurant group and for red lobster, for dart, our blood. So you know we're talented fuckers, so we are good at what we do, that's why I do it.

Speaker 1: 27:53

but if you ever see, if you ever see on my sister and I, social media, make reference to the greatest restaurant of all time, which is Red Lobster.

Speaker 2: 28:00

That is why yeah, it was like our first meal when we were babies, our first restaurant we go to, because we just always were Red Lobster kids, because that's the company that the bread and butter, that my dad worked for our whole lives.

Speaker 1: 28:14

Yes, and as late a couple weeks ago RL came out with they might be filing bankruptcy. Yes, and as late a couple of weeks ago RL came out with they might be filing bankruptcy. And if that is one chain restaurant that goes down in the books, I will Tell me Right, like Chili's or Applebee's, like you're telling me that Red Lobster is not thriving, and these other corporate, these other restaurants that have been around that are terrible.

Speaker 2: 28:37

It's because they lost like 11 mil for endless shrimp.

Speaker 1: 28:39

People were going hard.

Speaker 2: 28:41

It was their demise.

Speaker 1: 28:42

When I worked there they still had all-you-can-eat crab legs. Me and my friend Mark who worked there, we would take the crab legs and like the back and eat crab legs. We would order a refill under somebody's table and then go get the refill and take it in, like the back service station, and eat crab legs as you should, but a little heifer right, but continue.

Speaker 2: 29:08

So you were in the scene thing I was in the scene, which I will say. So this is right now this podcast we're justintroducing. But if you go back to season one and the episode my first episode on Living on the L Edge, I really do get into like detail about my story. So if you would like to go back and listen to that because we're like skimming over some parts when it was a lot of fuckery I my first, my first, I don't.

Speaker 2: 29:33

I have been in the judicial system for since I'm 15. And it's like since from 15 to 37, I have been on a court case consistently every year, like I'm always on probation, on parole, just like being out there and being reckless and being wild. I was just like a fuck up. I got my first DUI when I was supposed to be in third hour my senior year in math class because we stole a car and I crashed a car into a rock during the 40s and my brother had to come pick me up and it's okay, we're just like dealing like I got ground. I had to go work at Little Caesars because I had to pay for my court case. All of my senior money had to go pay. You know what I mean? It's just like always something.

Speaker 2: 30:19

So then I became like the system really didn't teach me a lesson, because I was a hustler really good at fucking with my probation officers. And I'll get into my last case where I finally said enough's enough, but in Denver was doing so much cocaine. I remember I had to go to the doctor because I had a sinus infection and couldn't breathe. I had clogged my fucking pipes. It was over like enough was enough and so I go to the doctor and at this time I was working for. The beauty of it all is I was working for a doctor RIP. I used to call him Dr Juestein because he was the best and I met him working at a hospital.

Speaker 1: 31:01

I would do it in the morning. The doctor was fine with you calling him. Let's have that disclaimer in there.

Speaker 2: 31:06

He liked the nickname you gave him. Yeah, he was the best. He was an East Coast man like older. I sat in. I went to a couple of his Hanukkahs. I like sat like beautiful people, they were like my grandparents out in Colorado. And I'm saying his nickname that I gave him because I don't want to say his real name on the pod because of his wife. I just whatever and be respectful.

Speaker 2: 31:27

But I was working on a cancer floor because Courtney and I had the idea to go to Ross Medical Center because we were like we're getting out of this fucking business, whatever. Whenever we'd like try to do bouts of sobriety like we need something different. I went and got my medical assistant and phlebotomy certificate. It was like strip mall college, the trashiest thing I've ever experienced, but we did it and we were proud of ourselves. So when I lived down in Colorado, I need balance because I'm being such an animal on the night I need something like to do. I feel like a normal human being and I really am in love with nonprofit work.

Speaker 2: 32:04

So I started working at this hospital and I was on the cancer floor while I was doing chemo treatments. So I would sit with patients all day I was. But the funny thing is when I look back at it excuse me, y'all it with patients all day. I was. The funny thing is, when I look back at it, excuse me, y'all, I got a cough. When I look back at it, I was like a different form of a bartender, because I was giving people their dose, their medicine, but I was sitting like talking to them and I have to check bags and re administer. It's like giving somebody a second cocktail, it's so I was really like thriving in it.

Speaker 2: 32:36

But I was seeing how these patients were just like getting pulled through the system, this disgusting medical system that America has, and we're being put on like all these drugs. And none of these doctors were talking about marijuana and we had just gone recreation and legal medical in Colorado. I would be telling patients about Rick Simpson oil and telling them when you get, when you beat this cancer, because I understood it, because I was a closet addict and I said when you and I, pills are not my thing. So I was just like watching these people, like the pain meds were making them sicker than the chemo. It was just like. So I was like I was definitely advocating for them to go get some weed, get some Rick Simpson oil and that's going to help more than this fucking bullshit pain medicine that they put you on, because when you beat this cancer you're going to have to deal with an addiction Like you're going to be dependent on this bullshit and I don't want pills to kill you after you just fought the fight of your life.

Speaker 2: 33:36

So one day I was talking and I got called down to HR and I was like pretty much like they told me if I had to stop recommending weed and that I wasn't a doctor. And I said I'm aware I'm not a fucking doctor and I'm just talking to these patients and you fuckers don't listen to them. Nobody listens. You're so quick to just like they found out they had cancer four days ago and now they're on chemo Like you don't even give them a chance to breathe or to like figure out what the other ways to for their treatment. So I find it disgusting, but I love these patients and they're amazing and I will never stop educating people on different ways, like natural ways for them. They're already putting this fucking poison in their body. I went off. I went fucking off.

Speaker 1: 34:24

Is that how you met the doctor?

Speaker 2: 34:26

I already knew him from working. He was a cardiologist, but he was like on the floor, so like in passing, and you know me, I fucking talk to everyone. So we met at the coffee machine a couple of times but I was coming, he was like ear hustling and he was like I just remember him saying. So I said fuck you guys, I'm leaving, I'll go figure something else. Like you're not going to tell me how to talk, absolutely not. So I told her to go fuck herself and the whole hospital. Pretty much in that office I was like you guys are disgusting and your patient care is like zero stars on Yelp, very ghetto around here, Nobody's listening. So I left and on the way out, dj, old doc. He said kid, come here. I said what up, doc? And he said I, I love what you're saying, the passion, and he's like you're not wrong and I've been doing this like my whole life and he's I'm starting something in Denver in honor of my son and his son had gone down and died from an addiction.

Speaker 2: 35:32

And he started this like methadone clinic and he goes. It takes a special kind of person to deal with the patients that are going to be coming in and he's I remember him saying he's you got something, kid, he's you got grit, and I know that you care and would you like to come work for me? And I was like yes, cause, like when one door closes and you're truly being your authentic self, universe delivers, the universe delivers. So he also, I think too, where my addiction was at like, because Courtney knows, I mean in Denver, her and they had to fly out. I overdosed in there, I overdosed in Denver. My dad and Chad and Courtney had to come out. Like it was a 24 hour trip and I was in the hospital and it was a fucking nightmare. But I feel like the doc really did save my life, because if I didn't have that to go to, I would have been like really off the radar. I mean, when this Courtney and I make jokes, there was one night it was raining and I had to create my little head in a dumpster and smoke some crack because I couldn't let my crack get wet before I was going out for a party, waiting for my Uber. So, courtney, that's when we laugh about. When you hear through the pod which we'll never get old, you will, courtney, throwing it in that I smoke crack in a dumpster.

Speaker 2: 36:54

So he, we started a needle exchange program. I would go and hit the streets and he ended up like hiring, like a guy, cause he didn't want me out there like alone and obviously addicts lurk in the shadows at night. So we would go and take, because at this time in Denver shit was popping off and HIV was in the rise in Denver and people were coming in with all these fucked up infections on their arm and abscesses and just it was rowdy. I did a lot of good work with him and then I started like this little like side clinic for women, working women who were out there and feeding their addiction by sex work and they would. It's rowdy out there in these streets Sometimes you need an antibiotic to clear up whatever shit you caught. So I was doing that and but still really in full addiction.

Speaker 2: 37:35

So I had Dr the doc sent me to I was had a bad sinus infection. So I went to one of his friends and he said I was like I have a sinus infection. So he put that little stuffy up my nose or whatever the fuck it is. And he looked at me and he said how long have you been snorting drugs? And I was like excuse you, I was like why I never clenching my pearls? Like Like how dare you? And he was like it's okay and he's I'm not gonna. You know, he's like I know that you work for and he's I'm not. He's like he speaks so highly of you and he's this is confidential.

Speaker 2: 38:09

And I just sat there and started crying. And I wasn't crying because he was talking about how nice someone was speaking on me, because he said you're one sniff away from your nasal passage collapsing. How long have you been? And he asked me what my drug of choice is and I said cocaine. I go, I've been at this time. I said I've been storing cocaine for about 15 years and this is it's recreational and blah, blah, blah, like selling my story. But I was crying when he told me my fucking nose would collapse. Because I was panicking, because I was like how the fuck am I gonna?

Speaker 2: 38:46

do do my husband my favorite drug, my best friend, cocaine, because it was like really like I was like that into it. So I was like panicking about that and he thought I was like that into it. So I was like panicking about that and he thought I was like upset because the doc, yeah, and it was like a realization that I had done so much drugs that I was like fucking with my body and my appearance, right. So, stevie, nixed yourself, I fucking nixed myself, you know. So that day, and I had just gotten a fucking eight ball. So I was like so then I went home and was like how the fuck? And then I was like, oh, I remember that time in high school when I tried crack. So I watched a YouTube video and that was the first night I cooked some crack rock in my kitchen. And I'll tell you what for the first time I am proud. I was proud of myself because it was incredible.

Speaker 1: 39:43

Incredible. All right, I'm going to stop you right there. We will get to part two next week. Thank you so much for listening to Living on the L Edge. Make sure to check all the links in the show notes with sponsors. And yeah, we'll see you next week. Bye, our sponsors, and I love you, sissy, I love you too.

Speaker 2: 40:07

Bye guys.