WRITER REACHES OUT TO HER COUSIN, BUT COCAINE ADDICTION TOO STRONG

"Free me, leave me Watch me as I'm going down Free me, see me Look at
me, I'm falling and I'm falling."

- -- Not an Addict by K's Choice

When someone you love tells you they are addicted to cocaine, your
initial question is: how could this happen?

In your mind you try to solve the question by blaming it on peer
pressure, or stress brought on by school or parents.

Once you get over the shock, you eerily take on the characteristics
of the addict in question.

You begin to make excuses for them when they lie. You baby them, you
apologize for them, and you ultimately brush off the reality that
cocaine kills.

Worst of all, you foolishly convince yourself that family support can
solve the problem.

That's what I did when my 24-year-old cousin from New York confessed
to being hooked on the drug. And like her, and most of my family, I
stored that information in the deep dark recesses of my subconscious.

She arrived on my porch steps unexpectedly one warm June night: mouth
smiling, eyes gleaming, squealing in delight at the sight of me.

"Simona, I missed you!" she yelled, as she tackled me down on the lawn.

"Lisa?" I asked. "Is that you?"

At 5'4 tall, and weighing a mere 97 pounds, I barely recognized her.

It was bright and sunny the next morning, and Lisa wanted to sit on
the porch. Clad in a form-fitting tube top and ripped jean shorts,
she lit up a cigarette and exhaled slowly.

I asked her quietly to explain to me how her dependence on cocaine
began.

In her heavy accent, she told me her story.

It all began the night her boyfriend cheated right in front of her at
a bar. Feeling hurt and betrayed by someone she loved, she decided to
join her best friend Danielle at an after-hours party.

Danielle had been doing cocaine for a while at the time, but up until
then, Lisa had never felt the urge to try it. But that night she did,
and the feelings she experienced from that first hit left her
yearning for more.

One night, Lisa and Danielle dangerously mixed cocaine with heroin, a
technique known as speedballing. While Lisa basked in euphoria,
Danielle clutched at her heart and stopped breathing.

Danielle died that night from an overdose.

But that didn't keep Lisa away from cocaine. In fact, the death of
her best friend plunged her into a depression. Using cocaine helped
her replace the pain she was feeling inside with happiness.

While her dependency grew, she began dating the best friend of a drug
dealer. He was filthy rich, and whenever they fought he would win
back her love with sparkling diamonds and an eight ball of coke.

"I felt invincible," Lisa said. "And even though he was an asshole, I
convinced myself that I loved him, so I stayed. In the end, it was
the coke I was in love with."

Within a couple of years, her love for cocaine erupted into a full-
blown addiction that left her health in danger.

Her legs, like the rest of her body, were deathly skeletal. But
that's not what frightened me. It was because her legs were covered,
from the knees down, with dark brown scabs.

She saw me staring and explained, in a calm voice, that because she
had used up all the veins in her arms, she had no choice but to
inject the veins in her legs and feet.

But, she assured me that she did want to clean up her act, and the
first thing that would help her do that was moving to Canada. "I have
to stay away from people that are bad influences," she said.

I knew that suburbia (I live in Woodbridge, just north of Toronto)
and my traditional parents weren't Lisa's style. She loved the
glamour and craziness of Manhattan too much.

But she had no choice, really. It was either here, or the streets.
Her parents wanted nothing to do with her anymore.

And who could blame them, anyway?

They had tried everything to rid their daughter of her spiraling
addiction. They forbade her to leave their home for weeks. But Lisa
made sure her closet was stocked with enough coke to get by.

They cut off her credit cards. But Lisa would just sneak into her
parent's bedroom and steal cash from her father's wallet.

They took away her car keys. Not a problem. She just had to feign
hunger, order a pizza, and the deliveryman would arrive at her
doorstep with pizza -- and coke -- in hand.

Rehab didn't work either.

Desperate, her parents warned her that they would turn her into the
police. She could face years upon years in jail for using cocaine,
they told her.

But nothing could dissuade her from getting high. She always found a
way to get her hands on cocaine, no matter what the circumstance, she
said.

So when Lisa told her parents that she wanted to come to Canada to
spend time with her cousins, they wholeheartedly agreed. Good clean
Canada would cure their daughter from the addiction because it would
distance her from the poisonous influences back home.

So I decided to become Lisa's pseudo-therapist, listening to her
without judgment, offering sound advice when she asked for it.

As the days passed, I spent a lot of time with Lisa. I was afraid to
leave her alone. So we would spend our days going shopping, or
sipping coffee at Starbucks. At night she would take prescribed
sleeping pills to make her sleep.

Only a few weeks went by when my family and I caught on that Lisa was
lying and manipulating situations to get her way. So Lisa began
talking about going back home. She felt that she was being caged like
an animal, and that no one believed a word she said. But we all knew
why she wanted to go back home -- she missed her crazy lifestyle of
late-night parties, cruising with her friends and more importantly --
getting high.

Everything I had done to get her better hadn't worked. I felt
useless, guilty. She would go back to New York and pick up right
where she had left off.

All along, I had believed that family support was enough to guide an
addict to recovery. Little did I know, the only time an addict makes
a full recovery is when they truly want to get better.

A few days later, Lisa's mom came to get her. I wrote her a card and
bought her a gift, and handed it to her as she walked out the door.
"Be good, Lisa," I said as we hugged. "I'll try," she responded.

When we parted I looked into her eyes. They were vacant of emotion,
devoid of any feeling.

From that moment on, I realized the full extent of what cocaine had
done to her. Not only did the drug strip her of her health and
sanity, but it had torn apart her soul, too.

It was hard for me to fall asleep that night. My mind whirred with
memories of Lisa and I when we were young.

Somewhere along the line she had lost herself.

And only she could find her way back.

It's been three months since Lisa has opened up to me about her
addiction. She still lives in New York, and is now back with her
family. But, I have no idea whether or not she is clean, nor whether
she wants to be.