SUBURBAN HOUSEWIFE'S BOOK LOOKS BACK ON HER LIFE AS A HEROIN
ADDICT.

Who: Elizabeth Hudson

What: Author of Snow Bodies: One Woman's Life on the Streets. "I wrote the
book because there are very few books written from a female addict's point
of view. No time for any kind of reflection. My life was just survival. I
wanted to detail what life was like for drug-addicted females."

Roots: Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Hudson's young life included moving
from city to city, and attending church on Sundays. As a young woman of the
1970s she rode the party coaster from "alcohol to marjuana to acid to
mescaline"-all the way to injecting heroin and living and working on the
streets of Vancouver and Calgary. "I don't think I had any real idea of
consequences, always thought I could quit whenever I wanted to. But after
the first hit...I just wanted more. I wanted to have that high again."

A drugstore cowboy's girlfriend: "I was with a boyfriend who supported my
habit. In a really odd way I got to feast off the plunder of his crimes.
His specialty was kicking over drugstores. We would sell the drugs he
stole. And he did more violent things, like armed robbery. Once he went to
jail, I was left with a habit, no social support and not allowed back home.
Just doors slamming behind me. I had no place to go but the street.

Slightly-open-door policy: "I don't believe in tough love. Yes, setting
boundaries, but totally slamming the door, no.... I begged my mother to let
me come home. I would have done anything to come home at that point. I
understood, after my first beating on the street, what exactly was in store
for me. I begged to come home and she said I was the little boy who cried
wolf too often. She said no. Parents should always leave the door open a
crack."

Heroin highs and lower-than-lows: "The pit. I call it the pit. I couldn't
work the street unless I was high on heroin. I could never make enough
money. I always wanted more heroin. My addiction drove everything...on that
altar I was quite willing to sacrifice everything."

Women need not apply: "In my day there was nowhere for women to go.
Salvation Army shelters didn't allow women in. We couldn't get a meal.
There was nothing for women. If we were cold, we stayed cold. If we were
hungry we stayed hungry."

Shelter is the first step: "Every single woman who works the street can be
reached. It just takes a vulnerable moment. For me, it was when Peter went
to jail and I begged to come home. Then again after a major drug round-up,
an old friend saw me on the street and asked where I was living. Nowhere.
So he said, 'Well come stay with me.' I wasn't lonely anymore. I drank like
a fish and smoked pot and did pills but I wasn't pushing needles in my arm."

New life in the 'burbs: "I grabbed the hand that reached out at a
vulnerable moment." Within her savior's circle of friends, Hudson met her
future husband. "We moved to the suburbs and thus began my resocialization.
The other women, I just watched them...the way they talked, dressed. I
modeled my behavior."

Too much information, Mom: "They don't want to read the book. I'm mom to
them. They're aware I was a drug addict and a prostitute but they don't
want to read about the trauma and the horror that was my life. But I do
tell them there is nothing so terrible you will ever do that I won't still
love you and be here for you."

Tough getting past 'tough love': Hudson's father has since died but she
still tries to communicate with her mother. "Let's just say that it's been
very hard work trying to forge a relationship. I can't get over some of the
things she said to me, things like, 'I have other children.' Like she
doesn't really care if I die. Tough love. It's a one-way ticket to the
graveyard."

The writing's on the flesh: "You can't entirely redomesticate a feral cat.
I've always hidden my past. Until the book, I never told anybody. But I
can't erase the six-inch track on my arm, the inky jailhouse tatto."

Not-so-small victory: "The day that I got voted president of my son's
preschool, that's the day I knew I'd passed. I'd made it. I'd done it."

- -Diana Bennett