- I saw people doing coke or whatever
and what I thought was coke,
so I said, "Hey, can I you get a line off of you?"
Well, it was crystal meth and I really liked it.
(light music)
- [Interviewer 1] Have you ever struggled with addiction?
- No.
- I have not.
- I don't think so.
- You know I wonder every day.
I drink a lot, but also I'm 23.
- [Interviewer 2] What's a lot?
- Multiple times a week.
Like maybe half a bottle.
- [Interviewer 2] Have you ever struggled with addiction?
- I don't know if we can say struggle.
I think I've had points where it's like,
okay, you know you need to back off.
- I had to like question myself and be like,
hmm maybe we're doing this a little too often.
- [Interviewer 1] Have you struggled with addiction?
- Yes I'm an alcoholic, I still go to AA.
- I was drinking by myself.
- To the point where I couldn't even walk
and I'm just in my house.
- Drinking like 10 shots a day.
- I used to drink like every day
before I went to high school.
My parents would leave for work, I'd drink
and then my ride would pick me up.
- I'm a bartender,
it's just kind of like a very normalized thing.
- After every single shift that I worked.
- I worked at a club.
- Living in Michigan in the winter
and it's a resort town so drinking is really normalized.
- I was positive with HIV and I was keeping that a secret,
friends were getting sick and dying
and so it was really stressful and so I drank.
- Not understanding my queerness or whatever
and drowning out the thoughts that I didn't wanna think,
until it kind of came to a point where like
you gotta be honest with yourself and be true
and that's what happened and I'm happier now.
- [Interviewer 1] Have you ever struggled with addiction?
- No, oh no.
- No.
- Struggle? No.
It ain't a struggle,
I just know that I'll never leave weed alone.
- I do like to smoke weed.
- Probably addicted to weed.
- I've never been sober for longer than like a year.
- I guess I could quit, I just really don't want to.
- [Interviewer 1] Have you ever struggled with addiction?
- No I haven't or at least I don't think I have.
- Mm, I wouldn't say so, no.
- Yes, 100% I have.
I'm still struggling with it,
Adderall, stimulants in general,
I got nicotine patches on my fucking arm right now.
I've never smoked a cigarette in my life
and I've been into things that kinda enhanced my focus
since it was like 16.
- I got talked into getting on antidepressants
and it really was bad for me,
like you feel trapped in your body
and every day is just, okay.
- [Interviewer 1] Have you struggled with addiction?
- Yeah I used to smoke cigarettes, like a lot.
- Nicotine.
- That puff bar be kicking my ass.
- [Interviewer 2] What the fuck?
- Flavored nicotine don't do it, stay away from it.
It's literally the stupidest thing you could ever do.
- [Interviewer 1] Have you struggled with addiction?
- Yeah, cocaine for a little bit.
- Cocaine.
- Blow
- A good friend of mine and I
decided to try it just like you know,
it just really took hold of me,
actually broke into my mom's house and overdosed
and my mom actually walked in on it,
but if she hadn't walked in I probably wouldn't be here.
- I was a functioning meth addict I guess,
it was an everyday thing for about seven years.
It got pretty bad I was living on the streets,
but it was all about the nightlife.
Bam, bam, bam all the way until Monday,
been up for five days, pass out for two
and then start the whole thing over again.
- [Interviewer 2] Are you sober now?
- Oh yeah that's part of the reason I'm here
and my boys aren't, (shakily) dang it.
- [Interviewer 2] Your boys aren't what?
- They're in Michigan and I'm in Seattle
'cause this is where my support system is.
- Thankfully I had one of my best friends now,
she stopped me one night
and was just like, "You've been drinking a lot"
and that's where I was just like, okay.
- Haven't drank in 10 years.
- It's been about five years.
- 2001 is one of the last times that I did it.
- [Interviewer 2] Have you ever struggled with addiction?
- Yeah, World of Warcraft (laughs).
- [Interviewer 2] What were the negative effects
on your life?
- I was placed on academic probation from my college,
just not showing up to class, just playing WoW.
- Video games and social media, it's habit for me.
- I'm addicted to Instagram.
- Instagram.
- TikTok.
- I cannot let Twitter go.
- [Interviewer 1] Do you struggle with addiction at all?
- I, a little bit not
like drugs, but I really, really really like
online shopping.
- Shopping.
- Football's probably my addiction,
used to ruin my day if my team lost
and it was like taking over my life.
- I'll just get like really engulfed into like school
or work and like up to the point
where it's like a little bit unhealthy.
- It's not a serious addiction or any
like anything like that,
but if I'm sad I wanna have sex,
if I'm angry I wanna have sex.
- I really struggle with codependency
and like being alone
and so I would self-medicate with pornography.
- [Interviewer 1] Have you struggled with addiction?
- Does food count?
- I'm addicted to sugar.
- Candy, sweets, anything like that.
- Eating is an addiction for me
because I've tried to cut back and I haven't been able to.
- I binge and then restrict.
- I have a binge eating disorder,
it affects my relationship.
- For a little bit I struggled
with like a lot of self image stuff
and I would run till I couldn't anymore at the gym.
Like in my mind it was,
you run these extra 30 minutes
or else you're just like, you know like a bad piece of shit.
- I work out almost every single day of the week
so I think that kind of led to an eating disorder
for a short amount of time in college.
- [Interviewer 1] Have you struggled with addiction?
- Kind of, yeah.
With my depression and my anxiety and all of that jazz.
When I was younger,
I was really addicted to feeling terrible.
- Just the cycle of negative self talk
and I don't know how I got so like addicted
to just talking to myself like that,
but over the years especially after having a kid
I've had to accept the fact that I am a badass woman.
- [Interviewer 1] Have you ever struggled with addiction?
- Um, no.
- No.
- I have not, does run in the family.
- Addiction runs in my-
- Runs in my family.
- Family.
- My uncle.
- Uncle.
- Mom's dad.
- My dad.
- My mother was addicted to a lot of drugs,
specifically crack.
- Crack epidemic.
- Because of my father's addiction,
I'm scared of shit to be addicted to anything.
- I had a heroin addict in my family
and it'd just be like, as you see them improving
it just like rebuttals
and goes back so many different stages.
- You wanna help so bad,
but you can't help a person who doesn't want help.
- I'm actually dealing with somebody
who I think just got arrested last night
for like being, I think he was drunk in public
I have no idea.
I got a call at 2:00 AM from a police station though.
- I remember one time I came home
and my brother was just just like laying out on our
at our front door outside the house,
like practically half dead
and he had overdosed
and my mom had to nurse him back to health
over the next week.
So, at this point it's hard to want
to have a relationship with him.
- After so many tries you just can't anymore.
- It's like either I have to like
not have that relationship or or have to like accept that
like I have a relationship with my mom who's a drug addict.
- Eventually they did finally gain some control,
but unfortunately it had already taken quite a toll
on them at that point
and they didn't live much longer after that.
(light music continues)