I need to check in honestly today, because today is a stressful one. I'm still completely abstinent from all drugs — that part hasn't moved an inch — but the program itself has me under more pressure than I've felt in a long time, and I want to write through it instead of just sitting in it.
Back in March, a hair follicle test came back positive for marijuana. I hadn't used. I know exactly what that sentence sounds like coming from someone in a court-ordered program, but honesty is the whole foundation of what I'm rebuilding, especially with a nine-year sentence hanging over any mistake, real or not. Here's something important about how I actually use, when I use: I'm a binge user, not a moderation user. I don't do a little bit and stop. So the idea that I'd quietly use a small amount and gamble the rest of my life on not getting caught was never realistic — I hold myself to a higher standard than that, even when nobody's checking. I was given two options: take a lesser sanction, or request a violation-of-probation hearing. My court-appointed lawyer told me plainly I'd lose that hearing. Scared, and still not believing what the test said about me, I took the sanction anyway, knowing the truth and swallowing it.
Fast forward to now. I'm attempting to move into phase three — the final phase of this program — after doing everything asked of me: staying accountable, staying transparent, staying willing to learn. That March result never stopped eating at me. Every part of me has been arguing with itself about it since the day it happened.
Then, this past month, I walked into another hair follicle test on my own, no hesitation. It came back positive for cocaine. Being honest is still the whole point of this, so the day I got that call, I told the people I needed to tell. I also fell apart. I took what's usually a coping tool for me — a stress nap — and it turned into an entire lost night. I woke up the next day depressed, turning the same question over and over: how would I have consumed anything at all? I don't even want to entertain the possibility of going back out, because it terrifies me. My mother's death wasn't fair — she went looking for one high and a different one killed her instead. The world of drugs doesn't play fair, and I am not interested in giving it another chance at me.
When you're accused of something you didn't do, your brain will want to overexplain everything at once, out loud, right now. Don't. Write down only the verifiable facts first — dates, numbers, the actual document in front of you — before you say a word to anyone. It gives you something steady to stand on when the emotional flood hits, and it's a lot harder for someone to call “defensive” than a rant is.
The first thing I did was walk into the drug court office the next morning at 9am, right when they opened. They brought my probation officer in, and between the two of them I was told, more or less, that they already knew I'd relapsed, that I needed to just admit it, and that my pride might be getting in the way. I was upset. But I also know a reaction is exactly what gets used against you in a room like that, so I didn't give them one. I listened to everything they said, and then I advocated for myself anyway, calmly, because I knew what was true. That's a real part of recovery for me — advocating for yourself when you know the facts, even when your ADHD brain is screaming at being accused of something you didn't do. If you've got a brain wired anything like mine, you already know how that particular trigger feels.
What that meeting didn't account for is the urine tests. I take two to three of them every single week, and every one of them has come back clean — before this cocaine result and after it. That's not something I'm citing to argue my way out of anything; it's just the record, sitting right there next to a single outlier result. I told them straight out that I'll take a test every single day if that's what it takes to prove where I actually stand. I'm not asking anyone to just believe me. I'm asking them to look at the pattern.
After that meeting, I spent hours doing the unglamorous work — reading, calling people, comparing perspectives from more than one source, going back over the actual test results I'd been given. What I found was that there's information missing from what I was handed, information I believe I'm entitled to see before anyone decides what this test means. I can't get into the specifics yet. But once this is actually resolved, I intend to put everything out there — how these tests work, how to read them, and how to go through the proper channels to get the records you're legally owed when you're accused of something like this.
For right now, today, I'm just stressed. My plan is two meetings tonight — I've been keeping myself accountable by going more often, not less, and I've got a solid support system both in the rooms and outside them. This particular program runs stricter and more rigid than most, and that unpredictability is unsettling, even when I know my own side of the street is clean. So today it's one day at a time. Let go and let God, and whatever happens next, happens. The one thing I refuse to do is hand this disease the one thing it actually wants from me.
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