Hello, my story goes back to when I was a small child... Some say addiction is not hereditary, but I disagree. I am 22 years old and 16 years ago my mother started down a dark path of prescription addiction. We struggled as a family when I was younger. we struggled for food and money. I remember only getting 2 meals a day- the two free meals they gave me at school. My mother married a man, who sadly is more of a father then my real one. He was a truck driver during my childhood. As I got older I started realizing more stuff than I should of.

I watched my mother break her ankle because she fell asleep while on morphine, my step dad would get "pill sick" and take it out on every body around him. There was one incident where he was really sick and offered my mother sexually to a friend. Of course that was a blow out and the arguing didn't cease for days because of that.

As time went on, my mother and step dad's addictions got worse; I picked up smoking cigarettes and smoking pot when I was in 7th grade. I came home from a friend's one night to find my mother drunk and she let me drink with her.

Meanwhile, my step father was hitting meth while my mother was still just taking pain medicine. One weekend when my step father was home, I accidentally woke him up as he was withdrawing from meth, he pulled me by my hair through the house and threw me in my room, my mom laid in the bed across the hall, so out of her own mind. Luckily, my sister came to my rescue.

More crap happened like that until I was a sophomore in high school, my mom left the guy who was on meth (who is now in jail). She began dating a very wealthy man. I was skipping school, sneaking out, and ending up in jail's holding cells. I was always with my bad influential boyfriend, drinking and doing pills. That's when I started following my mother's foot steps...

My mother began using her boyfriend for money for drugs, as I was getting lost farther and farther to my own addiction. At the end of my sophomore year, I ditched the guy I was dating as I had used him for all I could drug wise. I started dating another guy who had more connections. That is when my addiction got worse. I wouldn't go to school as long as I was sober, almost getting caught multiple times for drugs.

I dragged through my last year and a half of school, barely scraping by. When I graduated, I automatically began working to afford my roxy addiction for myself and my boyfriend. Then from roxy to oxy. Then to morphine, luckily I'm allergic to morphine, unfortunately I found this out the hard way.

The relationship I was in was abusive, mentally mostly, physically sometimes. I eventually moved in with him. His mother was an addict as well and she would steal money from her husband (who was unaware of ask if this) in check form, I would deposit the check into my account and withdraw it all and blow it all on drugs.

Meanwhile, my mother was forging bank statements to lie to her now new husband (the wealthy boyfriend). She was blowing all his money on her drugs, and sometimes mine.

I lost an amazing job because of the drugs, I eventually wised up a bit and left the boyfriend. That's when I met him, my husband, my rock. The first thing I told him when we started 'talking' was "I am an addict, I have been for 3 years now and I need help." His reply, "I will help you." I started taking suboxone. I also introduced my mother to it, as well as my sister.

My mother's new husband eventually caught on to her addiction, and tried to help her. My sister became pregnant, speed the drugs, after my niece was born she started again. My mother on the other hand went worse, her and her husband got a divorce, and she began stealing and getting money from me.

Eventually she started doing harder drugs, and began shooting up the drugs. Meanwhile while my mom was going down hill, My sister got pregnant again by a different guy. He laid hands on her because of drugs in front of my niece and nephew. She supposedly quit drugs again during that pregnancy, then started them again.

My mother ended up in jail 3 times, stole more stuff, and put drugs before her children. I just eventually quit caring about her. I got married last August to my rock, and she was barely sober enough to remember. She was shooting up in the bathroom at my wedding. I told her, if she quit, I would too. I told her this in March of just one year (2013). I quit talking to my sister because her and my mother were constantly fighting over drugs, while I was still doing the suboxone and I had my own place, car, and everything. Then it went down hill. My husband lost his job, I had no way of obtaining money for drugs other than stealing, and I wasn't about to hit that low. On November 21, 2013 I got a shocking phone call, My mom had quit pills "for good". I went home and threw everything away. I was sick for 17 days. My husband stayed by my side the entire time. We eventually got kicked out, and luckily my mother got a lot of money from the divorce and bought a trailer.

We moved in with her, me, my husband and our 2 dogs. Everything went fine, until her boyfriend (the one who got her introduced to shooting up and stealing) got out of jail. By this point, My husband and I were both working, paying my mother's bills. She then began saying we needed to pay her extra money, even though we bought everything for her house and paid all the bills.

Needless to say, we got kicked out. We ended up back to living in our car (this made the 5th time my husband and I lived in our car). Well, she kicked us out in April but in June my husband acquired a wonderful job, we got our own place, and my mother ended up in jail yet again where she is now looking at 3-5 years. I refuse to talk to her, haven't spoke to her since I bailed her out of jail. My sister in the other hand; I only talk to get when I want to see the kids, which child services are about to step in and I'm about to get custody of my niece and nephew because she can't provide a stable home and is following in my mother's footsteps more then I ever thought about.

Drugs ruined my family, drugs makes me hate what my mother and sister have become. I haven't touched a single pill in almost 8 months, and I never will again.

If there was one thing I could do, I would go back in time and beg my mother to not start that addiction because watching her addiction consume get life made me follow behind her, luckily, I met the one person to pull me if the destruction path.

If you have children and you're reading this, please, I know it's scary, but stop. You are loved, you can pull through, you can be the wonderful person your child thinks you are.

This might sound odd, but another person who helped me overcome my addiction is David Tennant (from Doctor Who).