A Tale of Two Sarah's

There are two Sarah’s. One is the real me and the other is the imposter or the ‘Addict’ Sarah. For the last four years sadly anyone who’s met or been around me has known the phony. The Addict Sarah is not a nice person. She lies, steals and hurts those around her, especially the people she loves and cares about. She is consumed with only one thing, well two: getting high and getting more and both of those activities take up all her time. Deep down she is not evil, though she might come off that way, she is just in pain and unable to cope and desperate to feel nothing, to feel only numbness. But she is unable to keep from hurting people in her quest to attain that and hurting others only makes the guilt and shame worse.

Sadly some people that have come into my life have only ever known the Addict Sarah. Thankfully people that were in my life before A.S. are still in my life because after Addict Sarah came around they really had no reason to stay. She was a self destructive time bomb destroying everything in her path.

It’s been almost two months since the Real Sarah came back. Such a short time yet an eternity to those of us living by the saying, “One day at a time”. The Real Sarah has been welcomed back with open arms and showered with love and support which the Addict Sarah would have shunned and turned her back on. Even though the Real Sarah is glad to be back she sometimes feels out of place in her own skin and has had some trouble getting re-adjusted. I’m learning how to deal with all those feelings and emotions I tried for so long to deny or suppress with drugs and it’s hard and sometimes I fucking hurt so bad I crave for anything to make it stop. But then I remember even when I was using those feelings were always still there boiling just below the surface threatening to erupt and spill over. Instead of working through them properly I just kept putting all that off by getting high so they were always still there, lurking in the background.

9-11-2008 was the first day the Real Sarah came back and the last time Addict Sarah was seen. I work daily, hourly even, to keep that fake from returning.

Because she is just that, a fraud, a phony that nobody likes…especially not the Real Sarah.