Olivia is a client at You Are Never Alone, a drop in center focused on providing assistance to women who have prostituted.

Two years ago I was drug addict. I was out prostituting and these girls told me I could come to YANA and get some help. Two years ago this past January.

Q: When did you first start using drugs?

In 1983- but I’ve been using off and on because I’ve been incarcerated four times. That’s the only time I ever got clean, when I was incarcerated.

Q: Why were you incarcerated?

Selling drugs. Ain’t never got caught for prostitution- just every time I sold drugs.

Q: Why did you sell drugs?

I started selling so I could have a way to get my drugs.

Q: Why did you start using drugs?

To fit in. The people I was hanging with- they was using- they didn’t force me to do it. I wanted to do it for myself.

"He used to beat on my mother..."

Q: How old were you when you first used a drug?

When I was 10. Well, my mother’s husband, he made me drink half a pint of liquor, and then I just drank from age 10 to age 14.

Then, I started hanging on the corners- hooking school, hanging on the corner with boys and girls at school smoking marijuana.

We started eating these pills and then I got put away in a girls’ group home. Then when I came home, I just started drinking again. I quit school when I was 16. Then I met my son’s father and I was 16. But I wasn’t using heroin and cocaine, but my son’s father was. Every time he would use we would fight and I would go get a drink. And I would drink…

When I was 17 years old I got arrested because I had been drinking and beat my stepfather with a bat.

Q: Why did you do that?

Because he used to beat on my mother. You see, my mother used to be an alcoholic, but that don’t mean he pull that beat on her.

That’s when I found out I was pregnant with Tawnya- my oldest daughter. I moved out of my mother’s house and got my own place. I stopped drinking and the pills and the marijuana and I started smoking cigarettes.

After I had my baby I started back to eating the pills and smoking the marijuana. I had these two girls I thought was my friends- Ann and Diana- but I didn’t know they was using drugs and they went and shot some drugs and both of them jumped on me [beat me up].

Ann- I set her house on fire and her sister died in the fire. I got locked up for that, too. About six months after I had my baby I got locked up for that, too…

After I got out of jail I started hanging in this bar- “The B&S.” I started drinking real heavy. Then I used to go to parties and hang in bars. I tried everything- except speed- I never messed with that stuff.

When I was 27, hmm. I was coming home with two friends from the Half Moon [a bar] ad we were kind of drunk and three guys forced us in the car. They raped us. Beat us up and left us out in the country somewhere. I think that’s what affected me real bad. I just started drinking pints about everyday.

I actually drank for three and a half years because I didn’t think I was hurting nobody- but I was.

Then I met my husband and his sister- she was going with this guy that sold heroin and she used to go steal it and say, “Come on Olivia, we going to go do it in the bathroom.” At first we used to do it in our nose and they had this stuff called Bam [a stimulant]. From DC to Baltimore, they selling it for five dollars. I used Bam about nine months. It was a pill that kept you up- shake it and shoot it.

I went to doctor to get syrup and pills- for a different kind of high. Ahaa. I laugh now because that’s all behind me. I did that for five or six months. But my body got immune to it and it didn’t work no more.

That’s when the heroin came in. I stopped snorting it and started shooting it and I liked that high the best of it- did it ’83-’86.

Then I caught a murder charge. In ’86 I was using heroin and cocaine and drinking liquor and I killed this guy because he broke in my house- but I knew him. I was all drunk up and stuff and he bust up in my kitchen and he punched me in the eye. I got my knife out of the kitchen. When I stabbed him he grabbed his chest and fell on the floor and I ran out of there.

I did five years. Maryland Correctional Institute for Women. I was clean for a while.

"I was focused on getting my five years over so I could come home to my children."

Q: Did you go to drug treatment there?

Not there- I guess I could have- but I was focused on getting my five years over so I could come home to my children. In 1991 I come home and my mother was sick. I started using heroin and cocaine. My mother passed away February 4, 1992.

I used heroin and cocaine until 1992 when I went back to prison- then I came home in 2002. I had started drinking, then it just seemed like the alcohol wasn’t doing it. I got back on the heroin and cocaine.

I tried a buprenorphine program at Dr. Hayes’ office, but that didn’t work, so I started back with heroin and cocaine. I got on another buprenorphine program but it still didn’t work, probably because I didn’t want it to work.

July 22 nd, 2003- last year- I got put on a LAAM [LAAM used to be used as a methadone substitute] program- something to keep you from using heroin, but it gives cravings for cocaine. I used that through October 6 th when they put me off the program because I had 10 dirty cocaine urines.

When I was going through withdrawals from LAAM I started back with heroin and cocaine. I used from October 8, 2003 to April 26, 2004 when I came to YANA and my counselor, Sara, put me in detox and I’ve been clean ever since.

It took four weeks for me to get a bed.

Q: You waited four weeks?

Yeah! I had to- I was sick and stuff.

Q: Where did you go from detox?

It was a 28 day program- I stayed nine days and came home- I’m not going to lie to you.

Q: And you haven’t used since?

Yes, clean since April 26, 2004 and I feel good. I’m just trying to get those tracks away. I feel good. It’s a better life.

I really want to help the people out there- I know there’s somebody out there that really wants help but doesn’t know about it- that’s who I really want to help- like me.

YANA would have to close down. That’s the only way I’d leave this program.

Q: So would you like to go back to school?

Yes! Oh my Lord- I might be too old because I’ll be 50 in September. I want to help kids 13-18 with drug problems- because there’s a lot of them out here with drug problems. And I would really love to own my own home and car someday. I believe it’s really going to happen. I don’t know what year, but it’s going to happen.

Q: Why do you think so many kids are using drugs?

Now… basically- I think they like the high. I know I did. But as you go on in life, as you get older, you find the drugs damage your body- bad. I have problems now, female problems.

In 2002 I stopped selling drugs and started prostituting again. First in 1999 I had three years, I did 15 months, went on parole. I violated parole because of another drug charge, then I had to finish the time of three years- another 15 months. In 2001 I did 11 months.

Q: How did you get your syringes?

We used to go tot the mobile- I got a yellow card [a card documenting participation in the program].

Q: What about before the exchange?

We used to buy them. People sell ‘em on the street. Not loose though- only in packs. I would share. Not just with anybody, but I have.

Q: What do you think about the needle exchange?

It is a good program, if they have open slots they put you in a meth program. They swap you clean. Tell you not to share. But we wouldn’t always pay attention. I guess when you’re sick [dope sick] you are just trying to shoot your stuff.

A person with a habit- they shouldn’t go to prison. They should go to detox. Prison is not helping them. They come out and do the same thing, they don’t do no groups and counseling.

Now there’s a difference between people selling and those selling to use. They doing it to keep from stealing it.

I think they should have more programs than they have though. My son used to sell drugs and they offered him 25 years. But now he has his life together. When you out there selling drugs because you want to make money- they have Break the Cycle and drug court programs- for people that just sell because they say they have a problem because of the fast money. Some just need to pay their rent, buy a little package, and sell it.

They get users to sell their drugs because they know they going to jail. I can see that now because I can see clearly now. Just now I got off the bus.

Today- I wouldn’t sell it, buy it, or use it. Not today. I am really trying not to die from no drugs, not get shot over no drugs, they got stick up boys, they got crooks and polices- shucks- it’s too much.