Monica is a long term residential patient at Gaudenzia in Baltimore City.

This is my second time here. I was here last year in May and left in September because I didn’t want to be here to be honest with you. But I came back because I needed to be with some loving and caring people who wanted to help me with my recovery. Now I’m here for the long haul- six to nine months.

I didn’t come here really for myself. I came here because I was going through some mental issues- dealing with my family- towards my mom. I lived across the street from my mother and I held my resentments by not sharing with her what they were. It didn’t cause my using, but I can say it was one of the reasons for it.

When I left to go home last year in September back across the street… At the time when I moved back home I stayed clean for six months until my birthday. April 12 th, when I decided getting high really wasn’t what I wanted to do I came back.

I went through emotional and spiritual problems. I felt like my family had betrayed me, didn’t love me, didn’t want me around. I have really taken them through a lot during my using.

Q: Why do you think your drug use began?

When I was a child, between the ages of nine and ten, my mother told me she wished she never had me. At 19 that resentment started. My grandmother and my father- who I thought was my father- raised me.

In June of 1998 in another treatment program I learned I was HIV-positive. I should have been dead.

And then I learned he wasn’t my father, but he portrayed the father image, encouraged me to do the right things, took care of me. But he is also the man who molested me.

I found out this other man who really was my father had died of AIDS. In 2001. I used to ask my mother if he was my father and she always told me, “no.” I looked just like him. I have everything of my father, of my brothers, we just look alike.

He would come down with my brothers and sisters so they could get to know me and my mother would always shun them away. Why?

Sometimes I wonder if that’s how I became HIV-positive, from my father, since he died from AIDS.

I was starving for love. I never got that from my mother and she gave up in loving and caring family- it was something I could just never understand.

When he died I thought I was dying. I had no hope, no faith. I hated myself and because of that I just gave up and went back out and used.

Q: Have you tried other treatment programs before?

Yes. I went to Mt. Mercer, Philly Stop and Surrender Program, another one and here twice now.

Q: How is it working this time here?

Hmm! I love it- God allowed me another chance to come through those doors on April 21 st. This program teaches you responsibility. When I came in I didn’t want t change anything. I didn’t want to abide by the rules. Now my attitude’s better. They say I’m a positive role model now because of who I was last year.

This is really a wonderful program. I wouldn’t leave it for anything. The staff is very supportive. The ladies here are lovely, caring people. We all stitch together and I try to be like a sister’s keeper. We all try to be there for each other. I’m grateful everyday. I’d rather be in here than out there using.

Plus, I have an HIV support group called the HOPE Group. It teaches me about my blood disorder, my viral load, my CD4 count, my medications, the effects. Now I know I can live with it instead of dying from it.

My drug of choice was crack-cocaine. I smoked it. Every day all day long. I never used heroin or drank.

I been married twice. My first husband I married in 1997. He was a big time drug dealer. My drug use really took off. All I had to do was cook his meals, keep the house clean, and stay inside and he fed me drugs all the time.

I did everything to get drugs. I tricked, I stole- anything I needed to do, I did do.

I had a daughter when I was 18. I started using when I was 23 years old. I started sniffing cocaine and then I started smoking.

Q: Why?

Curiosity. I wanted to fit in. I didn’t want to feel no pain, doing what I wanted to do.

My mind, it would always go back to when she told me… When I had kids I always promised myself I would never tell myself that. I wanted to do things different- show them love, support, everything a mother was supposed to do. But that stopped when I started using drugs. I went crazy. I didn’t want to be with them. I didn’t care for them. They didn’t ever go in the system, they stayed with my mom.

Now they’re 25 and 26, my son and daughter, and they have kids.

Q: Do you know what they think about your drug use?

Oh yes. My daughter, the twenty-six year old, who’s more open, she let’s me know how she feels, how she felt. She was mad, angry, hurt, ashamed of me.

But she always let me know how she felt, always telling me I needed to get help, that she didn’t want to be around me when I was high.

My son is somewhat like me. He is out there, a take charge kind of person. Work, make his money, do what he needs to do. He understood what I was going through. He wanted me to get help when I could, but my daughter was constantly after me.

As for housing, my plan is to get AIRS (AIDS Interfaith Residential Services), they help HIV-positive people get housing.

I plan to work- clerical, receptionist, administrative assistant type jobs. While I am here I am getting my GED. I have a certificate in data entry but I want to enhance my skills.

I will go to NA meetings, meet with my sponsor- staying clean comes first and living life on life’s terms. And being a proactive member of society, that’s something I starve for.

Q: What’s been the hardest part of the program?

You can’t change no one but yourself. But I’ve been trying to give the ladies suggestions, especially the ones that don’t want to change- that change is a blessing. My plan is to come back and give back what was so kindly given to me. To share my strengths, loves and hopes.

If you don’t change, you are doomed to repeat.

If I had known what I know now, I would have done just that. But I wasn’t ready.

Q: At this point, what do you think is the most important thing that can be done to better address drug-related harm?

More drug treatment centers in Baltimore. There are a lot of people trying to get up in here that can’t. We need more beds so people who want it can get in here. Sometimes they have speakers out on the corner that will talk to people on drugs saying they don’t have to.

Advertisements for treatment centers- there’s a lot of information people don’t know. There’s somebody dying out there today that wants to live, wants to get into a treatment center.

I am just so overwhelmed and so grateful to be here. It’s like being born again. I’m being nurtured and being loved and being cared for. There’s a lot of loving people in here, especially staff and counselors. They care about your feelings. They just care. It’s something I’ve always hungered for.