Gloria Paige’s journey toward redemption has been a long one, and the way has not always been certain.
Ms. Paige, 49, spent decades abusing drugs. Her drug of choice: crack cocaine.
When she was 20, during a period of sobriety, she had her first son, Derrick. She began using again shortly after he was born. One night, desperate for a fix, she left Derrick, then 18 months, unattended in her apartment while she sold her television for drug money. His paternal grandmother eventually assumed custody of him.
During her second pregnancy, Ms. Paige regularly got high. She was smoking a crack pipe when her water broke. That child, Deshawn, was also placed in the custody of his grandmother. That prompted Ms. Paige’s first serious attempt to stop using drugs.
She said she would be off drugs for as long as 11 months and then relapse. The use of other substances would sabotage her efforts, which included enrolling in an outpatient rehabilitation program, she said.
“I thought I could stop smoking crack but I could still drink beer,” she said. “As I was going to the program, my counselor smelled alcohol on my breath. She asked, ‘How much time do you have clean?’ I was like, ‘A month.’ Then she said, ‘No, alcohol is a drug too.’ I didn’t know that.”
Shoplifting and prostitution helped pay for her addiction.
In 1990, Ms. Paige began a nightmarish five-year relationship. “He was very controlling and abusive,” she said. “I had numerous black eyes.”
In April 1992, she reached a breaking point and attempted suicide.
One night, her boyfriend returned to their apartment angry and high. She panicked as she heard the front door slam shut and a chair being dragged across the floor to reinforce it. A brutal beating was coming, she said.
Ms. Paige said she poured rubbing alcohol on her upper body, intending to set herself on fire with a candle she had just used to light her crack pipe. She changed her mind, but it was too late. The flame ignited the alcohol and set her ablaze. Her chest and neck still bear the scars.
Ms. Paige remained in the relationship for three more years before summoning the courage to leave.
Many indistinguishable years of addiction and failed attempts at sobriety followed. Her sense of self-worth plummeted to new lows.
“I went through people not wanting me because of my burns,” Ms. Paige said. “I was called a monster at one time because of my scars.”
In March 2014, the city’s Human Resources Administration referred Ms. Paige to Serendipity II, a residential program at New York Therapeutic Communities Inc. for women who have substance-abuse problems. She has been clean ever since.
“I just got tired,” she said. “I was losing my family. Not only that, I looked in the mirror and I just saw darkness. I felt like I had no soul, no spirit. It was like I was dead.”
While in the program, Ms. Paige learned she had post-traumatic stress and bipolar disorder, which she is treating with therapy and medication. She also takes part in a creative-writing workshop that the nonprofit organization NY Writers Coalition has operated at Serendipity since 2004. Writing about her traumatic past has allowed her to let go of pain that had taken root over the years.
“I can express myself better through my writing than I can verbally,” Ms. Paige said. “It makes me feel better, it makes me feel good.”
She has been making peace with much of her past, specifically her suicide attempt.
“Now I see it as a birthmark that God saved my life,” Ms. Paige said of her scars.
The Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, one of the seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, gave Ms. Paige $803.61 from the fund so she could buy household items for her apartment, in Far Rockaway, Queens, and clothing to help in her job search.
Ms. Paige works 40 hours a week in the kitchen of a men’s shelter. She hopes to get a job as a station agent for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Estranged family members have re-established contact with her, including Derrick and Deshawn.
“We have a fantastic relationship,” Ms. Paige said of her sons. “They are so proud of me, even though I wasn’t in their life for some years. They understand.”
Ms. Paige said she measures her sobriety in months, not days. In the past, getting caught up in the minutiae of her progress led her to return to addictive patterns, she said.
“I just make my days count,” she said. “I never made it this far. I just pray that it keeps going.”
Follow The New York Times’s Metro coverage on Facebook and Twitter, and sign up for the New York Today newsletter.
No comments:
Post a Comment