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I was raised in a very family-oriented home. From a young age, I feel like my parents pushed me to be the best at everything. I did basketball from the age of five and my father would practice drills with me on the weekends. My older siblings were a little rebellious, so I think as the youngest there was a lot of pressure on me. I always got really good grades and strived to be the best I could be. We were what I would consider a normal family.
I first experimented with drugs at the age of eleven. For my entire life, I always had the mindset of: "Never do anything bad, never do anything wrong." But one major event changed my entire process of thinking. In 2006, I experienced sexual abuse. Even at such a young age, I knew what had happened was not okay, but I didn't tell anyone. After that, it was like something switched in my mind. I thought: "Maybe it's okay to do bad things."
My neighbor at the time was around sixteen and smoked marijuana. I started smoking with him and I remember feeling a sense of relief; all of this sadness, anger, and rage I was holding in was gone when I was high.
Taking drugs and drinking alcohol as a teenager
After a couple of years, I was still being rebellious and smoking weed, but I wasn't getting caught. I was maintaining the image of the good kid with great grades. Then, at thirteen, I began experimenting with alcohol and ecstasy, which quickly got out of hand.
I would be in school or basketball practice, popping ecstasy. I would get sick and teachers thought I had the flu, but in reality I couldn't even see straight because I was on drugs.
I believe my addiction was already present at this young age. I had been withholding such a deep secret and when I drank those memories lessened for a while, but eventually feelings of anger or sadness emerged, so I would grab another drink because I didn't want to think or feel.
It was never a small amount of alcohol or drugs. It was never enough, until I blacked out. As I reached my mid-teenage years, I opened up about my sexual assault to adults around me. However, I knew I was not believed. From there, my addictions worsened.
My parents ended up separating when I was fifteen and I went to live with my mom. I spent a lot of time alone during this period. We didn't have much money and eventually I felt I needed to get a job. I wasn't old enough to be employed legally, but it was easy where I lived, in El Paso, Texas, to get a job that paid me under the table.
The little bit of money I made was spent on very cheap ingredients for meals, and on alcohol and drugs. I had friends who were older than me and would pick me up so we could go to get high. I remember feeling like my only sense of happiness or comfort came from drugs, alcohol, or the people providing them.
I am not proud of it, but I would go and talk to older men, to try and get them to buy me alcohol. I was always asking: "How am I going to get that sense of self-worth?" I was very much self-sabotaging, but at such a young age I didn't realize that.
Trying cocaine for the first time
As things got progressively worse, I began to dabble in other drugs such as cocaine, which I first tried when I was sixteen. One day, my friends came to pick me up, six of us crammed together in this tiny compact car.
One said: "Oh we're going to go buy weed." I said: "Yeah, whatever." But then, when their regular dealer didn't answer the phone, he said: "Well, I can buy a bunch of cocaine." I wasn't expecting that. I didn't initially want to take cocaine and was thinking about making up an excuse when it was my turn to take the drugs.
But when we picked up the drugs and drove to a parking lot, everyone was doing it and seemed to be having a fun time. So when it came to me, I just did it. I swear, after taking that small bump of cocaine, something went off in my mind. I went from being completely scared of this drug to wanting more and more, and it never stopped, because from then on, taking cocaine was an everyday occurrence.
I took cocaine with my friends at parties, but also in my room alone. By the time I met the father of my children at eighteen years old, I was still heavily taking drugs. But when I fell pregnant a year later, I said: "I can't be doing this anymore" and quit right away.
Struggling with mental health
However, because I had been suppressing all of my memories with drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes, I didn't know how to cope without something to ease the pain. Throughout my pregnancy, I experienced horrible panic attacks. They were so bad it felt like I couldn't breathe.
I was having extremely illogical thoughts and was thinking irrationally to the point I was afraid of leaving my house in case I was struck by lightning. I didn't know why I was feeling like this. It was only later, when I was diagnosed with various mental health disorders, I understood what was going on.
After the birth of my child, I remained sober for five years. I drank the odd beer on holidays, but did not take any recreational drugs whatsoever. I did a little bit of therapy and doctors put me on lorazepam and Xanax. I wouldn't say I was fully addicted to those medications, but eventually I was saying no to the therapy and yes to the drugs
I was constantly increasing my dosage because after a while the medication would stop helping my panic attacks. It was never getting to the root of what I was suppressing. Among many other issues, this unresolved trauma took a huge toll on me and my partner. Eventually, our relationship became toxic.
Relapsing into alcohol and cocaine use
By this point in my life, when I was 24, the COVID-19 crisis was going on and things were becoming difficult at home. My older daughter had become non-verbal out of nowhere. She was dealing with her own mental health issues, which we were not able to pinpoint because we struggled to get a doctor's appointment during the pandemic.
At one moment, it seemed like she didn't even recognize me. It felt like a breaking point. I just remember thinking: "I can't take this."
So, the day the bars opened up again, I was there. I couldn't endure being at home, so I would go to the bar alone. At first, it was just an hour or two, but it got to the point where I was drinking until 2am, when the bar closed.
During the first few months of drinking heavily again I put myself into some really bad positions, including being robbed. But I did not try cocaine again. I was around it a lot, but I knew I could not do that again.
But, of course, there was one night when I got drunk enough to take some and I plunged into my addiction all over again. It felt the same as when I was a child, but this time it was worse. I was no longer making a couple of dollars an hour—I was an adult, who was working in content creation, so it was a lot easier and more obtainable for me to feed my drug habit.
My drug use quickly got out of hand again. I was overdosing all the time and was in the emergency room, on average, every other week; sometimes twice a week. They knew me by name.
At this point, I wouldn't even go home, as a way of avoiding my relationship. I was fully addicted to cocaine. My children were being cared for, but I was living in my car. I don't have a great relationship with my mom, but if I needed to make a video for work I would stop off at her house and make it there.
Nearly dying from fentanyl-laced cocaine
I was telling myself everything was okay, but I eventually overdosed very badly. This time it wasn't just going to the hospital because I had taken too much cocaine and had a fast heart rate. This time, I was convulsing and my joints were locked, because my cocaine had been laced with fentanyl.
I almost died and at that point, I remember thinking: "I needed help."
But reality really hit me the day after leaving the hospital. I had gone straight to the bar and just thought: "What the hell am I doing? I had almost died and less than 24 hours later I am here again."
That's the point I decided to do something. I had previously met a guy on TikTok who worked for a charity and had posted to say if anyone out there was struggling with addiction, they should let him know and he could help point them to a rehab facility through their insurance. So I called him up and said: "Let's do this."
The next day, he'd arranged a flight for me to a detox center in California. I was incredibly scared, and still had that addiction mindset, so I missed the first flight. But he kept encouraging me and arranged another flight for me the following day, which I took.
How rehab helped me
Rehab was really hard. I met some great people, but I really had to change my way of thinking. For my entire life, I had tried to dismiss other people's opinions, because I always felt like my own never mattered to anyone else. I'd spent my whole life being very angry and taking other people's help as criticism. I never sat there and thought: "I am the person who can control my life." So, for the first time in my life, I got the help that I really needed. I was getting down to the root of my addiction.
I didn't feel I had much support after rehab, so once I had left the facility it was very hard not to take drugs again. Eventually, I had to realize, you can't control others, but you are in charge of your own feelings. I did have to block some people from my life, which has been very tough, but very rewarding in terms of finding peace.
The biggest positive change in my life, after pulling myself out of active addiction, is the fact that I am okay for my children. I am not somebody who is going to continue the cycle of being mad and angry. I used to be an angry person, but now I can have patience with my children and be the mother I always knew I could be.
In terms of work, I now focus my online content on creating cheap and easy meals and I am so grateful to be able to help children, teens, or even adults who don't have a huge amount of groceries or can't afford the greatest ingredients.
I get messages all the time saying: "I don't have anything in my pantry, so I made this easy bread and cheese dish." Some people online say the recipes I share are common sense, but maybe they're not for a teenager who only has a bag of potatoes in their cabinet, so messages from those young people are one of the most rewarding things.
One message I want to share with my audience is not to let others determine their worth. Being a vulnerable young person is very hard, especially if those who are meant to protect you, don't do so. But keep pushing, because it gets better. Keep on trying, ask for help and keep going.
Ariana Ruiz is a social media influencer based in Texas. You can follow her on TikTok at @arimonika or listen to her appear on American Addiction Center's online talk show, Addiction Talk here.
All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
As told to Newsweek editor, Monica Greep.
Do you have a unique experience or personal story to share? Email the My Turn team at myturn@newsweek.com
