Let’s Get it Started

I know I can do it. I believe I can do it. I will do it.

One thing I can say about myself is that I am determined. Determined to live clean and sober, start a business, and find my place in this world. Worst case, I can go back to being a failed junky hooker. Or can I?

Even if I wanted to go back to that life, where would I start? My connections; my crew, the people I hustled and survived with every day are all dead, and it’s easier and more lucrative to stick with my current bullshit job than to go back to haggling my rate for a blow-job on a hot Israeli Summer’s day.

I was never good at getting Johns to pay, they were always interested but rarely seemed to appreciate me. I don’t remember the first trick I turned, if I am not mistaken, I was around 14 years old.

I was a full-blown alcoholic by then, most days I had a full 1ltr bottle of vodka in my bag (sometimes concealed in a water bottle), I smoked about 1 pack a day (+weed), and the coupe de gras: abandonment and daddy issues — The perfect combo for creating an under-aged prostitute.

I never planned on selling sex,my dream as a little girl was to be a drill sgt. In the military then a cashier ( “if you can dream it you can do it” is very true in my life).

One night, I was desperate for another bottle of Vodka, and one of the older men who seemed to always be hanging around with our group of troubled youth offered me money if I gave him a blow-job. Unfortunately, I was no stranger to blow-jobs given I had been raped numerous times by then. I had to blow his friend too in order to make enough for a bottle and some weed. It’s very frightening and sad to know that in a small middle/upper-class suburban town, a 14-year-old can turn tricks. What was even worse is how my addiction spiralled and where it led me.

Only a few months later, I moved in with a 21 year old man (I was sleeping with ) and his family in Tel-Aviv. He came by with his blue Opel Corsa in the middle of the night, we packed all of my things and drove off.

So here I am, almost 15, living with a man I met online and his family. I was working 3 jobs. A nanny during the day, bartending during the afternoon at a small hotel bar, then bartending at a small mafia owned business that existed for the sake of cleaning dirty money.

It wasn’t long till I started with ‘blow’ and ‘smack’ ( cocaine and heroin)..

Fast forward, I am 20 years old, fresh out of the military ( because of my mental health) and I am desperate to get some sort of help.

One of my old highschool friends had put himself in a mental hospital and then in rehab. I didn’t grasp the magnitude of all those things, it’s only when I think about my little beautiful nephew that I realise, I was just a child.

I was desperate to play with the big boys. I can’t explain it now, I just didn’t fit in with my peers and we all want to belong. I seem to be the greener grass on the other side. When I was a child I was appealing to adults, and now that I am in my mid 30’s, I appeal to younger people in their 20's.

I live a sheltered life now. Babied by my parents, living in my childhood room, the same room I ran to and ran from for so many years.

These days, I feel safe and sheltered, something I have longed for all my life. The biggest threat to me is me.

Compared to the amount of eventful days and nights I had in my life, I remember very few of them. I am slowly starting to make sense of my past with my therapist but the steps will set me free, and I don’t know if you know, but you study the steps with a sponsor. A sponsor is someone who is clean and sober ( preferably longer than you), that has completed studying the 12 steps with their sponsor at least once, and is practising them in all of their affairs.

It’s not easy to find a sponsor, but it’s also not hard. From what I have seen and learned, fear of rejection is one of the main reasons why people don’t just ask someone to sponsor them, so this is how it works: You go to meetings, listen to shares, and when you find someone who has what you want, you ask them.

They say that the suggestion is same sex, but that doesn’t consider people who don’t fall under the hetero-normative category. The idea is to avoid romantic involvement. 13 stepping: when a person who is seasoned in recovery takes advantage of a newcomer, who is still too vulnerable and raw to be in any sort of sexual/romantic relationships.

I know I can do it. I have achieved things that took great strength and courage in the past, I know I can do it. I believe I can do it. I will do it.

Thank you for reading :) I would love to know your comments and thoughts. If you are struggling please know you are not alone, and reach out to me.

Originally published at http://closingtime.blog on June 27, 2023.