How I Became an Addict – Interview with Ariel (Other Side)

Introduction

Meet Ariel, a 30-year-old drug addict living on the streets in Miami. As she tells her story, you begin to realize that she has been failed by her family and government systems time and time again. Despite all her battles, Ariel remains positive and hopeful that recovery will be possible for her one day.

Please also watch the follow-up video, Ariel 1 Year Later.
Other Side has a playlist of interviews with others titled How I Became an Addict.

Quotes

“I was going through a lot of physical and emotional abuse with my mom and her remarried husband … he would do a lot of scary things like chase me around with two by fours … it forced me to the point where I felt like I wasn’t safe at home so I ran away and lost my virginity being raped … I feel like it was the main turning point in my life because it changed all of my relationships with men.”

“I got hooked on meth to begin with. I started smoking meth, I loved it, it made me feel awake. And I was really self-conscious about my weight when I was younger. I was bulimic for a period of time, so when I smoke, it just made me feel alive to be honest.“

“They had loaded up the needle and shot me up with it and I just remembered thinking to myself, Where has this feeling been all my life? It just took care of all my worries, all my stresses, it made me numb to all the pain and trauma that I had gone through … and then when the high was over, it would come back tenfold so I kept on having to chase the high.”

“You have to change your environment. You have to change the people you’re around. You have to create new hobbies and fill your boredom time with healthy things to do again because the thing about being a user is you become so used to doing the same thing every day that you forget who you really are. You forget what you like to do, what makes you you.”

Ariel 1 Year Later – “It blew my mind. I really wasn’t expecting how much support I was going to gain from it [the video] and that support really pushed me forward. It helped me to know that I’m not alone and people can relate to my story. It made me feel really good because it allowed me to realize that I’m helping other people too at the same time as I’m helping myself.”