Letters of Meth Abuse Deaths and Tragedies

• Mar
  11

  Widowed At Age 22

  I live in Oklahoma. We have one of the largest problems with meth in the country. My name is Jennifer, I am 24 years old and I was widowed at the age of 22. My husband's name was Tony, he was 30 years old and he died of acute methamphetamine overdose on April 22, 2003. He was in the hospital for a day and a half completely brain dead until the morning of the 22nd when we had to turn off the machines that were keeping him alive. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. The doctor that had been treating him had asked us how many years he had been doing drugs. When we asked why, he told us that his brain had so much damage done to it from the drugs that he didn't know how Tony was even comprehending reality. Now I must explain the whole situation. My relationship with my husband spanned over 5 years. During part of that time I had been doing meth with him. I am not proud of it and if it weren't for our daughter I might never have stopped. For you see, I stopped when I found out I was pregnant with her. I thank the lord every day that she came out perfect. I stayed with my husband hoping to help him break the hold that the drugs had on him. In January of 2002, before my daughter was born, Tony went to prison on a drug charge. He was in for 6 months. Our daughter was 4 months old when he got out. He stayed clean for a while but it wasn't long before he started hide his habit from me again. I had gone to the doctor for an annual checkup. I was severely stressed out and proceed to cry on the doctor. He gave me a prescription for clonazepam. Big mistake! I went home and told Tony about the prescription and what the doctor had said. Then I left to go pick up our daughter from daycare. I came home, and we had a somewhat normal evening. After I put our daughter down, Tony grabbed my prescription and took 5 of them. I started to freak out when he told me that he had already taken 5 earlier. Now, anyone who knows a drug addict, you cannot get them to go to the hospital. So I waited for him to pass out, got a blanket, and slept on the couch to make sure that he would survive. I got woken up by his screaming at about 2 am.. I kept asking him what was wrong and he kept telling me I should know what was wrong. Then he would hit or kick me. I realized I needed to get out of there. I went to my daughter's room and got her out. I made it about halfway out the door when he grabbed my hair, pulled me back in, and clocked me in the jaw. All while I was holding our daughter. Then he told me he would just get it over with. He had a needle, (or a point), and some mean green in the bathroom. He would kill himself. When he went to the bathroom, I ran. Thankfully, my mother in law lived one block away. Now this wasn't the only time he hit me but I think this one incident is enough to talk about. I could be writing for days. Now, why did I stay if it was so bad? Because I knew him before the drugs. I knew and fell in love with the real him. I wanted to help him get back to that. For anyone that has hung on to the bitter end, I salute you. I don't recommend it, an abusive relationship is not the place to be. But you can't give up on the ones you love.
  
  Jennifer Ferrante, Oklahoma city, Oklahoma, USA

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  Posted on March 11th, 2011

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