My first year at Edinboro State College was a disaster! My grades were horrible. I hardly ever attended classes, spending most of my time either in the Student Union playing double pinochle or at the Fraternity houses drinking. Needless to say, my memory of that year is slim. My first semester in the dorm close to campus was filled with letters home to the folks declaring my love for a new boyfriend (they changed with the wind) and I would sneak out a lot to spend time Lakeside. I attended summer school and returned for fall semester to live in a new dorm that was across the great divide. I met a girl, Jackie, there. She and I shared the same birthday, and she was friends with the floor resident, Suki. I felt they were kindred spirits. I believe it was through them that I happened into a party one night and met Dottie and a whole new set of friends. Time passed and then I got the news that I would not be advancing to sophomore. I sought counseling from school and after hearing of my experiences, the counselor recommended I get some professional help. College life ended because I had gotten a student loan and I could not get another since my grades were so bad. When I got home, I told my dad that I needed some help. That didn’t go over so good. In my family the solution to anything seemed to be ‘Don’t talk about. Pretend it didn’t happen.’ So, I never got any counseling until almost 20 years later.
Living back home, I worked for my dad in his store. I purchased my first car, a white ‘63 Rambler stationwagon for $125. tax, tag and title. The car represented freedom and most every weekend I would head back to Edinboro to party with my new friends. Actually, I was referred to as the ‘visiting cousin’ of the group. I was introduced to pot and it instantly spelled “relief” to all the painful life experiences I carried around. My drinking tapered off because I could laugh again with marijuana, and the alcohol left me with no memory. So, I looked at pot as a good thing. I experimented with psychedelics often and went to another level of consciousness. A friend gave me a “raggedy Andy” doll that he purchased from a thrift shop. I made some bellbottom pants and a leather fringed vest for Andrew and he was my constant companion, sitting beside me as I travelled back and forth on the weekends.
That year ended with Dottie and her friends going to Ocean City, MD for the summer of 1970. Of course, I went along. My having a car was a great thing. No one else did, so, that summer at the beach was a magical time for me. It was where I met my first husband, Chip. When summer ended, I moved to Maryland outside of D.C. Chip was completing his college and I worked at various jobs. Getting stoned was a daily part of my life and also downers moved in. We would take drugs, drink cheap wine and play Chess in the evenings. This continued until I moved back to Butler briefly. This move caused a decision to be made between Chip and I. We decided to marry, so, I moved back to Maryland after the wedding. We stayed there until he graduated then we headed south to my favorite playground, Cocoa Beach, Florida.
I always seemed to think that things would be better when I moved. Little did I know that I went with me wherever I went and it never took long to find someone that had drugs. Chip and I eventually separated. I hitch hiked across the country with a girlfriend, returned to Florida & started living with a man who 9 years later would become the father of my third child. We split up, I was altering my reality on a daily basis. So, I moved back to Butler to receive my final divorce papers.
As I sit and write about this timeline, I think, what a drama queen I was! I had no idea how to live a simple life with direction. I only knew self destruction, and I did it well. I seemed obsessed with all the bad things that had happened to me. Now I know that continuing to focus on the tragedies only brought more of the same. I wanted to end the insanity but I had no clue how. It sounds strange, but, while in the drinking and drugging phase of my life, I had totally lost the ability of CHOICE. When I did eventually go in to a treatment facility, the word CHOICE saved my life.
