Fentanyl Addict interview-Kim

all right jim yeah kim where'd you go where are you from san fernando valley valley and tell me about your your family you had both your parents when you were young um now growing up um you know my mom my dad were in a pretty crazy relationship and my dad was on drugs and my mom was you know addicted to a man that didn't love her back and so they didn't work out i didn't even know my dad until i was actually 15 so you know i was just no not really my mom wasn't really around either i lived at my grandparents so how would you describe your childhood um you know when i was living with my grandparents it was a very loving very loving you know god-filled home of course um i didn't really want for anything but when i moved back in with my mom when she got custody of me back when i was 14 um i pretty much could do whatever i wanted you know so i didn't have that stability or like you know i didn't get the love and affection that others might you know so i pretty much just did whatever i wanted you know yeah what kind of kid were you in high school huh what kind of kid were you in high school i was not a good kid in high school um i actually i dropped out in 10th grade in the beginning 10th grade um i was constantly in and out of juvenile hall ditching school bringing drugs to school getting suspended fighting all kinds of stuff why do you think that was i was angry what do you think you're angry at myself everybody i don't know god the world anybody do you think that came from something that the way you were treated by your parents um i just felt like i probably had something to prove like i felt like i was always like trying to prove myself to something like that you know that i'm not not this and i'm not that you know and i did it a lot by like rebelling mostly yeah it's interesting how some some of us pick up these traits and others don't mm-hmm in the same family mm-hmm yeah genetics are crazy so after school where did you go um i went to prison eventually um you know my teenage years are kind of a big blur it was just a lot of i didn't really get in trouble that much when i was younger um when i was 17 i i went to california youth authority for two years um for based on a fight and then from that point i was constantly in and out of prison in and out of jail i actually got attacked by a police dog um like not even long ago two years ago so you know just constantly been back and back and forth from prison streets prison streets yeah and you have children i do i had i did really good for a little bit i had like three years sober had a little boy um his name's silas he's super cool um i had him when i was 20 and i actually just had a baby um a week ago his name's cash really he had a baby a week ago yeah i did he's super healthy he's wasn't withdrawing or anything you know so he's really really healthy i'm super thankful for that and he's where now um i'm obviously i'm homeless so you know i didn't have an address to give them when when they asked me if i had a home to go to and so cps got involved and um he's with my sister right now so but i'm working on getting him back i just have to have a home huh you're hoping to get him back yeah i'm praying i do and you're married yeah i am i met my husband probably three years ago justin yeah justin obviously um yeah so i met him three years ago um in the mess in our mess you know he's an active user as well but yeah he's my best friend we're bigger than these it's nice you have each other yeah we do what uh when did drugs start for you hard drugs um i was 14 i went straight to the top um i started shooting up heroin when i was 14. um but yeah i didn't really do anything else other than that and today you're i smoke fentanyl today i've been doing it for probably about a year do you vote before oh yeah a lot a lot probably six times already this year yeah and so now you're going to try to get clean for the baby or yeah um i have a bunch of hoops i have to jump through it's not going to be an easy task i have to provide you know a stable home um you know obviously the proper necessities i need to take care of him and stuff it's just hot it's going to be hard because you know i don't i'm not working right now a lot of people i can't get get a job because my record um you know it's just it's not easy out here you know things are super expensive and there's not a lot of money coming in right now yeah you've chosen the most expensive city or one of the most expensive cities yeah it's crazy it's not even it's not even really that possible for two people on a part-time job to have a home together on a minimum wage it's just not even possible really out here it's difficult what do you do for money um well i've sold drugs before um stolen identities um a lot of fraud broad and drug sales basically that's pretty much it when's the last time you went to prison or jail um i just got out of prison last june i haven't been back since thankfully and you're so your other kids are with your mom my sister your sister yeah yeah my my first my oldest son he's um with his dad i can see him you know whatever i want and my my newest son he's with my sister so you've been homeless for how long um honestly probably since i was 23 i'm 28 now so probably the last five years [Music] what emotions does this lifestyle bring up in you you get depressed or honestly like are you angry i'm a lot of different things really like when i think about it makes me want to cry you know but i i try not to out here you know i just honestly try to numb myself unless i can crying and skid row doesn't work huh crying on skid row no you can't you can't do that you gotta this is the only place in the schedule you can cry inside my studio everybody cries here but now it's there i know they walk out like they're not huh everybody's tough out there you have to be dude these streets will eat you up yes they will yeah i don't i try not to feel really that's why i get high you know i don't i don't try to feel my emotions really that's what it's the exact reason i'm using yeah yeah what do you worry about what are you afraid of my babies i'm afraid of my kids not being there for them yeah not being in their lives what's the lowest point of your life what's been the lowest point um probably the first time that i got out of prison um you know i got out i didn't have anything my family was has been fed up with me for a long time um my grandma was actually my biggest support my like she's my rock you know and she passed away in 2018 and probably from that point yeah that was the lowest point in my life like i didn't have anybody to turn to like it was the first time that i had ever been shut out you know no matter what when i was younger if i needed somewhere to stay she always had a door open for me she always like would give me if i needed money she would always give me money buy me food she like looked out for me know some the only person in my life that would ever answer the phone always you know and she passed away and i just i was lost you know i didn't have that that safe place to go to anymore and i remember like i'm a girl and i'm on the streets you know and like you know i'm not a big girl or nothing like there's like people out here like that are just like [ __ ] crazy dude you know there's some scary people out here like with mental health issues whatever dude and like i didn't know what to do and walking around at you know 4 30 in the morning in a neighborhood i don't know and like i'm i was scared dude so i would break into motor homes to like just have somewhere safe to sleep you know i would do that for a while like just like try and sneak in and sneak out you know just alone how do you know there's no one in it you pray there's nobody in there you pray i would think most motor homes would have somebody sleeping in the vet normally when they're on the side of people's houses they're not like oh i see next to the house how are these these five years you've been homeless how have they changed you um well i feel like i've grown up a lot i feel like i've kind of had to grow up a lot um i've lost a lot of stuff i've gained a lot of stuff you know um emotionally i'm just like drained dude i'm so tired but i don't know you just to keep going you know um it's an exhausting lifestyle and then living this way makes it super difficult to do the right things to fix it right that's what i see right like like you want to shake these people and just say well just just go get a job show up for work just figure out a way to get to work not that easy and it's not it's not it's just once you're here you're almost trapped and you cannot it's like quicksand you're stuck because it's hard for people to hire you when you don't have an address to give them or you know you're getting your phone stolen every other day or you know like you just you don't have any foundation you know what i mean like i was sleeping in a tent you know about a week ago we had me my husband we had like a little ten you know and we're going back to it at 3 30 in the morning and it's [ __ ] gone dude like now we have nowhere to sleep but it's 3 30 in the morning you know what i mean i was super pregnant and it sucks no and if you're in that situation and you're addicted to a drug which is 99.9 of the people here that means you got to go to work for eight hours and not use yeah good luck with that yeah that's not as if your drug is fentanyl heroin or yeah any opiate really yeah what was the best time of your life um probably when i was about 20 um i had gotten out of prison at 19 and i got sober for a while i got sober for about three years um you know i went to school to become an esthetician so i'm gonna like to have a license to be an esthetician out here um i stayed sober for about three years i had my own place i had my own car i had a good job i worked at an eating disorder rehab you know um in thousand oaks and i was happy he was going on vacations i had my own two cars three bedroom condo you know and it was mine it wasn't anybody else's it was mine you know and i was like i was just i was i was happy i felt like it you know it was doing good for me and my baby and i didn't really rely on anybody it wasn't dependent on anybody you know yeah so you had pride instead of shame which is what you have now you had stability instead of disorder as you had totally very very opposite lifestyle yes completely that you have now compound and just make it they [ __ ] you yeah that's what i see yeah totally it's hard for a lot of other people to you know realize like how difficult this is they think like why don't you just stop why can't you just do better what like you know what what's gonna happen when you do this like why do you keep doing it but like you don't think about that kind of [ __ ] you know like when you're when you start you start getting high again or whatever like you're not thinking about it like maybe it comes in for a second it's just a fleeting thought you're like oh no i'm like that's not gonna happen you know what i mean like oh no i'm not african od yeah yeah i just don't do six times this year you know what i mean like i always never thought that was gonna be me dude and what drives you to do that despite having the intelligence and the common sense and all that to to know that it's not the right move what makes you do it anyway is what you're just numbing the pain of them yeah i like to be numb i don't like to feel i don't like to be emotional because i'm very emotional super sensitive but i don't like to show that you know i feel like i have to like you know be this hard hard up person you know or else i'll get lots all over out here if i don't you know i'd be such an easy target out here if i wasn't the way that i am yeah yeah if i wanted to be the real me you know like i would i would get washed up out here so quick yeah a female without a backbone well no just a like you have a husband and that helps a lot but yeah it does it does is all the girls that are not in your situation are just i know it's sad it's really sad i've seen a lot of [ __ ] you know it's [ __ ] sad it's really sad i'm lucky i have who i have around me you know or else i wouldn't i probably would be a lot a lot worse off you know it's horrifying it's horrifying it's terrifying how women get treated down here it's bad it's really bad yeah does your husband have a tattoo on his forehead he has it across his whole cheek he does right here you thought hers was big mine's bigger let me see it kimberly look at that real big yeah so justin what uh you guys been married how long three years three years yeah and you met where on the streets yeah yeah i met actually we met years before can i see you take off yeah yeah yeah we actually met uh uh years before i was actually uh can i say anything on here you can say anywhere oh okay yeah we met years before i was actually uh selling selling dope in a house over uh in the ventura county and my friend was actually working i just gotten out of jail so i had to kind of lay low for a little bit and i was just helping him do like door duty and stuff you know watching you comes in and out and it was just one of those days where everyone just kept trying to come in and out in the door so kind of like you got around i uh i got a little agitated i didn't see who was in the door so i kind of told her to watch you know what she's doing in the house and i turned around and i saw her i was like oh [ __ ] i probably shouldn't have said that you know and you know she's told me shut up i right off the bat she goes who the [ __ ] you telling that to you know and i was like oh man and then after a little while i waited till everyone left the room you know normally i i'm not a nervous guy you know but she's gorgeous you know made me nervous so i was like [ __ ] man so i waited until everyone left and i was like hey you know i probably shouldn't have told you that you know what i mean and she's straight she straight told me she's like hey well now you want to say something you know because everyone's gone you know so you know from then on i'd seen her a couple times at the house you know but from there obviously we were on the streets doing our own thing you know so i really didn't become much you know and uh it was just a friendship through there and years later i was actually in jail you know i was i was going to court and she had come in because the guys and the girls go to court i had a couple cases in ventura county that i was trying to wrap up probation for years and i saw her coming to court and i was like damn i was like she's gorgeous man i for a second i thought she looked familiar you know but i couldn't we're all strung out couldn't tell you know what i'm saying so then she she goes up she's right off the bat starts talking to me i was like damn this girl is really talking to me right now you know so then she goes up they call her last name and i was like oh [ __ ] i was like that's kim you know i remember that's who that is so like right when she sat down i was like hey kim she's like yeah i was like it's justin you know and from right there you know we were just talking ups we were gonna write each other we wrote each other a little bit in jail back and forth and then ten pounds and pen pals and then i got out first and within a week when she got out she hit me up we've been together ever since yeah never left and the street life you've been involved in and how long i've been since i was young since i was probably like 12. i was uh i was adopted at birth so i don't know if you seen the movie like juno but that's kind of how it was my my parents weren't able to have another kid my adoptive parents my biological parents they had got pregnant 16 my sister so then around 18 two years later they got pregnant with me and my dad was already they're from iowa so he was out there you know cooking meth starting to drink my mom's trying to become a nurse she was straight edge so they couldn't take care of me so they gave me up and they had a plan and my parents out here was surprising this was a long time ago this is in the 90s so they're putting ads in the newspaper you know so they found they're in california putting ads newspaper all around and they contacted them and surprisingly my uh my adopted parents my dad was a pastor of a church so he was out there they were looking for another song cause my mom couldn't have it and they basically put an ad out they flew him out members of the church took care of him and they decided they're gonna have me so i was born i was born out here you know they flew back and you know that was that but when i was around 10 my adopted parents my dad decided to leave the church and split with my mom you know so then it was just me and my mom so right around that point i had no fatherly figure i'm saying i never i never really you know got in contact with my adoptive family i didn't really have a need to i think a little bit after that time when they split i started you know smoked pot like 10 or 11. by the time i was like 14 i'd be basically doing every drug there was you know so around the middle of that i found out i had a sister so it was kind of like i was looking for her at certain points you know i remember there was like one day when i was like 16 i'm sitting there and the person i was with i was like talking about how i couldn't find her you know and she's like dude why don't you just use facebook you know it's you know 20th century don't just use facebook you know so i was like what the [ __ ] you know that's a good idea so i typed in her name and i found her you know so i called one of her friends and they thought they thought i was nuts you know my parents had never told them about me you know so she you know was able to you know verify that that was who i was and come to find out she i thought it was just her but then she sends me a picture of her to see if we look alike and there's two other people there so it was actually my little brother and my sister and i guess my parents had gotten together a few times you know did the business a few other times after that you know and ended up having two more kids so when i was around 16 i found out i had like a full brother and full sister you know and from then on i tried to kind of go out there and see him and you know eventually i was able to and now i keep in contact with them but you know i've always i've always been out here i think since that that issue was around 10 i was already i had a home my mom but i was already going out trying to you know cause trouble so your adopted parents were straight clean no drugs yeah my parents straight clean they know my dad passed a church for 36 years right so i grew up in a very structured church environment you know my mom worked at the church with my dad and then one time was around 10 he literally just he probably been feeling this way wow you know but he came home and basically was like you know what i took a sabbatical from the church which is like a break you know that's what that that is essentially and said you know i'm gonna go stay at you know someone's house you know there's a famous christian artist john tess who uh he actually went to his church so he had a huge house you know up on mulholland with a guest house bigger than ours you know so he's of course it's his pastor he said louis you can stay with me you know so he did that and he just never came back you know so uh your but your biological parents had drug issues or yeah well well my my biological father did yeah he was big into you know out in iowa there isn't much of anything they just drink and do meth and party you know what i'm saying so they work so my dad from very very young i think he was only 18 at the time my parents were both 16 when they had my sister by the time he was 18 he had you know cooking methamphetamine and you know how to so so what i'm getting at is you do you think your situation is somehow gene related yeah yeah of course a little bit you know i mean i've always heard different things about you know the science and genes behind you know what that is and i'd say i agree with that yeah a little bit i mean obviously a lot of it was my own because you have to realize i was growing up in a good environment you know i mean up until i was about nine ish before that happened i could have picked any path that i i wanted to choose you know what i'm saying but it wasn't just like oh my my dad left with this left so i'm gonna do bad i had always had this that's why i think it's jeans i'd always had that urge to to be with the bad kids you know what i'm saying i always whether it was a mixture of movies or whatever it was when i first smoked pot i wasn't pressured it wasn't anything it was a mix of everything i wanted to be with the cool kids i wanted to smoke you know i'm saying i wanted to try it i was interested and from there obviously you know people have different reactions to drugs but i loved it so from when i tried pot i was like you know what i gotta i gotta try whatever there is like this you know and over the years i would throw parties my mom just kind of felt bad about the situation so she just let me you know run amok basically and you know i ended up i was 15 i ended up committing some serious charges and i went to youth prison you know i went to youth authority out of state and i did a year there flat no probation i tried to do the whole thing year and three weeks and i came back and obviously it didn't work you know i was i was back committed another extortion within three weeks you know so i was i was in and out i've been in and out ever since you know ever since uh the time i got out after after i met kim i've been out since then you know what i'm saying so i've been still on the streets you know obviously i have substance issues and different things but you know we just found out we were having a son about nine months ago and i've been doing what i can to to make sure that we have what we need and to get on a better path you know because i don't i don't want that for him either so is the attraction for each other i mean you guys you wouldn't say opposites attract because you guys are probably the same yeah yeah you're cutting the same clouds we level each other out i think a lot he's extremely patient and i'm very impatient he's very calm and i'm very not so bad yeah and funny enough i feel like the situations where like i'm impatient it's where she's suddenly patient you know what i'm saying like i'm waiting for some [ __ ] like what the [ __ ] why is this taking so long and she's just calm as can be but normally i'm the one all day who has to be like you know relax it's okay you know so it's very weird not only do we balance each other out i feel like it switches at the intune moments you know when i'm mad i'm expecting you to be mad with me is it harder to be a couple living homeless um honestly i think it's better i think it's easier you know i can't easier i can't explain for other people i would want to be alone out here in a way yeah and yeah no way i i think being together gives us a sense of you know obviously stronger stronger and comfort you know i mean especially just not even with the streets just with a couple alone you know i feel like when you're married or not married experiencing hard things together is what's going to make you stronger and you're going to break cnn's making it so far exactly yeah i think it's done nothing but but i mean obviously i think sometimes it may create a little tension you know sometimes there's no money there's no things and you know sometimes who do we take it out on who we're with you know but at the end of the day like we try not to let any of that stuff we like never fight to be honest you know it's more like little things urge us and we kind of just you know more like get mad at the air than it is each other you know and it's more or less one or the other trying to just you know realize that we're gonna change things you know what i mean but we spent so long living this way it's difficult to to live a different lifestyle you know um it makes it harder but you know being together definitely makes things better i think that's great that's great well it's nice to meet your other half yeah [Music] i appreciate it man it was a pleasure to meet you all right thank you very much all right you

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Length: 23min 7sec (1387 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 30 2021