THE OTHER
SIDE OF HELL
How I Survived Living with a Drug Addict
Jamie Lee Coulter
Imagine, if you can, putting your three week
old baby into the freezer because her crying is
interrupting your peace and quiet. And yes, I did
say freezer and not refrigerator. And why was the
baby crying? Because you were too messed up on
heroin and hadn’t fed her all day. Imagine, if you
can, waking up in a town on the opposite side of
the United States from where you remembered
being. You have no recollection of what you did or
what was done to you during those four weeks.
You didn’t wake up in a four star hotel either.
Instead, you’re in a dumpster with smelly, putrid
trash and you can’t tell which smells worse – you
or the trash. Imagine, if you can, walking into a
fast food restaurant, pulling a gun on a young,
innocent cashier. She’s frightened, trembling and
near tears. Her hands are shaking so hard she
can’t get the money from the cash register to you
fast enough, so you just pull the trigger. She falls
to the floor – dead. But that’s not your problem,
you reach into the cash register yourself, grab the
money and yell at her lifeless body as you walk out
the door. I can’t imagine it – can you? But what I
can imagine – because I lived through it – is being
on the other side of stories like those and many
more. And this is my story of survival. No, I wasn’t
the alcoholic or drug addict who created the
nightmare; I was simply the person who made the
mistake of falling in love with one.