I sat on the floor of my walk in closet and rested my head against the cool wall. I ran my fingers over the bottom of my favorite black sequined dress. Tears stung my eyes; the sequins blurred together and seemed to dance, sparkle and meld into a haze. I started humming Pink Floyd; it felt somehow appropriate and comforting. Anything to keep me grounded in the moment, to not let the terrifying panic wash over me and carry me away.

That morning I had reached for my pink bottle, carefully stashed beneath my mattress. Trying to rouse myself from last night’s thick fog, I couldn’t exactly remember why the bottle was empty. I could almost remember, sifting through the haze of the previous evening’s events it started to come to me.  Did I really flush them? It seems in the midst of the mind numbing high of pain killers, sedatives and wine I decided I was going to take them all and slip into oblivion; a never ending sleep – or I was going to flush the demonic things. Unfortunately, it appeared as though I chose the latter.

Sedatives washed down with alcohol had been the way I coped for so very long; I couldn’t even remember a life before. I couldn’t recall exactly what I was sedating myself from, what had created such a chasm of emptiness in me that I had felt this was the answer. However it started, I was trapped in it now.

Unfortunately, now I was going to be sick. Horribly, frighteningly sick. I felt that nauseating feeling in my stomach, like I was poised at the edge of a petrifying roller coaster ride, waiting to plunge into the darkness. I knew that I had no more pills stashed and I also knew how truly alone I was.

My husband left me and Marco a while ago, maybe to yet another rehab.  He had the same twisted disease I did and we had lived in a chaos of dysfunction for years before things started to break apart irreparably. I moved to another city, where I knew no one. I had hoped that if the surroundings changed and the people changed; maybe we could start a new life.  We had a pretty apartment on the water with large bay windows. I was certain things would be different.

They never were though. I had run out of money a week ago. I stopped going to work and the days and nights blurred together now, so I wasn’t sure how long exactly I hadn’t been going. However long it was, I was fairly certain I was fired by now.

For the last few days I had been feeding Marco cheap macaroni and cheese. I’d been out of food though for a day, any money that I had left in my account had been spent paying for my prescriptions; conned from local doctors.  I left my car at an intersection a few miles away after it sputtered to