Giving yourself a chance
The female side of addiction
By: Solaya Huang
Liz Herle and Matt Stewart had seen each other around in meetings, but were formally introduced by a friend. Photo by Liz Herle
Liz Herle, like many other addicts, has not only struggled to maintain her sobriety, but as a woman in recovery, has faced her own unique struggles.
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Herle grew up on a farm in Fort St. John, B.C., and had a relatively normal childhood, with “lots of kids and horses and quads.”
The crowd she hung around was a lot older, and by 14, Herle had her first experience using MDMA, more commonly known as Ecstasy.
“That was kind of the thing that they were into. Once I did it the first time... I was just like, ‘Oh my God, I just feel so much love,’” says Herle. “I ended up getting a cigarette put out on my hand and my boyfriend at the time carved his initials into my arm. Like it was craziness.”
From there, her addiction escalated.
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“I didn't really notice it as a problem until I started doing other drugs because like everyone around me was doing Ecstasy,” says Herle, who ended up “spending my entire paycheck when my whole drive for life was to have money.”
“Right then I was able to stop because I didn't like being broke,” says Herle. “I was 16 working four jobs, not in school anymore. So like, obviously money was a big motivator for me.”
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Drug of choice
She was able to stop after realizing that it had become a problem, and it stayed that way for about six months. But then she found fentanyl.
“The first time I ever did it, I knew it was going to be a long road.”
By 18, she was addicted to fentanyl, and quickly pulled away from her friends and family.
“I told my best friend that I was doing it because her and I shared everything at the time,” says Herle. “She wanted me to stop and I couldn't, and then she told my mom, but my mom didn't want to talk to me because she knew [that] if she brought it up to me, then I would just deny, deny, deny.”
While Herle did have a strong group of people around her, there’s only so much that can be done.
“They tried [to help],” says Herle. “My best friend definitely did, and she stuck around for as long as she could, but there's only so long you watch someone that you love slowly destroy their lives.”
Pulling away
Her addiction had become a problem, that much Herle knew. But she “didn't necessarily want to do anything about it”
“At that point I was still under the impression that eventually I would stop when I wanted to, like, ‘it's no big deal. I'm just kinda having a little phase right now,” says Herle.
But in the meantime, Herle lost her best friend, and had to constantly worry about how she would support her habit.
“We were really, really close. My mom dated her dad. So we really connected on like a sister level,” says Herle. “That was probably the hardest thing and the constant stress about having enough money to support the habit. I don't deal with stress well, so stressing to have enough money was also difficult.”
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Herle and Stewart share a daughter, Dorean, who makes a feature in Herle’s video. Photo by Liz Herle
Finding treatment
Thinking about getting clean was a slow progression for Herle. She went from thinking “Okay, I don't really want to live this way anymore,” to “holy shit, this is a really horrible existence.”
But while she wanted to get clean, she didn’t know how to stop. Until one day she ended up in prison, and like many in her position, lost connection to everyone around her.
“They didn't let me out for a long time,” says Herle. “Losing everyone that I considered a friend at the time, like nobody answered the phone and my boyfriend at the time was still out using and being crazy. And I was like, ‘this is what my life is like.’”
It was there she met someone who had been clean for two years, and it gave her hope that she could do the same.
“I got hope for the idea that I didn't have to die from using. Cause that was pretty much where I was at— just as much as I hate this, I'm just gonna use until the day I die,” says Herle.
As soon as she left jail, she went straight to a women’s recovery centre, and has been in recovery ever since.
“My caseworker, while I was in jail, hooked me up with that to help get me into treatment, and that was my first resource,” says Herle. “They introduced us to a lot of 12-step meetings that we kind of then got to work [on] our own. And I think that's definitely what got me clean.”
Though Herle was able to get the treatment she needed, there are still too few resources for women in recovery.
“The problem is that there's just not enough [options],” says Herle on detox centres for women. In Calgary, there are only two: Alpha House and Renfrew. “From there, if you don't get out of detox and directly into treatment, then you're just going to start using again, and no treatment centre will take you if you have drugs in your system.”
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