I am going to take a risk and be honest despite how pathetic my honesty may sound or seem to others. I can’t help anyone if I’m not honest. Helping people is more important to me than not putting myself in a bad light. Hopefully, my earnest authenticity can overshadow the bad light. I can tell you that I never set out to become a drug-addicted dealer. I was smart. I maintained a spot on the honor roll every semester until 10th grade, even getting academic excellence medals for straight A’s.

I played sports. I was the star center of the basketball team and even played field hockey. I was even considered a gifted youth, and I was put into the Oddessey of the Mind (OM) program, which made it to state-level competition. It’s hard to believe now, but it’s true.

I never imagined I would take any substance put before me, like my mom, and once I started using and selling, it became my only option before too long.

It wasn’t just about making money for me—yeah, the cash was nice, but the rush, the sense of control, feeling like I mattered, and  lack of better options kept me locked in a hellish cycle, which for me included more incarceration than anything else, for nearly two decades. 

Walking away was impossible, even when I knew deep down it was wrecking me. It wasn’t just something I did; it was who I was. It was how I survived, how I coped, and honestly, how I escaped everything I didn’t want to face. No matter how hard I tried to do things the right way, it was impossible for me. 

Nobody would hire me, and I tried so hard. In professional settings, I was treated like dirt. In my world of selling dope, I was treated like a Goddess, even if for the wrong reasons, it was always more appealing. At the end of the day no matter how ashamed and guilty I felt about it people needed and depended on me. 

I’m not going to lie, while actively using the thought of working a “regular” job, following rules, and living paycheck to paycheck seemed unbearable compared to the fast cash and freedom the my life offered. But what I didn’t realize at the time was that I was just as addicted to selling dope as I was doing dope. Though this was something I would never admit back then. 

This blog post isn’t about glorifying the lifestyle; it’s about exposing the truth behind why it’s so hard to stop hustling once life forces your path. Many assume it’s all about the money, but the money isn’t even that great when you have a monster size habit to feed and your reup was always looming, and there’s so much more to it. The power, adrenaline, and sense of belonging all weave together into a dangerous web that’s difficult to escape when you add in lack of options.

In this post, I’ll take you through the reasons why I struggled to stop selling drugs, the emotional and psychological grip it had on me, and how I eventually found a way out. If you’ve ever struggled with walking away from something toxic, whether it’s addiction, a relationship, or a lifestyle, you might find pieces of yourself in my sad and all too common story.

I started stealing my mom’s drugs when I was fourteen. By the time I was fifteen she was stealing mine. I had managed to get permission to smoke weed shortly after my fourteenth birthday. Stumbling home late one night, my mom was outside drinking with her ‘whatevers.’ She was always buzzed, and she needed to get high, so she casually asked me if I had any weed.

I was a hustler from the gate and saw an opportunity here. I had managed to get permission to smoke cigarettes one morning weeks earlier when my hungover mom needed her morning smoke. I told her I would give her a pack if she would give me permission to smoke. She agreed then, and this is what I did with the weed. She obliged, not even reluctantly.

Having permission to smoke weed and a mom always needing to get high made for a great clubhouse for me and my boys. They caught on quickly that if my mom was in a bad mood or pissed at us for whatever reason, they would just offer to take bong rips with her. It worked like a charm.

I was a feminine member of the boys’ club. We had taken to robbing ‘weed camps,’ and despite being shot at, almost killed, and attacked by pit bulls, we always seemed to come out on top.

Do not underestimate the ferocity of a red neck that catches you selling his stolen weed. We heard rumors that they were going to drop us in the “snow hole” high up on the mountain. The balls on us to even attempt sales of pounds of stolen bud back then, but we did, and between that, selling salad dressing bottles full of liquor and whatever I managed to lift from my mother’s locked bedroom at the gas station next to my junior high, I got on pretty good for being a poor kid.

Intrinsically, I was fighting battles that no one had seen. My high school best friends were guys who also sold drugs, but they sold harder felony-type drugs, so it was a matter of time before I was enlisted to do the same. When I started dealing illicit drugs, everything shifted. Suddenly, people needed me. For the first time, I felt like I mattered—like I was the most important thing in their lives, even if it was just for a half hour at a time.

I knew deep down it wasn’t real, that they were drawn to me for the illegal substances, but the feeling of being wanted was intoxicating—just as addictive as the heroin I sold. Before too long, I knew not having drugs was not an option anymore. I would trade and accumulate so many different things that the local police referred to me as ‘the walking pharmacy.’ I have no idea how they coined me with that back then, but I’m sure you can imagine.

I never saw selling dope as criminal activity. For me, it was survival. A person wouldn’t have to try too hard to imagine my many rationalizations for why I HAD to sell drugs. There were a lot, and believe me, I KNOW there is no good reason for perpetuating addiction. The old me would have said, “If I didn’t do it, someone else with an unsafe product would. I was a joke. I own it, and I see it all too clearly in hindsight.

I wasn’t worried about jail time or the next drug test because I knew jail was an inevitability. However, I was used to the drug screens and had even developed my own ways to evade detection. One way was a device I should probably patent. I was focused on keeping that feeling alive—the illusion of importance, control, and status. Even inside jail, I continued the hustle, trafficking drugs in, making myself the go-to person for the girls coming in from the streets.

I never went to jail empty-handed. For years, I kept a slug (tightly wrapped in plastic bundle of assorted drugs) in my bra. I even kept it on me in my sleep. I ALWAYS had something. When I finally got sober, I would catch myself standing up to leave wherever and feeling to make sure it was there. Sometimes, I still do it on a subconscious level. I have to laugh when whoever I’m with looks at me, wondering why on earth I stood up to grab my own boob. Hey, what can I say?

In jail, I would make deals to detox girls coming in when they needed it to get in on their action. I could make their time more manageable, and in return, I got that same validation I craved on the outside. They knew me, and they knew what I was about. My word meant something, even then. Trafficking and selling drugs wasn’t the right thing, but it felt like the only thing that gave my life meaning and allowed me to survive. Without it, I would have starved.

How sad and small was my existence? I once told my Dad that I might be the queen of shit, but at least I’m the queen of something. I was so messed up, and back then, I believed I had been broken beyond repair long before. I feel so bad for that scared, lost, and utterly broken girl trying to act tough so no one could see the pain in her eyes.

I want to give her a hug for all that’s passed and all to come for her. That poor girl. Shadow work helped me on a profound level with being able to see her as she was without affecting what she has become. Shadowwork is a beautiful journey of self-discovery that has a way of knocking out all of one’s self-loathing. Highly recommend.

The best thing about selling drugs? It wasn’t the money. My habit was so bad there was little extra money to be had, and when there was, it went right back into product. The real reward was feeling like the best friend, the one everyone turned to. The one who could solve their problems, even if those solutions were wrapped in illegal drugs and addictive behaviors.

What people don’t understand is that the hustle has little to do with making fast cash; it’s about surviving in a world that offers nothing to someone with a history like mine, even a woman. It becomes a cycle—one that feels impossible to break. I remember coming back from the city to four or five people lying around on my porch, getting sick and throwing up in anticipation of my arrival- the drug’s arrival.

I feel horrible about it now, but these people definitely weren’t out exploring their treatment options at the time.  It wasn’t substance use disorder or even drug abuse for me; I saw it as a way to maintain my pathetically small place in the world by making myself look as big and bad as possible. Pshhhh… I don’t know what I was thinking.

My thinking back then was that I wasn’t just selling drugs; I was selling a sense of belonging. And in a stressful situation where my mental health was already fragile, walking away from that comfort wasn’t just hard—it felt like the hardest thing I ever had to do. My hustle gave me a reason to wake up the following day, even if it meant running the risk of seeing the inside of an emergency room, getting hit with Naloxone or having to hit with Naloxone, or facing law enforcement again. I was just too good at it to think about stopping, even if there was another way. There wasn’t and I had a gift, right?

Looking back, I realize that selling dope was a band-aid over much deeper wounds—mental health issues, past experiences, and a lifetime of feeling invisible. But at the time, I thought it was the best way to stay relevant, to matter, and to have people around me, even if their loyalty was just as fleeting as the drugs they used.

What was left for me if I stopped dealing drugs? If I stopped, it meant losing the one thing that made me feel like I belonged. For a long time period, selling drugs was my entire identity. It’s what made my “brand.” I was the go-to person, the fixer, the provider. Whether it was in the streets or inside the jail, people needed me, and that was a big deal.

I was well aware that their loyalty was only as deep as their addiction—an addiction I was feeding. I had accepted long ago that my loyalty was my curse, and I would never see it matched, so for that slice of time, I was the most important person in their world. And for someone who had spent so much of my life feeling invisible, that meant everything to me back then.

Looking back, I can see that the emotional attachment to my criminal career and bad girl brand (for lack of a better term) ran deep. It had nothing to do with financial survival; it filled a void I didn’t even realize was capable of being filled, even temporarily. Growing up, my mother, her mullet having “whatevers”, and her mental health issues consumed me and any hopes I had of normalcy.

Not to mention my destructive feelings toward her as a result of her parental abandonment. After going home one day and realizing that everything in my mom’s apartment was gone except my bedroom, it remained untouched. I was fourteen years old. My mom had taken my sister and moved out of state, leaving me to fend for myself. She did eventually come to find me but just to tell me where they were. Two years later, she left the dude and moved back. By then, I had mastered fending for myself, and you already know how.

I decided way back then, after crying myself to sleep for a few days, that I would not be a victim, EVER. As crazy as it sounds, selling drugs eliminated any claims of victimhood for me, and that was important to me. I had no way to support myself otherwise, and I tried. I tried applying for part-time jobs all over my town. I needed my parent’s permission to work.

I didn’t have a parent, so I forged my mother’s signature. It didn’t work. I applied at our local D&D, lied about my age, and actually got the job. Two weeks in, when I still wasn’t able to provide the proper identification, I was warned, and another month after that, I was let go. How I made it to work every day with what I was dealing with was impressive. I remember having to change and clean up in the bathroom every morning.

There were no other options for me if I didn’t want to end up in foster care. I had my high school friends back then, and a few parents had “adopted” me, so I was barely ever left out in the cold, but I did get caught stealing. Once, it was food; another time, shampoo and tampons; and the last was CDs. After that, the criminal justice system ensured that I had NO other options.

When I started selling, it was the first step toward feeling like I had a purpose, even if it was built on illegal substances and fake relationships.
I didn’t see myself as a drug addict, but in truth, I was addicted—to the feeling of being needed, to the validation that came from being the one who had the answers.

I knew that the people around me, outside of my high school friends, didn’t really care about me. I was just a drug user with a good game, but the illusion of connection was powerful. My customers became my “best friends,” my family, and my sense of belonging. The next day, when they showed up again, it felt like proof that I mattered. That cycle—buy, bag, sell, repeat—became my version of emotional stability even though with every sale, they were building more hatred and more resentment for me.

I took that money that they had worked for or committed crimes to get. I took that food out of their kid’s mouths. You wouldn’t believe the guilt I feel on a daily basis about this. It eats me alive. I mean, I wasn’t out doing other horrible things like others I knew. I was committing the unforgivable act of selling drugs, but I wasn’t buying people’s food stamps or taking anything that I knew should be going to kids if I knew they would be going without, but still.

I did help a lot of people, too. I purchased a lot of food, clothes, and even head lice shampoo for my customers’ kids, but that’s nothing compared to what I took, and don’t for a second think that I don’t know that. I guess I still try to rationalize and justify my past behaviors as a direct result of my shame. What can I say? Nothing because, at the end of the day, nothing justifies what I did

Even after leaving the game, the emotional grip remains. I still struggle with an ingrained need to give, buy people things, and show my worth through what I can provide. In many ways, I’m still trying to recreate that old feeling, chasing the ghost of the hustle. Nobody comes to my house and leaves empty-handed. I can’t go into a store without purchasing something for my kids. I spoil the people in my life to make people see how “valuable” I can be. Maybe I do it to convince myself?

When you’ve spent years living as only a dope dealer, constantly surrounded by people who “depended” on you, transitioning to a world where relationships aren’t built on transactions is the hardest thing to adjust to.

The emotional weight of it all is something no one warns you about. The lines that I did cross—they stay with me, and sometimes, I find myself trying to make up for it in ways that aren’t always healthy. I give too much, trying to hold onto friendships, hoping that if I keep giving, they’ll keep wanting me around. But I’ve learned that the feeling I was chasing was never real. The genuine connection doesn’t come from supply and demand—it comes from time, being vulnerable, seeking emotional support when needed, and prioritizing your own care above all else.

Looking back, I realize that my addiction to my hustle was more than just a financial strategy; it was the worst kind of emotional crutch. Walking away wasn’t just about losing income; it was about losing my identity, my coping mechanism, and the illusion of being wanted. Truly, who the fu$k was I without it?! But healing means recognizing that my worth isn’t tied to what I can provide—it’s in who I am, and that has been the most important thing I’ve learned on this journey. I struggle with it every single day, but I’m making progress.

For me, it wasn’t only about stopping a bad habit—it was dismantling the foundation of my identity.

Walking away felt like losing the most important thing in my life. To me, it was the only reason I mattered. For years, the hustle was my survival, purpose, and way of coping with my own life.

The idea of drastically and dramatically walking away was terrifying because it meant facing who I really was without substances when, to be honest, I had no clue who I was or what I was about—I never particularly cared much to know until much later, either.

My hustle came with a price—one that, throughout my pathetic existence, I paid over and over again. At first, it felt like the best thing I had going for me.

Selling illicit drugs gave me financial freedom, status, and a way to feel important. But the deeper I got, the more I realized how much it was actually costing me—my freedom, my own mind, my relationships, and my emotional well-being.

One of the hardest things to live with was the constant paranoia and my tendency to wait for the other shoe to drop. Every day was a balancing act between making money and avoiding corrections and law enforcement. I couldn’t trust anyone, not even my old friends, because, in this game, loyalty was always temporary.

I would be released from jail with the best intentions and thirty days to pay the rent. Words can’t do justice to how hard I tried to become gainfully employed, but it was never in the cards for me. Between days eighteen and twenty-five, I would make that decision, telling myself it would just be one or two flips, just until I found work and I wouldn’t use.

Pshhhhhh… I managed to stay out of jail and buy myself more time, sure, but that usually bought me another future bid as well. Jail was always in the cards for me, whether I was doing what I was supposed to or not. The fear of getting sales wasn’t just a fleeting thought—it consumed every decision I made. One sale to the wrong person could mean years in jail, another felony charge, and another round of losing everything I had built.

Good thing I was always good to people. Well- ‘drug dealer’ good to people. It took the drug task force almost twenty years to get a sale on me, and when they did, it wasn’t even my sale. They just knew it was my dope, so I did the time.

I still run when someone knocks on my door, and I have nothing to hide. Last week, my daughter said there was a car with a light in my driveway. I hopped up, jumped my coffee table, and sprinted to my bedroom, telling baby daddy, “I’m not here!” I FREAK TF OUT. Yeah, well, it was pretty embarrassing when it ended up being Amazon dropping off packages with lights when they reversed. I noticed that even my kids jump up and run with me when there is a knock. I seriously can’t help it. Trauma. Too much trauma surrounding all that for me.

And then there were the relationships I destroyed along the way. I never stole from my family or did grimey stuff. I just wasn’t around. My family members never turned their backs on me, except my sister. She left me to rot for eight years without a word. She had nothing to do with me for the long term. Maybe she saw the damage and the chaos I brought with me everywhere I went, or maybe I just had nothing to offer her when I was locked up.

I had traded any of my genuine relationships from high school for temporary connections with addicted individuals who only saw me as their next fix, making the opposite of me a sickness like no other. Eventually, I was forced to deal with my serious mental health issues, which helped me realize how isolated I had become. Selling drugs didn’t make me feel connected anymore; it left me feeling more alone than ever, and after all my time spent in the hole alone while in jail over the years never looked good on me.

Getting arrested so many times put me in front of judges who saw me as nothing more than a repeat or habitual offender, a statistic in the war on illegal drugs. I became familiar with the inside of an emergency room due to the violence that comes with the territory. I saw physical violence happen over a bad deal, a wrong look, or a misplaced word.

One time, I was dragged by a car when two people I had just started serving weeks before tried to take me. A close friend had vouched for them. My first indicator of intended wrongdoing was when they called me and told me they wanted everything I had when these two could never in a million afford that. I decided to go against my gut and serve them anyway.

I’m an idiot. On top of that, who wouldn’t get suspicious when someone hands them an envelope with a bunch of ones popping out for a drug deal? I was leaning in the driver’s side door, and usually, I would throw his purchase in his lap. When I looked down and saw the ones, I grabbed my dope right back up and braced myself. He assumed he was good and gunned it, and all I could do was keep my grip and try to drop lightly before he accelerated too fast. Yeah, it didn’t work out that way.

When I dropped to the ground, I was dragged, and my elbow, knee, and ankle were run over. That was not the problem, though. I had the worst road rash from my shoulder to my knee. The person I was seeing lived nearby. I made it to their place, and once I laid down, I couldn’t move for more than a week. I was no stranger to road rash as a little sk8er girl growing up, but this road rash was on a whole other level, which is why this incident surpasses the times I was shot at, jumped, Narcan’ed, and sexually assaulted.

I can still feel that road rash, and I remember my inability to move or bend because it would crack open, causing unfathomable pain. The only great part about it was that I not only got my dope, meaning they utterly failed in their attempt to rob me, but somehow I grabbed up their envelope of ones, too. Haha!

Things like this were happening to me all the time, and in a small town with a population between 20-30k, if that, it was always just a matter of time before I ended up in jail again—my own life reduced to a cycle of arrests, probation, and lost opportunities.

The lifestyle also took a toll on my emotional health. The pressure to always have product, to always be available, and to constantly look over my shoulder created a state of anxiety that I numbed with my own product. It was a classic case of self-medicating to dull my mental illness and avoiding the deeper issues I didn’t want to face. I was trapped in an endless loop of selling to survive and using to cope.

Looking back, I see the harsh reality of it all. I wasted much time convincing myself that this was the best way to live when, in reality, I was barely surviving. The money, the so-called respect, and the thrill were all temporary, and the last thing I ever wanted was to admit that I was in way too deep.

The real cost of staying in the game wasn’t just the arrests or the broken relationships; it was never finding myself. Never coming into my own. I had never been at all self-aware, and I had always chalked it up to not giving even a single care about myself. I had no idea what I was actually capable of- the good, the bad, the wicked.

Eventually, I had to face the truth: no amount of money or external validation could compensate for what I had lost. It took hitting rock bottom, losing everyone I loved to overdose, watching my life crumble on repeat for twenty years, and realizing that the next morning, nothing would change unless I made the decision to walk away. And that, I thought, would be the hardest thing I’d ever have to do. As it turns out my ending my drug use was easy compared to ending my livelihood.

The first step was realizing that I wasn’t just hustling drugs; I was hustling myself. The temporary thrill, the daily trips to the city, the fast money, the sense of belonging—they were all illusions that crumbled when the high wore off when the money ran out, and when the people I called my “best friends” disappeared. When I finally started becoming self-aware, I realized that the lifestyle that once felt like freedom had become a prison of addictive behaviors with disastrous consequences, and I knew that if I wanted out, I had to confront the hard truth: I was addicted and not just to the drugs, but to the chaos and validation they brought.

Leaving the hustle meant facing the reality of my mental health issues. For so long, I had used the business of selling drugs to avoid dealing with my emotions. The loneliness, the trauma, and the feelings of inadequacy were masked by the constant movement of the game. Without it, I had to look inward, and that was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Seeking professional support wasn’t easy, but it was the only way I could begin to break free from the cycle that had owned me for so long.

Stepping into a new life required me to redefine my value outside of what I could provide for others. No more buying affection, no more relying on the rush of the streets to feel alive. Instead, I had to find the best way to rebuild my life with integrity. This meant a commitment to keeping an open mind, exploring holistic treatment options, seeking emotional support, and surrounding myself with people who valued me for who I was—not for what I had.

One of the hardest things was figuring out how to replace the rush that came with the hustle. I had to remind myself that moving on didn’t mean giving up my ambition—it just meant finding a better way to utilize and nurture it. Instead of chasing fast money and wrapping slugs for surprise jail trips, I started putting my energy into things that actually mattered. I focused on positivity and self-improvement, dove into entrepreneurship, and found purpose in sharing my past to help others dealing with their own substance abuse problems. It wasn’t and isn’t easy, but slowly, I’m starting to realize that my drive wasn’t the problem—it was just pointed in the wrong direction.

Healing and rebuilding take time. For someone used to instant gratification and quick payoffs, learning patience was a challenge. There were days I wanted to give up, to go back to the only life I knew, but I had to remind myself why I started. Every next morning brought a chance to do better, to make a different choice, and to prove to myself that I was more than my past.

My kids gave me a purpose I had never known before. I never wanted kids because I was too messed up, and I had no interest in being a mom. I also believed I didn’t have a maternal bone in my body. Then, I found myself pregnant at the age of thirty-five. I stopped using the day I found out I was pregnant, and my kids made the rest easy.

The journey of breaking free isn’t just about walking away from the lifestyle—it’s about rebuilding from the inside out. It’s about learning that I don’t need to buy my way into people’s lives and that I am enough just as I am. It’s about reclaiming my power in a way that aligns with the right thing, not the easy thing.

Leaving the hustle behind was the most important thing I ever did next to having my kids and being the best mom I can be, and though it’s a journey I’m still navigating, I know now that the life I’m building is worth more than any quick fix or fast cash ever could be. I still have alot of issues surrounding shame, regret, and guilt, but those issues get better by the day. You’ll see.

It’s very clear that I wasn’t just addicted to drugs—I was addicted to the hustle, the fast money, and the illusion of power it gave me. For the long term, it felt like the best thing I had going for me which says something. But in reality, it was costing me everything—my freedom, homes, cars, property, relationships, and my own mind. Not to mention the many brushes with serious injury or even death, and there were quite a few. The hustle was a trap disguised as opportunity, and breaking free from it has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I have twenty years of failures/lessons to prove it.

Today, I am a professional coach. I have two beautiful children. I own a home with a valuation of 350k. I am a crypto-enthusiast and investor (Self-taught), I have a freaking stock portfolio. I am the CEO/Founder of my blog, Progressing Not Perfecting, and somehow, I became someone who genuinely loves life no matter what it throws at me. I was always the one that would turn up dead next. You have no idea what a miracle I have become. Like I always say, if you believe, you receive. You’d do good to remember this.

For anyone out there caught up in the game, I want you to know that there is another way. The lifestyle might seem like the only thing keeping you afloat, but I promise you, it’s not. There are treatment options, support services, and people who genuinely want to see you win—without the need for illegal drugs, deception, shame, regret, or self-destruction. The first step is the scariest, but it’s also the most important thing you can do for yourself.

Leaving behind the world of drug dealing doesn’t mean giving up on success; it means redefining it. It’s about learning how to deal with stressful situations without allowing them to trigger you, about finding real fulfillment beyond the rush of your hustle. It’s about addressing your mental health issues because we all have them, building healthy relationships because they do exist, and believing that you’re capable of more than what the streets have led you to believe because you absolutely are.

If my story resonates with you, this is the sign you’ve been looking for. A sign that change is possible. Whether you’re a young person just starting out or someone who’s been in the game for a great deal of time, know that it’s never too late to make a different choice. Seek professional support, lean on family members, and most importantly, believe in yourself—even if it feels impossible.

For me, every day is a reminder that I don’t need to buy people’s love or attention, that I don’t need to hustle to feel valuable, and that the real work is finding that value within myself. Though it’s a journey filled with ups and downs, it’s been the best way to reclaim my life.

If you’re struggling with a substance abuse problem, involved in illegal substances, or just feel like you’re stuck in a cycle you can’t escape, know that there is help available. Reach out for emotional support, explore your next step, and don’t let your past experiences define your future.

The right thing isn’t always easy, but it’s always worth it.

If this post resonated with you or you would like to add or share something, please do so in the comments below. You know I love to hear from you. You could also support my work by liking, sharing, commenting, subscribing, following, and registering to join our free-of-charge, supportive, all-inclusive, judgment-free, meet-you-where-your-at online community where teachers learn. Learners teach all while working together to #provethemallwrong and #showthemwhatwecando.

In our support forums, you can give or receive support all on the same day. This community is for all of us who are more progressors, less perfectors. Addiction is not a prerequisite. All are welcome. This is a new, growing community, so please be patient. If there are any issues, please contact me at [email protected].