KENSINGTON BLUES

Krista, 2009.

Audio Transcription:

Krista: I got out, I got,  I been out since July, um…but I was in a recovery house for like 7 months, um, started getting high again just two months ago.

As soon as you start again, your habit’s just as bad as it was before you stopped. You know what I mean? Like, it doesn’t, like, build up again. It, it goes right back to where it was.

I, I know, you know what I’m saying, I know what the right thing to do is. I, I’m not at that point anymore where I’m just like, Oh I’m depressed, I’m a drug addict, you know what I mean? I know right from wrong and I know I can’t let things that happened to me in the past let, decide the way I live my life today. Right now I’m just, right now I’m just fucking up because I don’t care. You know what I mean?  Because I, I’ve been clean, you know what I mean, and I, I know I can do it, and I, I just, I’m not like, I’m not where they’re at right now. They’re, they’re all, like, you know, depressed and shit, and I’m just, you know, I’m just fuckin up right now. You know, I mean, and I, I know I’ll get back to where I need to be, but this is what it, what it is right now.

I’ve been out on the Ave since 2001. Before, when I was 17, I started workin for escort services, and then I came out here in 2001, and I’ve been out here most of the time. I mean, I’ve been in jail a couple times, but most of the time I’ve been out here. But I’ve been doing dope for 16 years. I started doing dope when I was 14.

I was in Delaware County when I, I moved down here when I was like, 17. Cause like, back when I was 14 it was 1992 when Kurt Cobain killed himself, so like back then, it was like, cool to do heroin. You know what I mean? Me and my friend started doing dope, and, you know, it just turned into something different.

JS: What’d it turn into?

Krista: Well back then, I just, you know, I liked the way it made me feel. It made everything go away. It made me feel like everything was okay. You know what I mean? I didn’t care what anybody thought of me, you know what I mean, I didn’t care about anything, and I liked it that way. But it’s not even like that anymore. I don’t even get high anymore. I just get well. And eve…even though I just started, I just came back again, I probably only got high for like the first couple days. And then after 4 days I had a, I had a habit. You know what I mean? And it’s, it’s just this now. You know what I mean? It’s just regular.

I’m trying to get Suboxone right now because my insurance isn’t going to pay for me to go to detox or anything again. So I’m trying to get Suboxone so I can detox myself then go to another recovery house. You know, but it’s hard cause I gotta buy em off the street, you know what I mean, so it’s hard when I got the money to go down there and see if there’s anybody out there that has em, and if, you know, if they don’t then I’m spending the money on, on drugs, you know, and then I gotta start all over again. So. Alright, I gotta go, I don’t want these cops talking to me.

Krista, 2009.