ALSimon

I understand almost everything that is said to me, but when it’s my turn to talk, I get all jumbly. It’s like I can let my brain go soft when someone else is speaking and let it go on autopilot, it just makes sense. When I speak, I have to figure out what I want to say, then translate it into sound in my brain (I never really learned how to read or write it very well- I learned on the streets, not in school) and once I get the sounds right, I have to say them out loud. I usually get my point across, but sometimes not very well.
I can’t go abroad right now, but I often work with migrant farmworkers, so I am immersed.
Maybe it’s a confidence thing.

I quit heroin after using daily for over eight years. And no, I didn’t do it through a 12-step group or the church, I just worked really hard at it every day. I still work hard, but it’s so much easier. I’ve gone without for six years now. I started stopping for my son, now I do it for me.
I drink. Not out of control, not too much. I get drunk occasionally, but I drink a little every day. Every day. Maybe a few ciders here or a mixed drink or two (I’m allergic to hops, so no beer), nothing that most would say is “out of control”, but I just don’t want to anymore. I feel like it’s empty calories and a waste of money. The fact that I’m poisoning myself “just a little bit” doesn’t change the fact that I am doing it.
So, I will stop. It may take some time, most things permanent do, but everything in life is a process.
I start stopping alcohol today.

When I graduate next year, I want to go into the Human Development/Human Rights Master’s degree program at Swansea, on the southern shore. I want to be out of the US.