When Brienne Joelle began attending a new mommies group, she was simply an overstressed mother who was trying to keep up with all the other "supermoms" around her. But when a fellow mommy took her aside one day and made an incredible proposition, Brienne could not believe her ears. "We all do it," said the mommy who had just offered Brienne cocaine.In her poignant and honest memoir, Brienne shares the story of her real-life journey through the pressures of parenthood and into the darkness of drug addiction, the shame and guilt of divorce, and eventual rehabilitation. As she accepts the gift of cocaine with the hope she will gain energy to propel her through the hectic days, Brienne narrates how she soon found herself on a painful roller coaster ride that took her from the depths of hell to a new path where she learned to embrace her imperfections, build her self-esteem, and heal her emotional wounds.Cupcakes and Cocaine is the story of a girl who tried too hard and used too much to have too much; but, by losing it all, she found herself-and became the woman she was destined to be.

Cupcakes and Cocaine

From Being Perfect to Being RealBy Brienne Joelle

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Brienne Joelle
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-8623-7

Contents

Acknowledgments....................................ixPreface............................................xi1. Start of the Race...............................12. The Big Bang Theory.............................173. One Giant Enchilada, Please.....................264. Major Learning Curve............................435. Soul Trip.......................................566. Mental Marathon Training........................617. Calling the Universe............................718. Out of the Psychic Closet.......................1029. Call to Duty....................................118

Chapter One

Start of the Race

One Foot in Front of the Other

Some call life the "grand illusion." I wouldn't say I agree with that description, but life can become an illusion. By that I mean, if we are not careful, what we imagine is important can become more important—more real to us—than what is real. And make no mistake: What is real is what matters—all that matters. If what is real no longer matters to you, it's time to make some significant changes in your life. Using things to make what you feel you can't change more acceptable to you is never an answer. It's an excuse. A way out. A cop-out.

Sometimes, the only way out is the way through; no matter how much or how hard you try to convince yourself otherwise, anything else is an escape. And escaping is just an excuse. When you go through, instead of going around or hiding, you cannot escape or make excuses. The only way through is by living—every day, putting one foot in front of the other, no matter how hard it might be.

Just as we each find a different way out or around, we each find a different way through, a different way to put one foot in front of the other. This morning I was hypnotized; tomorrow I am meeting a group of psychics at a truck-stop diner; currently I sit here debating whether I should meditate.

Who is this woman? you may be asking yourself.

There is no quick answer to that question, for me or anyone else. But you're reading this book, and I wrote it, so I'll try to give you a quick, simple answer. Know that the book itself is the complete answer, and I hope you'll read it cover to cover not only in order to find out my answer to who I am, but also as a step toward discovering your own answer to who you are. That answer is all that matters—for any of us.

For the quick answer I promised, here goes. Yes, I am a completely normal person who has not gone over the edge. I have not plunged into the New Age by means of yoga, mystical crystals, or anything else. Believe me: I never thought I would find spirituality in the same place where I had to pee in a cup. (Hmmm—more about that later.) I am a woman who got so caught up in the whirlwind that life can be today that I lost my bearings—lost my way—and turned to something I thought would be the answer to my struggle, but that never can be the answer to anyone's struggle: cocaine.

That was the quick answer. Before you read further to find the complete answer (remember, I said the complete answer was the whole book), I know that the quick answer needs a bit of an expansion. Let me back up for a minute so I can explain to you just how bad things were for me when I was a cupcakes-and-cocaine mommy—and some of the reasons why I got to that point in the first place.

The first important thing to understand is that, even though things were out of control, I was somehow able to keep everything together, at least outwardly. On the inside, I was falling apart—feeling the person I was shatter into a million pieces that swirled around me, as life spun increasingly into a tailspin. Yet, on the outside, everything "looked" fine; to onlookers, even people who really "knew" me, I projected a good outer appearance. A fabulous one, in fact, if I may say so. My country-club family—handsome husband, attractive wife (again, if I may say so), and beautiful boy-and-girl twins—seemed perfect. What I realize now is that I never should have taken the precious gift of family for granted; but I did, and I have to live with that.

This book is not a self-pity party; it is not a classic, formulaic fairytale of a girl who had it all—family, money, great shoes, and everything she ever wanted. This is also not a story of a girl who had everything but was still not happy—boo-hoo for poor little Holly Homemaker. This book is not any of those things. Instead, it is a real-life story of a girl who did have it all but who felt like she couldn't handle what it took to keep it all—the incredibly hard work and constant stress of maintaining the "perfect" family, combined with the never-ending anxiety of keeping up with all the "perfect" supermoms around her—while struggling to appear fabulous on the outside. When I said I had lost my way, I meant I had lost sight of who I really was and what really mattered; I felt like I was running on a treadmill inside a tornado, and no matter how fast I ran, I could not keep up—and all the while, life was spinning faster and faster. Go faster, try harder, look better—all at the same time—is just too much for anyone to accomplish.

Instead of saying to myself, This is insane, just stop it, I decided the answer was to call in reinforcements. Get a little outside help to do what I needed to do in order to go faster, try harder, and look better. Enter: cocaine.

So, in essence, this is the story of a girl who tried too hard and used too much to have too much; but, by losing it all, she found herself—and became the woman she was destined to be.

Let us not look backward in anger, or forward in fear, but around in awareness. —James Thurber

I'm Going as Fast as I Can!

Awareness does not happen when you're trapped in an illusion—or when you're living each day at a hundred miles an hour but feeling like you're at a dead stop. You long to scream, "I'm going as fast as I can!" But you don't. You can't scream, and you can't stop, because no one will listen and no one will care.

When life has become a competition, you automatically feel alone—it is you against the world, with no one to cheer for you and no one to care. Only you care, because you want to win. It isn't until you realize that we each are winners—and losers—at one time or another that you can feel okay if you don't "win."

Part of getting to that place means acknowledging that anything that anyone feels at any moment in time has been felt by at least one other person at some point in time. There is nothing new under the sun; yet, simultaneously, life is filled with infinite possibilities and choices. This very dichotomy is exactly what makes life amazing and beautiful and scary and unpredictable. Because of that, it is also what helps us recognize that we are never alone—not really. There is always something—or someone—to reach out to that will let us know we each and all are part of life and the universe.

At the end of the day, all we can do is live—as best we can. Some days will just be better than others, and some days, we'll just be better than we are on other days. And some days, putting one foot in front of the other is all we can do. On those days, maybe we do need to say out loud: "I'm going as fast as I can!" It doesn't matter if anyone else hears or cares, but it does matter that we do. If we don't care for ourselves, no matter who else does care for us, it will never be enough.

Contemporary affluent America says that women can do it all and have it all—and it's just that easy. I guarantee I am not alone in feeling that not just "keeping up" but also "maintaining" is extremely hard to do. I know this, because, while attending my groups of wine club, book club, French club, baby French club, and baby gym, I could sense the tension in the air. It wasn't until I joined a new-mommy play-date group that I was offered cocaine for the first time. Yes, you heard me correctly: I was offered cocaine in a new-mommies group.

So it was not outrageous that I thought I had found "the answer." Obviously, a lot of other women just like me thought they had found it, too. Until that fateful moment, I had always wondered how these women could keep up their homes, cart kids around to every extracurricular activity you could think of, meet for tennis matches, travel, maintain salon hairdos, look Photoshop perfect—and still find time to deliver fantastic homemade cupcakes to every single elaborate play date.

I would soon come to find out how all this was possible. Translation: It was achievable because these mommies were high on cocaine.

But I digress; back to how it actually started for me. One day at my new-mommies group, as I was striking up a conversation about how we all needed more hours in the day, a fellow new mommy took me aside to make an incredible offer. When I say "incredible," I mean it in the truest sense of the word. I literally could not believe what she said to me.

"Brienne, I'm telling you, this is the answer to your prayers. We all do it."

I listened in utter shock and disbelief as I watched her take a makeup pouch out of her diaper bag and rummage around until she produced a tiny plastic bag of white powder. I knew instantly what it was. I was speechless, but I kept thinking, So that's how they all do it—the running around, the perfect homes, the perfect hair, the perfect kids ... the fantastic cupcakes.

"Brienne?"

I mumbled something utterly forgettable in response; I can't remember exactly what it was. It might have just been, "Hmmm?"

"Before you decide you don't want to, just try it. You won't believe how fantastic it is! What else do you know of that can take away stress and give you energy? It isn't like you're going to become a drug addict, for goodness sake! It just helps ..."

Her voice trailed off. I can't tell you for sure if she said something else that I just don't remember or if she stopped talking. What I can tell you is that, in my mind, I was hooked on the possibility before I even got hooked on cocaine. What else could offer relief from stress and increase energy? Nothing I had ever heard of. What overscheduled mom wouldn't be interested in the miracle she offered? I thought. If there were any, I didn't know them—and I wasn't one of them. It sounded fantastic to me as I watched her eyes glitter over the little baggie she proffered. Fantastic. Just like all those cupcakes were. Just like I was going to be.

Okay. I've already admitted to using it and becoming addicted. In case you're wondering, "How did that just happen?" let's just cut right to the chase: I was not exactly what could be called an angel in the illegal-substance department during my college years. I am not making excuses for what I did then or what I did as an overwhelmed new mommy. However, the difference between college and mommies groups is that drinking and drugging between tests and finals is one thing; drinking and drugging between diaper changes is another. Quite another.

Yet, as that baggie filled with powdery snow was offered to me, all that it promised was too hard to resist. This was a very surreal moment as I teetered on the fine line between reality and insanity. The reality was that I needed a boost that would also help me learn to de-stress over time, and this sounded like a harmless little jump-start/soothe combo. The insanity was twofold: first, that handing out cocaine in a new-mommies group had somehow become an acceptable notion and commonplace occurrence; and second, that I was so overwhelmed, I thought it sounded like a good and reasonable idea.

Part of the reason I felt it was reasonable was that I realized I was not alone in feeling overwhelmed by the quest to put on the perfect exterior. We were a group of women who not only put ourselves aside for every call of duty but who had also lost ourselves in the shuffle. If only more of us—maybe even just one of us—had stood up in that group and honestly said, "Is anyone else as exhausted as I am? What are we doing? And why?"

But no one did, including me. It's so much easier to think that something or someone—or anything or anyone—can do it for us. Then we can keep up, look great, impress, and have fun ... and that is much more appealing than facing our fears, taking care of ourselves, and really and truly growing up. It seems that way at the start, anyway.

Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing. —Harriet Braiker

Sugar-Coated Goodness

I kept looking at the baggie in her hand. It felt like I had been looking at it for a long time, but I couldn't have been, because she didn't say anything else. She didn't need to. I wouldn't have heard anything she said at that point. I didn't really see her anymore, either. I didn't see anything but that bag. Actually, that's not completely accurate. What I saw was the promise that the bag held. The promise of the endless energy it would deliver. The countless fantastic cupcakes I would create. The promise that it would help me escape to a place where I would have peace.

No human being has or can sustain an endless amount of energy, but we each have the potential for an amazing amount of energy, in spite of our needing rest and nutrition and nurturing to restore ourselves. Beyond that, peace is not found in a place you escape to; peace is found in your heart, and only you can cultivate it there.

But I had to find these things out the hard way.

The white powder looked so pristine and perfect in the baggie, like a first snowfall or confectioner's sugar on delicate pastries. The kind I'd be using soon for my to-die-for cupcakes.

Then, just as the image crystallized in my mind, it evaporated. Every thought and judgment left my mind. All I could think about was how much energy I would have to tackle the myriad activities that I needed to accomplish in the course of my insanely jam-packed day. Fantastic cupcakes were the least of it.

Let me back up again for a minute to explain what it is like to be a first-time mommy with twins. If there is one thing that's true about twins, it's that they have an inordinate amount of energy. Once they reach toddlerhood, that energy transforms itself into one thing: speed. Mathematically, twins might equal two toddlers, but to their mommy, it can feel like taking care of four, or even six, little ones. Inevitably, the moment you catch one and get situated, the other streaks past, and upon capture, you are sure to discover that the first one is now gone, and so on.

Suffice it to say that I always felt like the ringleader of a miniature circus. But, if my energy—and thereby, speed—could match my kids' ... well, that would be a different story. I would be able to manage the house and all my outside clubs and activities, take care of the twins, prepare fabulous meals—and don't forget the cupcakes!—and look gorgeous, with not so much as a hair out of place, when my husband came home from work.

Hmmm, I thought. The baggie and its magical promise, or an endless stream of exhausting days, one after the other, with no end in sight. Kind of a no-brainer. Let me just add that, at the time, my son was enduring an excessive number of appointments in an attempt to get him caught up with other kids in his age group (about 2 years old): occupational therapist, speech therapist, physical therapist, feeding group, and sign-language instructor. Although some people consider premature babies to be cute and tiny, what they fail to comprehend are the repercussions of being born too soon. My twins were born very prematurely and remained in the hospital until each one was stable enough to come home. From the very start of this journey, I had stress up to my eyeballs and felt like I was having an anxiety attack every day. Couple that feeling with an over-the-top lactation nurse—worse than any nun in my Catholic high school—who made me feel like a failure, and I was brewing up a major disaster. Why did she make me feel like a failure? This nurse told me that breastfeeding them at the same time was simple, and she just couldn't understand what my problem was. Well, managing a breastfeeding pose called the "double football hold" with two squirming babies is an urban legend not unlike perfectly folding a fitted sheet. It cannot be done.

Needless to say, all the appointments for my son were worth it, because he is now developmentally caught up with everyone else. As I would discover later, some things that were thought to be wrong with him were actually early signs that he was more on track than I ever could have imagined at the time. It's one of those things I look back on now that make me realize how far I had my head up my rear.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Cupcakes and Cocaineby Brienne Joelle Copyright © 2011 by Brienne Joelle. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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