I was there on the edge of that Crack Epidemic.

I was an addiction counselor in a long-term treatment facility for women. Nearly all of our “clients” were crack addicts at the beginning and toward the end the heroin addicts had started to trickle in as well. Of course, there were a hand full of “Speedball” addicts. Speedballing was shooting up a mix of coke and heroin.

Nobody came to our facility out of choice. When I say long-term, I’m talking nine months minimum. The majority of our clients were there for one of two reasons, either loss of parental rights or us, or long prison term or us. We also held two beds open for witness protection service folks (the gangs controlled the bulk of the crack business).

We saw the usual types of female crack addicts, those that came to it by “birth and family business,” those who came to it via the gateways of pot, booze and cocaine in other forms and then there were the unusual ones. We worked with a young woman who had a MA in music education and was the head of the music department for a multi high school system. She had been reduced by the drug to selling herself on the streets to cop some crack, staying wherever she could. Her husband had left with the kids, she’d lost her job, her possessions, her reputation and her self-esteem.

When we first met her, we considered her an unusual client. Within a year of meeting her, we started to consider her more of an average client. The crack epidemic was ravaging all comers. It didn’t care who you were or what you were or what you had. Once you tried crack the second or third time . . . it owned your ass.