A mum has shared how she blew £375,000 on drugs and alcohol – and how she finally turned her life around after years of chaos.
Ashley Melendez saw her battle with addiction begin in childhood, until it eventually took over her life.
She started drinking as a way to cope with a difficult upbringing and would black out from booze on weekends at just age 11.
As the years went on, her habit spiralled out of control; Ashley consumed three bottles of whisky a day and spent around £750 a week on booze.
But it was her crippling addiction to meth that almost killed her – draining her bank account, destroying her relationships and leaving her a shell of the person she once was.
At her lowest point, the 31-year-old lost her three kids, her home, job and sense of self.
“I can see I was an addict from the start,” she told Need To Know.
“But I just thought I was a kid who did party drugs and drank too much.
“I needed help.
“Since then, I’ve easily spent half a million dollars on drugs.
“I’ve made so much money in my life, and I have nothing to show for it.
“I could have a home and a car, and all the bells and whistles.
“We’re told not to say we threw our life away, but I gave it away to drugs.”
Ashley’s weekend drinking quickly escalated after she entered an on-and-off relationship with a man, where alcohol became a constant part of the couple’s life.
While he eventually grew out of it, she didn’t – going on binges every day after finishing her shift at Starbucks.
Ashley, who is from Hawaii but lives in New York, says she loved the feeling of being drunk and the confidence it gave her.
She said: “I loved alcohol – the taste of it, the escape of it – I loved everything about it.
“I would work from 4.30 am until 2 pm, and by 3 pm I was drunk.
“I would sit at the bar and get so completely wasted that I needed to be carried out at 10 pm.
“I would nap in my car and wake up and go drinking at the beach with people.
“I was going to work, still drunk.
“I thought I could do anything as long as I didn’t do meth.”
By 21, Ashley was drinking daily and doing cocaine whenever she could get her hands on it.
From the outside, she appeared to be functioning, holding down jobs and raising her kids – but inside her life was falling apart.
After several breakups with her partner, she moved to Austin, Texas, in 2018, hoping for a fresh start.
But by the next year, things had taken a darker turn.
Ongoing custody issues meant Ashley’s three children had moved back to Hawaii.
And when the court case stalled due to Covid restrictions and delays, she plunged into a spiral of despair.
The bar where she worked during this time also closed, resulting in her losing her income.
Relying on government payments, Ashley maxed out credit cards and sank further into addiction.
She said, “I couldn’t go forward with the custody case, and that broke my heart.
“I immediately started drinking three bottles of Jameson a day.
“I was spending at least $1,000USD (£750) a week on alcohol.
“I was drinking until I couldn’t drink anymore.
“I was as drunk as I could get.
“Then one night, my partner went out to look for Coke and found meth instead.”
After one hit, Ashley was hooked.
She spent lockdown in her flat, barely leaving her home except to meet dealers.
Ashley says she lost dangerous amounts of weight and began hallucinating, and within months, she was completely dependent on the drug.
She said, “I would do 20 days clean, but then get so exhausted with insane brain fog.
“I couldn’t function.
“For a long time, I was a functioning addict.
“I was crazy – I was having all these psychic visions.
I thought my kids were stuck at the top of a mountain – when I got there, I saw them there.
“I climbed back down and was like, ‘Did I imagine all of that?’
“That started scaring me more.
The experience finally saw Ashley turn a corner and go to rehab, but on the way there, she was arrested.
Having been caught with drugs in the car, she was charged with a Class A felony, received eight years’ probation.
Over the following years, she tried to rebuild her life but relapsed, until 2022, when, while struggling with meth-induced delusions, she moved to New York – hoping for a fresh start.
She said: “I moved to New York to be with my mum; everyone had turned their back on me apart from her.
“I was doing really well with my Narcotics Anonymous meetings – I built up six months of sobriety.
“I made it a year and relapsed because I found out my boyfriend was cheating on me.
“I started drinking again and was getting belligerently drunk for 10 months straight.”
Once again, Ashley spiralled into heavy drug and alcohol use.
The final turning point came earlier this year when her mum threatened to kick her out unless she got help.
Ashley entered rehab on 2 April and has now been clean for six months.
She’s focused on her long-term goals, including studying for a bachelor’s degree in substance abuse counselling, and hopes to use her experience to help others.
She has also rebuilt her relationship with her children, whom she sees regularly.
Ashley, who posts about her journey on her TikTok account, added: “I’m feeling hopeful.
“I’m feeling like, for the first time, I’ve accepted I can’t be in a relationship right now.
“I’ve accepted that was the main reason I would always use it.
“I’m learning to sit alone with myself and love myself, and I’ve learned how to grow my own personality.
“I feel a lot better. I want to do my recovery step work right this time – I don’t want to rush through it.
“It’s still a struggle, but something flipped in me this time where I’ve been able to be real with myself.
“Now I have my eye on the long-term goal.”
READ MORE: ‘I turned 30 and was too embarrassed to date until I tried fat jabs’
