This Lifestyle Is Addictive - Kerri Interview

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:15]All good for you today.

[00:00:19]>> Hello, man.

[00:00:21]>> Hello. How are you?

[00:00:22]>> I'm doing great.

[00:00:24]>> I'm Cherry. My phone is >> What's your name?

[00:00:28]>> My name is Cherry. K E R R I. But most people call me Care Bear cuz I want to help people to my own detriment.

[00:00:34]>> Okay. Okay. How old are you, Karen?

[00:00:36]>> I just turned 44 in March.

[00:00:40]>> March. And >> March what?

[00:00:42]>> 23rd.

[00:00:43]>> 23rd. Okay.

[00:00:44]>> 7th to 10th. And um just turned 15. Just got it back in my life. I was out here on this street for 3 and 1/2 years when I relapsed in the pandemic coming up with two years sober in October. So, it's just explaining to him how it feels to go from living on a sidewalk, sticking needles in my neck, asking a police officer if I'm a missing person yet, cuz my family hadn't heard from me in 9 months, and nobody stopped to report me missing.

[00:01:14]And I'll never let myself forget that.

[00:01:17]So, I come down, I volunteer for point, I check on my friends and try to get them the opportunity that I had. I had a vicious, vicious habit. There's scars all over my body from it.

[00:01:30]This is all from the disease of addiction.

[00:01:34]When I first started using it was the year 2000. I was like 18 and it was real heroin. You could you could muscle out a detox at home in 3 days. You were safe.

[00:01:44]And they would have hit the anybody in the neighborhood even the people selling the drugs would have beat the hell out of me if you were up here using. We had to hide under the bridge.

[00:01:55]down the street where we got high and um I had 7 years sober when I came back. I came back to tran and car fent and fentanyl and people's limbs melting off and people just sitting there right in front of little police officers in the thing and kids walking by.

[00:02:11]They're just going kids and turning around watching kids step over needles and [ __ ] >> What year was that?

[00:02:18]>> That was 2020 during the pandemic. I lost my mom, lost my older son, and I couldn't handle it. And I'm >> so sorry. Sorry.

[00:02:27]>> Well, you know what? I The way I feel about it is so many people say, "Why me?" Nobody stops to think, "Why not me?

[00:02:35]What makes me so special? That I shouldn't feel tragedy relations. Maybe me because the universe gives it toughest battles to its strongest soldiers. Maybe me because I could take it and Mexico couldn't. And what do you mean is there was somebody that I was supposed to interact with that was going to go and change the world.

[00:02:56]I said I sent 12 people to the same place that you talk to me.

[00:03:04]That's the time sleep at night. I had to take recording of that on my phone when I first got my housing. It's like almost 3 years ago, two years ago. And I literally had to have that in the background. me cuz I couldn't sleep without it.

[00:03:18]>> Guy in this hoodie right there who doesn't want to be on camera, he was one of two people that stood inside of me so I could sleep safely.

[00:03:26]Um, being out here, I I tell you, I was a I was a vicious dope demon, crack critter, death monster, alcoholic animal.

[00:03:34]And like I know that if I touch it, if I spend one of the dollars on all the dollars, my soul, my life, the the relationship I have with my kid again, my other family members that are back in my life, being able to look in the mirror and actually look in the mirror and not be so broken and decisive with what I see that I can't that I can't look my own reflection in the eyes.

[00:04:00]today I can I can look in the mirror because it doesn't matter what happened those actions out here and and how far I fell. A lot of people when they try to get better and they try to leave this this situation, they they live in the past, they they they replay the worst moments out here, like being on the street and having a trick for for money and getting in cars with strangers and never knowing am I am I going to die this time? And it's a matter of when, especially if you're a female and you're out here and that's your way to make money, which is one of the ways I made money. Uh, it's a matter of when and not it for sexual assault.

[00:04:46]>> So, you know, you you already know that this is coming and you start to get to the point where you can tell when they look at you, okay, if I come and I I humanize myself to this man and I just give money once, I will be let go. were the two times that somebody tried and I looked in their eyes and I knew if I didn't get away right then I wasn't coming home. That's how I broke and dislocated my thumb.

[00:05:14]>> You get away with your thumb.

[00:05:15]>> I broke and dislodated my thumb.

[00:05:18]Uh a guy in a old minivan. He was um Asian.

[00:05:25]He looked down me. I he was 6'4. I I swear to God. and he pulled up to me at eerie tourist. I wasn't even trying to get eight pounds. I went to um the Texas road chicken. Somebody gave me five bucks so I could eat and I would eat there every day because they give you three big pieces of chicken and a biscuit for five bucks. So that's where I was headed. He pulled over and it's just one night he grabbed me and tried to put me in the car. Um, thank God for doing like uh martial arts when I was younger in MMA, was 13 years. And even at my age, my body, his muscle memory kicked in. I tried to put him like in an arm bar, but this man, I mean, seriously, look at me. He's huge. I looked at his eyes and I'm like, "Okay, I won't get away if I don't get away right now." And um I just hit a pressure point and I I snapped his wrist, my thumb, dislocated it um and broke it.

[00:06:19]went to the hospital and he said that um that that is an an elective surgery like [ __ ] I didn't elect to have that man try to take me in the car and kill me but here we are like I'm going to pay 5,000 so I got my freaking love but it's okay I got my life >> how does it feel >> and they found that man he was wondering for seven sexual assaults here so it feels good >> to know that see that's why me that's why me >> when I got into the house >> um when I got locked in a basement for for a little over two weeks. And the first person that we I met down there that was locked in the basement with me >> was a 14-year-old girl. And that's why I'm here.

[00:06:56]>> Oh my god.

[00:06:57]>> So I I I'm singing to her and I hold her >> and I told them I said, "Listen, she's a child. If you're going to traffic us, you want her to be able to do what what they want. You want her to be docile.

[00:07:06]Let her just watch me for a while so she can learn cuz right now all she's going to do is freak out and be a problem." So I >> That's what y'all called it. Trap.

[00:07:13]>> Trap. We were locked in our basement. So we were trapped. But trapping is like selling drugs, which I did as well.

[00:07:19]>> Okay.

[00:07:19]>> I mean, I came for Box Town. You I'm down here.

[00:07:22]>> And what kills me is the disease of addiction and and and the mental health thing go hand in hand. It's a huge problem. And and right now, all all they're doing is putting people to jail, hospitals, and sending them right back out. It's like that. But we don't come back out anymore because the training is bent. You don't go to rehab, detox, get a oil change, come back out. you come back out and you use the tiniest thing you die. Like you have a habit and this thing that you are viciously addicted to. You do the tiniest thing you are sick as [ __ ] but you overdose and you do it again and 2 hours later you're sick as [ __ ] again. Have to do it again.

[00:08:02]I I it's here's the thing. Yes, addiction is disease. But when you have a long time sober and you go and you pick up that first one, that is a choice. That is a decision that you made. That is not the disease of addiction.

[00:08:16]Every bag after that no longer a choice because once you introduce that chemical into your body, your body reaction, you are no longer the ghost driving suit like operating your brain. The disease addiction is operating your brain. Your brain is actually physiologically changed.

[00:08:35]Now your body is constantly in fight or play because you are down here. You lost everything. You are in hypervigilance.

[00:08:41]You have to look around constantly. Your body can never ever relax and you're you're literally getting something. You're like, I know I'm going to go over to stand with me holding our camera. I I'm sick and it's every 2 hours. When it was like the real heroin in the late 90s and early 2000s, you were well for 8 hours and you could like actually get away with being a functional addict for a while, but then it didn't it didn't melt your limbs off.

[00:09:07]It didn't make you do [ __ ] And and now like when when I got sober, I got sicker than I ever in my life and I couldn't get into a detox. I tried for a year and a half because of going to cardiac arrest at one and going in cardiac arrest together. So I was a liability.

[00:09:23]I'm >> okay. That's the person that literally kept me safe when I slept. I we slept on the ramp at K& >> and everybody that we were with is either dead.

[00:09:36]There's only a couple like >> on a ramp up there.

[00:09:41]>> Right. It's like right here at the Alagany station and um >> Yeah, that's what I meant though. Like up up here.

[00:09:47]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:09:49]>> I mean, >> what made y'all want to sleep up there?

[00:09:51]>> Oh, well, we didn't sleep there. It's like under it.

[00:09:53]>> Oh, under it.

[00:09:54]>> Cuz if it started to rain, we're okay.

[00:09:56]That ramp is next to that little police station, but it's also next to the L.

[00:10:00]It's a place where All right, we're there's stuff around us cuz uh I don't want to get robbed, but like you're looking around. see you. They're looking around like you and me. Like it I I would never present as autistic when I'm on the spectrum and like they everybody literally just keep handing me this [ __ ] like you're career. You watch this stuff. You're I go do what we do. I just sit there like 19 people stuff because they knew I was like one of the only people that wasn't going to touch it.

[00:10:27]And you know Joe is [ __ ] But like it floors me because when I got sober it's like I have no problem being down here in a boxers a white theater. overall flip-flops with $200 at 3:00 in the morning going, I need some [ __ ] But I'm petrified to pick up a phone and make a doctor's appointment at a new doctor's office where I don't know anybody. Like petrified like asking my my neighbors or my friends, can you call and make the appointment for me? Like that's that's how horrific. Like that's not normal. Normal people can have a phone and not be like in frozen in your anxiety.

[00:11:06]Like, but I recognize it now. And I I only recognize it because of the work that I had to do. Like, you can get sober, but the most people when they get sober, they they just stop the the drug and they think that that's that they're better. But that drug caused so many behaviors and this lifestyle, as sick as it is, is as addictive as the drug.

[00:11:31]knowing that I could come down here dressed like a like a stummer set version of a brat style, make some money, and be home in an hour with $200.

[00:11:42]It's really hard not to think about that when you first get sober and you're looking for a job and they're telling you they're going to pay you $9 an hour and you're like, "Okay, no, I ain't no idea." But guess what?

[00:11:55]You have to change that behavior. You have to recognize because back then it's like, "All right, I'm reliving all my trauma so I can justify sticking that needle on my neck and I'm making you live too so I can say soon if that happened to you, you wouldn't be you'd be doing the same thing as me."

[00:12:12]No, I think people are way more stronger than me when they were younger. able to believe or something like that and like we're talking about like a spiritual awakening and we saw that program you knew that like it's not like this if you have one and what it was is passing the mirror in the bathroom at like 2:30 in the morning and I didn't recognize myself I thought somebody was in there and like it just hit me you don't stick in your neck because somebody touched you as a kid and because you have trauma and because you're on the spectrum and because you have mental health issues you do it because you you want you want to do it and because it makes you numb so you don't have to feel because you can't regulate emotions and feel those feelings cuz you might have to take some real accountability for why you are where you are. And I realized that I did it to myself. Nobody held me down a second my neck. And I purposely made other people go through all that trauma with me telling me that to justify it.

[00:13:02]And I realized I wasn't like a nice person. Like I was selfish. So seeking self-sentered, arrogant, ignorant. And even when I did nice things, it wasn't to be nice. It was to look at me doing nice things.

[00:13:11]>> Are you still using?

[00:13:12]>> No. Two coming up in October. 2 years.

[00:13:15]>> Are you on suboxin or anything?

[00:13:16]>> I suffocate now.

[00:13:18]>> Okay.

[00:13:18]>> Um it like I don't like it. It gives you bumps like this like me because I'm a ginger and I'm pale skin. But I will tell you I have no creams. I have no side effects. Um and it made it sort of that hard because like what keeps 1 to 5 years. So your body is going to take 5 years to get out of system. You're going to have night swe.

[00:13:43]You're going to have like and like we forget the horrific part of being down here when we get sober. It's like we only remember like, oh, I'm going to get the battle and feel [ __ ] phenomenal in 2 seconds. Why am I let myself be sick? But we don't remember being a sitting bag and being drugged in the alley. We don't remember having everything. We don't remember having a gun put to our head and everything taken and then having to give the person you're selling drugs for like $400 and like literally hopping in and out of cars and like letting people do [ __ ] you would never let anybody do to you to make sure you don't die. But here's the thing now when I do nice things and I come to prevention point to get nan for the the people in my neighborhood because my neighborhood has a mini Kensington but you don't see it. and trap houses and you don't realize that these people are like that and they won't put outreach up there because the neighbors didn't want to see you know line people in a van getting toys and stuff but I was tired of seeing people they literally threw a girl in the alleyway like so I went to them like hey listen you know me I used to be hiring you want to blow up your spot you want to have cops here if you got dead [ __ ] in the alley take 30 seconds learn how to use this narcan I'll bring you 150 every month for free we do that and they And so I got all the houses. I come down here and I'll never let myself forget what it was like to be laying right here. Weigh 92 lbs. I weigh 162 lbs now and I'm still not at the weight ever. And to literally be living off of a honey bun and one day soda and only breathing on a chance I might be able to bump into my son by accident one day. Look at his eyes and you'll hear me say was enough. He's always enough. Because these kids think that something's wrong with that. Like if I was if I wasn't there, I was if I was wrong with me that that like my mom left me cuz she's my mom. Like mom might as well do that. So I needed I literally just would not end my life cuz you like I told myself if he's breathing and I'm breathing there's a chance. And today, like I have my son in my life tells me everything. Stuff I don't want to know.

[00:15:59]But like having your most ferant, deepest prayer answered is the most humbling thing in the world. And I'll never let myself forget what it was like to be that person right there on the ground.

[00:16:12]To wake up and scream at a paramedic for giving me an arcan. Like why the [ __ ] would you wake me up?

[00:16:19]to have a Sharpie and literally on my chest right here, I would write DNR and my name, my social security, so that if I wouldn't bring me back, but they do anyway. You can't do that to somebody and I would scream at these people for saving my life.

[00:16:35]>> So, every time I come down, I go to prevention point and I go to the shelter that I used to be in and I got my housing. I've just checked here like my friend just walked by to see if anybody wants to get better cuz I had people at Penny Hospital that would Uber you there. The addictions medical doctor will be waiting. They will detox you.

[00:16:53]They will help you with medical [ __ ] They paid for a recovery house for me.

[00:16:58]They had a grant given to them. So they they are coming up with a new standard of treatment because when these people go into a detox or rehab, these rehabs don't know how to handle train. Nobody knows how to handle these new trends.

[00:17:12]Literally heroin went extinct. People are would like having limbs melting off, dying at this detox. They're dying from this when you really can only die from alcohol and benzo. No, they're dying from trying control.

[00:17:28]And I just want the few people out here, if you want a chance, I'll give you a chance. Doesn't matter. Somebody says, "I want to get clean, can I come set your house?" I will always give them that chance. The minute they prove to you that's not what they want, they're out. It might be the one time that they get better. If I went a bunch of times just to have somewhere to stay and if people said, "Hey, that one time I got better.

[00:17:52]I didn't where they didn't take me."

[00:17:56]>> So, I tried to grab somebody and and give them opportunities I was given. And um these people let me in because I was part of them and one of them And that's how that's how it would be better to get people out of here is when people come down here that have never been had never suffered with that and they're like, "Oh, we'll get you help. Come to the church." Like, man, my body will literally tear me apart. They're like, "I want to be in the church, but I that's not how I detox." So, when somebody comes down that they literally would lay on the sidewalk and go, "Come on." I I I know the way out. I got the flashlight. Let's go.

[00:18:43]You know what I mean? Being in that darkness and having no idea how to get out and having somebody be like, "I got the light and I know the way." Well, now I know the way and I got the light. So, I come down and I try to get people out.

[00:18:54]>> Where do you see yourself in the next 6 months?

[00:18:56]>> In the next 6 months, um I see myself finally getting uh my dentures replaced.

[00:19:02]to have my teeth knocked out um in a domestic violence incident. And once that's done, I can look good. Normally, you may get get better jobs that um my son's back in my life. Uh and I see myself starting school again. Uh getting my certification for CRS certified recovery specialist and I have biology and a psychology. So, I want to go Sorry. So, I have an associate from uh Uptown Community College for psychology and one for biology, but um I want to go back and go to school so that I am certified to work with people. I want to work with adolescence.

[00:19:47]>> I'd like to thank you for your time.

[00:19:48]>> Thank you so much, >> Carrie. It's been wonderful speaking to you.

[00:19:52]>> Wonderful speaking to you as well. I appreciate you stopping.

[00:19:55]>> I make these videos for educational purposes only. My name's USA Fox.

[00:19:59]>> God bless you. God bless you, too. I'm glad that like I was able to talk to somebody cuz I did an interview with somebody else when I was hella hella hella broken. And if you pull a clip from that and a clip now and you show a side by side, it's from um FML Films.

[00:20:15]>> All right, I'm going to grab >> You can pull a clip from there to a screenshot of what I look like then and what I do now.

[00:20:22]>> And people do get better. You can get out, >> right?

[00:20:25]>> You can get out.

[00:20:26]>> All right, Carrie. God bless you.

[00:20:27]>> Thank you. God bless you.