Wasted Time is a fictional depiction of the lives of alcoholics and addicts, from listening to their stories of relapse, recovery, and recidivism. Jemma is a mixed-race woman who struggles to fit in-with anyone or anywhere. She has been running away from her life since she was fifteen. Married by eighteen with two young children, she runs again in order to escape, by using drugs and alcohol, and sex. Jemma is fundamentally unable to see the true path of her life until incarceration abruptly halts that misdirection. A prostitution conviction sentences her to a year in jail, and that is where the chaplain sends Jemma’s life onto a collision course with sobriety and a better future. Jemma encounters many conflicts in her recovery, most importantly, in her personal and professional relationships. Wasted Time is a story of relapse and recovery, running away and reunification, and a future she never imagined for herself.

An Excerpt from wasted time

“We really hit it off. I thought I could count on Nadine, and I knew she could count on me. It was the fresh start for which I had been searching for the last ten years of my life. Because of Nadine’s schoolin’, soon I made new friends whenever I went to buy drugs or more booze for us. After a few weeks, Nadine trusted me enough to introduce me to her pimp, or manager, as I liked to call it. I had already learned the lesson that men were the means to an end, and now, everyone I met was my friend, especially if they had cash to buy drugs. I was always low on cash, so I’d barter for the drugs. Before the end of 1993, I was no longer a newbie in Las Vegas. I was home and had all kinds of new friends. By using my bartering system and having sex for drugs or alcohol, I was making more money than I ever had in Minnesota. I had regular customers who weren’t too creepy. They were actually nice to me and came looking for me whenever they were in town. I still craved my independence, and Nadine’s crew left me alone when I wanted to be left alone and let me hang when I wanted. It was the life. Guilt appeared after about six months of living the life in Vegas. I finally wrote a quick postcard to Momma, excluding a return address, and depicting the Flagstaff area. I didn’t want anyone to come looking for me. Through Momma, I knew I could reach the children. I wanted to reach out to them, mostly. I still wanted to run with the drug crowd and knew Ty would be angry with me. I never thought of how I was hurting the kids, or my parents, or I suppose, even Ty. He had changed his tune and was now siding with my parents—sending me off to treatment. I wasn’t ready to settle down and be the wife he wanted. I hadn’t changed since we met, just he did. Suddenly fulfilling his duties as a father, providing us with a dinky town apartment, food shelf food if we were low on cash, but he wasn’t really providing what I needed and I knew I was hurting him. But in my addict’s mind, by changing to the straight and narrow he hurt me first, right? After the first postcard, I felt more guilt, so I called. I wasn’t consistently in contact, but there were months or weeks with regular contact. Nadine helped me pose for pictures, and we had the film developed at one of those one hour kiosks in Walgreens. I was fairly certain of two things: no one was coming out to get me and no one was coming out to get me. My drug use was becoming more and more risky. Nadine reintroduced me to cocaine. She scored a pretty good sized rock from her last john. Like many other times, I crashed at her place after a night working The Strip.”