I remembered a comment from Vince McMahon, during a call when I had been discussing domestic issues between Steve and me.
“Jeanie, you are from two different worlds,” observed Vince.
In many ways, Vince was right. Spiritually, culturally and in terms of what we wanted to achieve in life, Steve and I were two very different people.
But what had always kept us together, was our common goofy sense of humour, which Steve had once said was his main attraction towards me. When I think of some of the silly sense of humour and fun we used to share, it still brings warmth to my heart.
However, the greatest from our marriage were the two wonderful daughters he gave me, and I see them as a blessing every day.
Creating a fresh start for everyone was the best step forward, so I decided to collect the rest of my belongings and take them out of the hacienda.
I was in the process of moving my stuff when I noticed some clothes in the bedroom that weren’t mine. I knew that another woman had already taken residence. In a similar way that our affection had blossomed when Steve was married to Kathy, he was already seeing another lady before our divorce had been finalised.
I received various hints that Steve had been travelling with Debra McMichael, one of the female talents who worked for Vince. But after we split, their bond had quickly developed into a full-on relationship.
Debra had led an interesting life. A former homecoming queen, she spent much of her adult life chasing glory. She chased a career in beauty pageants, before marrying Steve McMichael from the NFL’s Super Bowl-winning team of the Chicago Bears. As her husband transitioned into pro wrestling, it was not long until Debra followed him in a non-wrestling role in WCW. They had divorced in October 1998, and she then fled to the WWF, where Steve Austin was its biggest star.
Strangely, I was not hurt in any way by Steve’s new romance. I was just happy that he had found company so easily to help him move on with his life.
My main concern was that he would remain a good father to his children, and I fought to keep a sense of amicability so he could continue to be an integral part of their lives. But gradually the terms of the divorce were being used as a vindictive method of keeping a level of control on my life.
It was not long before Steve stopped seeing the girls and he swiftly put a halt on his contributions of financial maintenance. I needed to talk to him about who was paying tax for Stephanie and Cassidy, so I rang the house. Debra answered the phone and was irate as soon as she realised it was me on the other end of the line.
“Don’t ever call here again!” she barked.
On another of these occasions, I had arranged to meet up with Steve to hand the girls over, but when I got to the meeting spot Debra was with him and looked noticeably outraged. I questioned why she seemed so angry, when she didn’t need to be there. He told me that she had a very controlling nature and wouldn’t let him out of her sight.
Her attitude explained Steve’s absence. He seemed content to give his daughters the cold shoulder to stop any strain on his relationship with Debra. With no help from Steve due to his reluctance to upset his work schedule, or his girlfriend, I was finding it hard to cope.
Struggling, I told a doctor of my difficulties sleeping, which I claimed was due to the divorce. I was prescribed Ambien, a highly addictive sedative.
Due to its strength, I was told it is rare to overdose on the drug. As I was increasingly sedated, I needed help with the girls. I called my old nanny back, who came and lived with me up in San Antonio to help look after them.
Even though The Dominion was a gated community, I still had reason to be afraid. I would occasionally get a phone call, suggesting I was being watched.
One night, a caller had asked how I had enjoyed my margarita by the pool. Sure enough, that day I had drank one and the terror of being stalked had returned to my life. No matter how far I had tried to shake off the causes of my fear, there was a darkness that was following me around, awaiting my self-destruction.
Within a number of weeks of the call, my nanny’s had confided in me that she felt that we were being watched. I asked Steve if he had paid anyone to follow me. He confirmed that it was Debra’s idea.
I became anxious that there was a chance that Ricky and Sandra would return to snatch the girls, so I always wanted another adult around the girls and me at all times, whether it was my old friends J.L. and Ann, Linda or Dee. I was so insecure that I even paid for my mum and her husband Fred to fly out and visit.
Even though the marriage was over, I was still trapped as my movements had really been restricted by the divorce order. I could not leave Texas, even though Steve was not making any real effort to see the children.
In the year that I was living in The Dominion, Steve never bothered to call and only saw the girls about two or three times, despite taking a year away from wrestling to recover from the overdue surgery to repair his neck.
Although he hadn’t regularly called to check up on his children, there was a time when Steve did ring the house. Having had a few drinks, he phoned to ask if I wanted to meet him late at night. As we spoke, he hung up the phone once he could hear Debra stirring in the background. If the fact that he was married to Debra was not enough to turn me away from him, I could never look at Steve in the same way after he tried to take the girls away from their mother.
But it was while I was at my home in The Dominion that I received another call I would never be able to forget. On 24th April 2000, I answered the phone to a frantic voice.
It was Chris Adams. I had never heard such desperation from him. He was hysterical and in an uncontrollable state. Between the sobbing, he scrambled for the words that could explain why he was so upset.
He had just been released from hospital, after a night he spent hanging out with his latest girlfriend Linda Kaphengst. They had been drinking and playing pool, before continuing the party at the house of Brent Parnell, where he offered her some GHB.
She collapsed on the floor and Chris lost consciousness too, passing out while slumped on a chair.
The two were later found by Parnell and it was some time before the emergency services were called. They were then taken out of the apartment by ambulance.
When Chris woke up in the hospital twelve hours later, he was told that Linda had died. Chris had given her too much GHB, and she overdosed. He was faced with a second-degree felony charge for causing her death, with a potential imposed jail sentence of twenty years.
Chris’ was begging me for help, and he asked if I would meet him and go to Florida to hang out and help him clear his head. As much as I wanted to help Chris, I just couldn’t do it. He had really changed over the years and I had become wary of him.
Crippled with the vices of both drink and drugs, Chris could be a dangerous, volatile monster when he was not sober. He had a violent side that could not be controlled. I knew that any association with him would give Steve the ammunition he needed to question my ability to look after the girls.
I was sad for Chris, and saw a reflection of myself in his downfall. We had both arrived in the United States with dreams for the future, but our American Dream had degenerated into a nightmare of paranoia, wasted promise and substance hell.
Before we ended our call, Chris did make one request that I would consider. He suggested that I move back to Dallas, a town which he promised would provide a better lifestyle for my family. Chris knew that I carried a fear in The Dominion, and wanted me to be free from my pain.
Dallas was familiar ground for me. I knew it well, had many friends there and had some wonderful memories in the city. Like Atlanta, it was a nurturing town bustling with opportunity, and the perfect place to raise the girls.
After thinking about Chris’ advice, I gave Steve a call and told him I wanted to return there. He didn’t seem to mind, and I looked forward to the prospect of moving.
But before I could go, I needed to find a way out of the drug hell in which I was living.
21 ESCAPE FROM REALITY
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By the spring of 2000, I knew I was living on borrowed time. Having had health scares and losing manageability of my life, I sensed it was only a matter of time before my body would shut down once again, possibly with consequences from which I could never recover.
It was arranged that Steve would look after the girls for a fortnight, so I grasped the opportunity to find a way out from my addictions. With Stephanie and Cassidy staying at their father’s house, I was able to source somewhere isolated, allowing me to focus solely on my health.
Due to my manipulation of the private medical system in America, I had managed to stockpile over two hundred Ambien pills. My dependence on the drug had since skyrocketed from several tablets a day, to a dosage of seven. It was clear that the doctor’s advice that the drug was not addictive was a total untruth, as was his prediction that one pill a day would suffice. I needed to seek refuge in a place where prescriptions are managed by a national institution and not falter to the allure of a network of self-interested private medical professionals.
Travelling to London, I wandered into the Churchill Hotel. I had not called in advance of my flight to make a reservation, I just needed to get out of the States first, and improvise my recovery. Once I got to the reception desk, I was lucky. There was only one room left, but I managed to check-in without issue.
With my luggage taken to my room, I locked the door and started my self-imposed detox. There was not a moment to lose, and while I was still in a determined mindset, I needed to ensure that all temptation would be eliminated from my grasp.
I opened my bags, and placed all my bottles of pills in front of me.
“You can do it, you can do it,” I kept urging myself.
I went into the bathroom, cradling the bottles in my arms and deposited them onto the top of the vanity unit. After lifting the seat of the toilet, I unscrewed the tops of the bottles.
One by one, I turned the bottles over and watched them drop into the pan, which slowly turned into a muddled pattern of white, orange and blue dots on the surface of the water. I stood back, and took a deep breath at the magnitude of my stash. There were at least four hundred pills there.
I needed to be strong, and I closed my eyes, as I pulled the lever on the cistern. With one flush of the handle, I watched the mouth of the toilet open itself and drink away the pills for me.
I had done it. After realising that I was in an environment without the triggers of addiction, I sat on the end of the bed content in my strength to overcome the vices which had seized hold of my life.
It was not long before the reality of my situation started to affect me. Shaking, I could start to feel the power of my withdrawal symptoms. As it sapped my strength, I had to lie on the bed, as it became harder to bear.
My senses started to feel heightened, and I was drawn by a scent of roses, and petunia. As the joy of the flowers slowly died, I coughed as the mustiness of cigar stench filled the room.
The room became stifling hot, and I struggled to breathe. Baking in the sweltering heat, I scrambled for the air conditioning control. I started to thump at the buttons as the heat became unbearable.
It was not long before the burning changed to a chilled iciness.
I tucked my legs into my chests, and wrapped my arms around them, as I started to shiver. The room was starting to become a glacier of freezing misery, and I went into the bathroom, to run a bath with warm water.
As the bath started to fill, I waited at the edge of the door and looked at the television in the bedroom. It was flickering, on and off, and I could sense a dark presence in the hotel room with me. I locked myself into the bathroom, and sat in the bath.
I heard a click, and within seconds, the lights went out within the room. Sitting in the darkness, my body fluctuated from being hot to cold, and within minutes, the lights went back on again.
Standing in the water, I was naked, and vulnerable. I looked into the mirror and screamed.
I could not see my own reflection. In its place was a hooded figure.
As I panicked, it remained still. It was staring at me through its withered and skeletal face with the blackest eyes.
“For unto thee, a child is born,” growled the wraith.
A deafening, mechanical roar started to fill the room. I tore into the lock of the door, pulling at the doorknob in a frenzy to get out of the bathroom.
Running to the window, I looked into the night sky. It was filled with helicopters, circling the building.
At that moment, a fire alarm sounded. I reached for my clothes, and hurriedly put them on, as I made my way to evacuate the hotel. As I was running out, two men in suits restrained me, and forced me to return to my room.
Hopelessly frightened, I called my brother.
Phil wasted no time, and made his way to the hotel to pick me up, as I waited for him in the lobby. He knew what had happened. In my attempt to go cold turkey from the pills, my body and mind had gone into shock, and I was experiencing the delusions of drug psychosis from my withdrawal.
My brother told me that I could stay at his house in Canterbury, and needed to see a doctor. I was comforted by him, as he would look out for his little sister.
Over the course of several days, Phil showed great patience with me, as I struggled with the symptoms of my withdrawal. With my hands twitching, and my nose streaming from illness, I had not slept for three days. Despite weakness, I needed to make a run for it.
Getting off of the tablets was a mistake. But it was something I was keen to fix.
With no shoes on my feet, I ran out of the house. Seeing the madness of my addiction, I was pursued by Phil, who ran to save me from running into the oncoming traffic.
He easily caught up with me, and grabbing the sides of both my arms, he looked at me with a defeat in his eyes.
“I am so sorry Jeanie, but I am going to have to try to get you some help,” he sighed.
As he tried to comfort me, an ambulance arrived.
I was driven to St. Martin’s Hospital, and taken into a padded room with just a mattress inside it. In a delusional state, I felt a jab in my backside. It was a shot of Haloperidol, an anti-psychotic drug. It did not take long to enter my bloodstream.
Seconds later, I was out for the count.
Waking up, not fully knowing where I was, I learned that I had been detained under the Mental Health Act. In the opinion of the team who had evaluated my condition upon arrival, I was a danger to myself and those around me, and had to be sectioned.
I needed to stay until I was re-evaluated, but I became impatient. I needed to leave.
On a programme of anti-psychotic medication, I was starting to eat again, and my delusions had come to an end. Engaging with the psychiatrist who put a section on me, we had formed a bond as doctor-patient.
I knew I needed to appeal to his compassion to arrange my release.
Confessing everything, I told the psychiatrist all about the terms of the Texas order. I explained that I would need to return to the States as I was desperate to see the girls. I also knew that having a section on me would enable my ex-husband to attain full custody of Stephanie and Cassidy.
If that had happened, I would have been crushed. Even though I realised I needed help, I knew that nobody else could have loved my children as much as I did.
As I softly told my doctor of my predicament, he stood up and looked towards the window. Turning to the ceiling, he took a deep breath.
“Tell me how I can be decent,” he sighed.
He looked at me and paused for thought.
“I see it in your eyes, go home to your children,” he offered.
I had managed to find freedom, but I couldn’t fully celebrate. I was still caged by my addiction. After flying home, I gradually resumed my old habits. By now, my body had stopped hiding the fact that I was a drug addict.
One June afternoon, I lost consciousness. My young daughters couldn’t waken me, and they alerted their temporary nanny, Jodie.
Years of subs
tance abuse had caught up with me. I had finally overdosed.
An ambulance was not in reach, so the call was answered by a nearby team from the fire department.
A number of weeks later, I was in the grocery store, and saw one of the firemen who had responded to the call. I was still in disbelief that I had overdosed and wanted to approach him with gratitude.
“Hi, how are you?” I asked.
He paused and looked at me. His eyes welled up as he slowly shook his head.
I was taken aback by the sadness in his eyes.
“Was it a close call?” I continued, wondering why he was so moved to see me.
“Yes. We thought we had lost you,” he confided in a gentle whisper.
It was quite the realisation, to find out how close I had come to death. I needed some time to clear my head.
Steve asked if he could see the girls for Cassidy’s birthday. As we shared joint custody of the children, I agreed to let him look after them that week. With some free time, I decided to spend a few days with their new nanny, Kym. I quickly became good friends with her, and she asked if I wanted to attend a party being hosted by a chiropractor who she knew well.
It seemed like a normal party, until I was asked if I wanted to take some cocaine. His girlfriend seemed to be getting annoyed at the attention he was lavishing towards me. I could sense she was uncomfortable, so I left to return home.
As I drove down the road, I was pulled over by the police and arrested on the suspicion of using drugs.
When the police had carried out a search, there were no drugs on my person or in my car. After being bailed out by Kym’s mum, I arranged to meet my lawyer. The case was then dismissed.
After the arrest, I wanted a new start, and to finally move out of The Dominion.
I had been taken by a new scheme of houses that were under construction in Arlington, so I committed to the purchase of a property there. But until the building works were complete, the girls and I moved into a rented accommodation in San Antonio. It was an initial measure that I took to escape the surveillance which I was sensing within the gated community, before relocating us once again to the house of Kym’s parents.
Through The Shattered Glass Page 22