'I was a walking shell - I had nobody'

WEDNESDAY, APR. 25: Former Miss USA Tara Conner will share the story of her battle with drug addiction at the Caron Bermuda Award For Excellence Gala Dinner at the Fairmont Southampton Resort on May 18.

During her darkest days as a drug addict, former Miss USA Tara Conner said the most dangerous place you could put her was in front of an old lady’s medicine cabinet.

From her early teens, the beauty queen became addicted to prescription drugs, while taking other, illegal drugs, and drinking alcohol in excess. Shortly after winning the glamorous title in 2006, she was suddenly forced to face a nation of critics after it surfaced that this newly- elected role model was addicted to drugs.

“The deadliest place you could put me was in front of a medicine cabinet because the drugs were so accessible. How do you go from just drinking alcohol to taking morphine? You find a little old lady to help out for the day, and you get into her cabinet. She has prescription pills for pain, or muscle relaxers or even cough syrup — I was really into that. I could find anything and wouldn’t think anything about stealing it. This disease is cunning, baffling and powerful and it definitely gets the best of you.”

Conner will share her story of drug addiction and recovery at the Second Annual Caron Bermuda Award of Excellence Dinner Gala at the Fairmont Southampton Princess on May 18.

The former beauty queen is celebrating five years of sobriety and is now a public speaking advocate for the drug treatment organization which helped her to recover.

Perfect storm

Conner said she went through “a perfect storm of life events and trauma” which triggered her journey into drugs. Her parents divorced when she was 14-years-old and soon after her grandfather passed away.

She recalls: “I was just coming into my adolescent years where I had my own opinion and that ego that little 14-year-olds get.

“Divorce is never easy — all of a sudden everything becomes about the parents and the kids are left to figure it out on their own. I felt very alone. I was with a group of older peers on a cheerleading trip and they found alcohol and I had my first drink. I hated it — I thought, ‘this is gross why do people drink?’

“The next day I was the flyer — the cheerleader they threw up in the air and I was just seeing green — it was the worst feeling I have ever had. I remember it to this day and how my mouth tasted. I remember making a pact with God, ‘If you take this feeling away I will never do it again’. By the end of that year I was doing morphine.”

By the time Conner was 15-years-old she was on hard drugs including an excess of Oxycotton painkillers which contained a synthetic form of heroine. She grew up in a small, depressed community in Kentucky but regardless of that environment she said she hit rock bottom while she was “living the dream”.

“It was always pretty easy to think my lowest points were when I was in a really small town and the town was my problem and I just needed to get out of there. But I think my lowest point was the night before I got sober.

“I remember I popped in a video of when I won Miss USA and I looked at all the girls’ faces who were competing. Every time someone got eliminated I just saw their world crumble and I am sitting there thinking to myself ‘Wow, I have got what most girls dream of having their entire lives and I am miserable and lonely, I don’t know who I am.’ I had everything I could ever want, the red carpets, the glamour, but at the end of the day I was alone and miserable.

“I was a walking shell — I’d lost the ability to cry and have emotions. I lied to a lot of people because I didn’t realise I was trying to protect my disease. At some point all I was left with was myself to look at and I wasn’t pretty — my skin was yellow, I was skinny, I looked malnourished and I felt remorse for the first time in a long time.

“When I watched that video I thought ‘what a jerk’. I was really ashamed of myself and I cried for the first time in a long time and I just didn’t want to do it any more.”

Shortly into her reign as Miss USA, Conner was drug tested after organizers suspected she was using drugs. When the test proved positive she was suddenly the subject of national scrutiny in the US. During a press conference, Donald Trump, who runs the Miss Universe contest, said that Conner would be given a chance to retain her title if she agreed to get treatment. It was then that she was introduced to the Caron Treatment Facility and her life turned around.

“Caron gave me so many tools and helped me to get down to the root of what caused my messed up thinking — I owe my life to them,” she said.

“A lot of the people who work there are in recovery — the therapists, the doctors, the councillors, you name it — I couldn’t walk in and say to any of them that they didn’t know what I was going through.

“The drug is a symptom but you still have an alcoholic mind that you have to treat. I have to take care of my sobriety maintenance on a daily basis. I didn’t identify as an addict until I was in Caron for a week but through certain tests with the psychologists and group therapy and really, just being around people who have the same twisted ideals that I had at the time, it made sense.

“We had classes every day — it was just full of learning about the disease and about yourself.

“For someone like me to get sober — it took a lot of work. If I could get sober with them then anyone can. It’s very fitting for me to tell my story with them.”

Aside from her public speaking role, Conner is currently working on several projects including  modelling, song writing and working on a new TV show. She will speak at the Caron Bermuda awards dinner on May 18 at the Fairmont Southampton Resort.

For more information about Caron Bermuda or to buy tickets for the dinner gala visit: www.caronbermuda.org or contact Gita Blakeney Saltus on 236-0823 or email [email protected].