Im a recovering heroin and pill addict...somehow during my 11 year battle with addiction, I was able to keep it from most friends and family still to this day...but the longer I spend in recovery, the more important it seems to me to get my story out there and share how i looked the devil in the face and still lived to speak about it...
I was a late bloomer, a good girl..I grew up in a very rural town, I didnt start smoking weed or drinking until I was almost 19 years old, years after most of my peers...i graduated highschool, went on to college and thats when it started...
My very first boyfriend I met my first year in college. He had an older brother who sold oxycotin. My back was aching one day and my bf suggested I do a small amount of oxy. I did and it was f***ing fantastic. From then on I was pretty much doing it everyday, not realizing the hell storm I was bringing on for myself.
Niave maybe, but I didnt realize the addictive qualities of the drug until it was too late. And with access to it everyday for a couple of years, I never had to experience withdrawal. And I was still ok i thought...still working, still going to school, still had my s*** together. Just a girl enjoying some recreational drugs right? I was always very aware of the number of addicts on either side of my family and always thought I was completely different from them and would never turn into them. Besides, I was the first on either side of my family to graduate highschool. I wasnt the same as my father or mother or aunts or uncles, right? wrong.
Before I knew it I was sleeping through work and skipping classes. Still unaware that it was stemming from pills...I just thought, hey Ive been working my a** off for years..school, 3 jobs, I was just tired at that point.
As my luck would have it the next few years every significant other I had was also doing pills. Its not like it was discussed in initial meetings like, hey I do pills on the reg, no. So I believe its the truth that birds of a feather flock together...
By the time I began my relationship with my most recent boyfriend (not together 3 years at this point) I was absolutely a pill addict, I wasnt getting pills from boyfriends anymore, I was spending my own money and seeking them out on my own. Needing the pills to get through the day. But at this point I f***ing loved them and had no plans to quit. And besides, I was doing pretty good at being a functioning addict. I had a good job, I had a car, my own place, I had lots of friends. I didnt see a problem with what I was doing.
Then they began to make pills in a way that made it almost impossible to abuse them and I lost my connect. My boyfriend and I at that time were heavily physically addicted so luckily we found someone with subs and him and i took those for about 9 months and then....
Thinking about it now it sounds like a total crock of s*** but I was at my boyfriends and he came in from outside with a pack of newports in his hand...said he found it at the end of the driveway with 2 bundles of heroin in it. sure ya did. I see the signs now and I believe he switched over way before I did.
Yes, Ive always said I would never try heroin. Yes, I did try heroin that day and immediately the stigma of the drug was gone. From that day on him and I were picking up everyday...
I lost more in the 4 years I did heroin than my entire addiction combined. I stole from friends, family, work. I dropped out of school, lost job after job...
I even considered taking my drug dealers up on their offers for sex in exchange for drugs...I never went that far, but just the consideration of the proposition was enough for me to realize i needed help.
I thought I was better than others because I never went to the needle but that didnt make me better off or worse off than anyone else.
And then I got arrested. I was picking up for the day when I got picked up. And do you know what my first thought was?!! I was pissed b/c I didnt get to do even one bag before they nabbed me. And here I was, somewhere I thought Id never be...a good girl with tons of potential but I was in the f***ing hood, cuffed in the back of a cop car, beginning to withdraw, listening to the cop tell me how pretty I used to be based on my license picture and how sad it was that I fell into the life and how I didnt belong there..yea. No kidding.
I sat in a cold cell for 15 hrs waiting for the bail commissioner. I was told he would let me out on a promise to appear bc it was my first offense. But none the less, I was sitting in jail on FELONY charges. The entire day was an outter body experience. I couldnt believe what this habit had led me to. I was dope sick, sad, and alone. No one phone call for me bc I was single at that point and alone in my addiction. No one close to me had any idea I was using. I distanced myself from friends and family in fear of them finding out.
What really f***ing freaked me out was how I was scared straight...for a couple of days...and then I was just back out there like it never happened. My crutch was the fact that I was court ordered to go to rehab, I had a year to enroll so my junkie thought process said it was ok to keep using bc I had to eventually go to rehab and by then Id be really, REALLY ready.
My year was running out and I didnt have anymore time to put off rehab. But by that time I knew I was ready. I was so sick, and so tired. I was sick of feeling inferior to others bc of my addiction, tired of looking at other people with envy bc they could just live their lives without a substance dependency..but my mind was so f***ed at that point I didnt understand what the hell sober poeple even do for funn..how do they get through their day to day sober?? Thats when I realized just how f***ed my mind was and I wasnt sure Id ever make it out, but I knew I was at least ready to try to walk the road to recovery..
I enrolled in an outpatient rehab with suboxone. I gave myself over to the process. The subs helped an incredible amount and I found myself with very little cravings and looking forward to attending my group. Now remember, the point of subs combined with rehab is to get you in a better mental state to deal with withdrawal b/c even coming off of subs can be kind of a b****.
Today I can proudly and happily say I am 10 months sober and I never f***ing looked back. I was tappered of subs 2 weeks ago.I did have some withdrawal symptoms at first and I didnt sleep for a week, but at that point I was prepared to deal with it. And that god damn hill was so steep and so hard to climb I never want to have to go through that again and I wouldnt wish physical dependency for a drug on my worst enemy.
What keeps me going day to day is knowing what I never want to be again. I stay aware of my darkest times in my addiction as well as the withdrawal when I didnt have heroin-I never want to feel that way again.
I go through ups and downs but Ive stopped beating myself up over my sad or bad days. My body and mind need time to recover and every day I continue to not use is a huge success.
At times I dwell on things lost during my addiction or guilt from s*** i did during my addiction and that s*** can really get you down and you begin to have yourself a little pitty party..but when I begin to think about what I dont have I remind myself I have something I wanted so bad for almost a decade...
I have my life back.
Thanks for sharing - your story gives me hope for my son
