What it was like?

I have lived in active addiction since I was 19 years old. I spent 18 years struggling to break free. It started out with a simple ear infection. I went to the emergency room in the middle of the night with a HORRIBLE infection in both of my ears and I was six months pregnant. It was 1999. The doctors asked me how far along I was and then, as though it was nothing to be concerned about, he wrote me a script for 30 Oxycontin 10mg tablets. He gave me two to take right then, and also called for a nurse to inject me with dilaudid. Within 20 seconds my whole life changed... I'll never forget it. That started a chain of events that lead me to doctor shopping, er visits, and stealing pills from family members and friends. I went into nursing and began sharing medication with a resident in my facility. She was prescribed morphine 60mg tablets, 3X a day, and she would crush them and snort them. That was the moment I began snorting opiates. I had never even drank a beer, smoked a cigarette, or tried marijuana, and I was COMPLETELY consumed in massive amounts of opiates. A few years later, the doctor shopping had ran it's coarse and I was red flagged at hospital emergency rooms. I was desperate to figure out how to get more! My marriage ended, (for reasons having nothing to do with drugs) and I moved myself and my two children back to my home state. I thought this would give me a clean slate and I saw a chance to get better. Instead I quickly made friends with neighbors who were addicts as well. I had no idea that you could purchase these pills from people on the street! I found a couple of dealers, who would later become my roommates and best friends. I was introduced to oxy 30's. I was also introduced to new methods of using them to get high, and those methods worked even faster than swallowing or snorting as I had done before. After awhile, those pills became very expensive and difficult to find. A lot of people that I knew were getting arrested for buying and selling them. Some people were afraid, so the prices soared and they became even harder to get. Then, I was introduced to heroin. Heroin was the answer to everything in my life. Heroin was cheap, heroin was good, and heroin was there for me as everything else began to fall apart. I ended up with nine felonies, had my children kid napped, did five years in prison, was abused in relationships, was raped multiple times..... But heroin made all that pain disappear. Heroin lead me to a life of stealing, homelessness, being beaten, raped, held hostage, and ending up alone with no where to turn. I had a 2-3g of tar heroin a day habit, which cost me roughly 200-500.00 per purchase. I found myself tortured, lost, sick, beaten, raped and alone.

What happened?

One night, I miraculously escaped an abusive man who had been holding me hostage, against my will. I barely got away with my life. When I did, I called my father. He came and got me, took me to a hotel two cities away from my abuser and paid for three days and two nights. He couldn't even bring me to his home for fear of the people I was mixed up with coming to hunt me down and possibly causing he or my mother harm. He told me this was all he could do. With tears in his eyes, he gave me 10.00 to make sure i could get some food and he said he would return each day and make sure I was safe and fed. He told me that was as far as he could go for me. I realized in that moment, in that hotel room that I had to make a change. I realized that my moment had come. This was the end of the road. I could either return to my hometown and return to the cycle of insanity, or I could ask for help, go some place new and build a new life clean and full of meaning and purpose! I called a hotline that night about 4am. The woman on the other end told me not to worry. She told me to go to bed, get some rest and that tomorrow was the first day of the rest of my life. She said she would be there to pick me up at 6-30am and to be packed and ready to go, leaving everything and everyone behind. The next morning, that's EXACTLY what I did. I called my father before I left and told him I had reached out for help and that I was going to get better. I told him to watch me become everything he always wanted to be proud of.

What it is like now?

Today, I am living a clean and sober life! I have a beautiful home, in a new town. I work my program, have a full time job, and brand new friends who are also clean and sober. I have made plans to start my own business and even converted to an extremely healthy and physically fit lifestyle! Today, I am HAPPY. I have HOPE and INSPIRATION. Today, I love being alive. I smile and I am living responsibly. I have a peace of mind and vision that surpasses ANY thing I ever did to try to fill a void. My life is amazing and beautiful!

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