Tomorrow, I will be 3 years sober. Even though my addiction to intravenous heroin was definitely the most problematic, it has always been something with me. It started off with Xanax and K-pins, then to that mixture I added adderall, vicodin and valium and lorezepam, then as I began to experiment with drugs I realized that anti depressants/anti anxiety medication wasn’t my favorite anymore. I started my opiate addiction with 5mg percs, then I began snorting them and upped my dose little by little. Then I went to college and began smoking 30′s and popping xanax and adderall on the regular. Then I revisited an old friend of mine, heroin. I had tried it in high school a few times, and it gave me such a good feeling I was afraid to use it again. I had only snorted it in high school and when I began using it again in college I promised myself I would only snort it (or sometimes smoke it) and that I would NEVER shoot it… But then smoking three 30′s made me feel only a little bit okay, and snorting a couple bags only barely took the pain away.. then I shot it once just to try it and then…well, to this day I am still trying to pick up the pieces of my life and put them back together. I screwed up my entire freshman year of college, lost all of my ambition, almost died twice, lost 50 pounds, turned into a zombie… I lost all of my feelings for people who cared about me, I stopped eating because everything I ate would end up getting thrown up anyway. Heroin put me in so many bad situations too. I’ve been robbed numerous times, sometimes by people I thought were my “friends”. I’ve had a gun pulled on me, my house and car broken into… then I started becoming shady myself.
To keep up with my habits I had to middleman dope and I would upcharge junkies that I knew would pay the price. I helped my dealer rob another dealer; we stole 10 bricks and I accepted only 2 and a half bricks for helping, which is still a lot of dope but I did most of the work and settling for less than half was okay to me. That’s not right? I didn’t even think twice about it. Once I got my cut I sold about 2 grams and the rest went into my veins eventually. I held onto my stash like it was my prized possession. I kept that much heroin in my dorm room. What the fuck was I thinking??? Then a week before the end of the semester I realized that I had to go home and see my family and I looked in the mirror and just started bawling because I knew they would know… I mean how could they not? I was pale as a ghost, had the biggest dark circles, my arms were COVERED in track marks and they’re still not healed, I was weak, skinny, my hair had become thin, I just looked like I had no life left in me. When I first tried heroin I thought I was going to do it on the side just to keep myself happy and comfortable. And for a while I did, I somehow kept a balance, but without even realizing it, I let myself go. I drowned in my sorrows and let my lack of self esteem take me away and I became the one thing I said I never would be.
Addiction is real. It’s not something anyone wishes for or tries to acquire. It can sneak up on you and before you realize it has you, you’ll have no money, no good people left in your life, and you’ll NEVER notice how much you changed as a person. I was okay with giving up my potential and dreams to escape through a temporary buzz. Growing up I had always surrounded myself with the wrong people and usually it would bite me in the ass and I would learn my lesson, but damn I was convinced that heroin was my best friend. I mean when I met heroin it was love at first sight. When it almost killed me, I woke up and shot another couple bags….
Thinking about it now I can’t believe it. My daily life was: wake up, snort a couple bags, go to class, eat a snack, shoot in the bathroom before my next class (if i didn’t have enough I would skip and go out and get more), throw up (usually happened randomly throughout the day), go to class and nod out and embarrass myself because I looked like such a junkie sitting there barely conscious, do a bit of homework, make moves to score some dope, shoot up my first big score, go to my dealers house (she wanted to fuck me so she usually gave me a couple bags for free), shoot that and chill for a bit, smoke some weed, maybe pop a xanax bar, go on rides with my dealer and all along the way snort bags off the back of my phone, eat something, throw that up, stumble to my friend’s house where me and my 2 “best friends” would spend our time smoking stupid amounts of weed, smoking 30′s, shooting smoking and snorting dope, and from there I would middleman more dope for my dealer and I would just shoot my profits all night and then eventually pass out just to wake up the next day and start all over.
I lost all common sense. This junkie lifestyle became normal to me. It became all I knew and all I wanted. I cut out friends that were actually positive and had their shit together. Then I would cry and wonder why I was so lonely. By doing drugs, I only made myself physically feel better but only temporarily and I spent the rest of my time either thinking about drugs or I was trying to get more drugs. Drugs never fixed any of my problems like I thought they did. I thought I was “self medicating”. I thought I was helping myself. All I did was make my life worse and almost killed myself.
The thing about being high all the time, with your main priority also fixated on getting your fix, you think life is okay. Drugs create this lens that distorts life and blocks worries, which means your life can fall apart right in front of your eyes but you can’t feel it, you can’t see it. You’re high and for that moment you are sucking in all the artificial happiness. The problem is when you inevitably come down, you see your life clearly for a minute and everything slams you at once, what you’ve lost, what you could’ve had. It is the tallest mountain to climb to undo what you have done, a lot of people try and try to climb it, but many fall back into an ever deeper bottom.
I’m 3 years sober but I’m still an addict. You never stop being an addict. I’m trying to fix myself. You’re not magically cured and your problems just don’t go away once you quit drugs, but you can face them with a clear mind. I still get depressed, my anxiety still kinda runs my life, but I’m not medicating with the old destructive habits. I’m not using drugs as a crutch anymore. I went back to school, earned my degree, and still managed to get into medical school. Things can change, but it takes more than just quitting drugs. You have to want it, with all of your being and then some. Sobriety is only the first step.
I’m 8 years sober now. And I’m a doctor. Shit is so wild, man.
