My Journey Through Addiction.
Surviving active addiction, I mean. You CAN do it. If I did it, anyone can.
In my last post, I got into the end of my active addiction and how I got onto methadone. So, for this post, I thought I’d get more into how I actually got hooked on heroin itself. To be honest, it all started with an “innocent little pill” called Percocet. That’s right. I signed my life away to a pill. A tiny little pill, that’s only a few millimeters wide. That tiny pill and I became the best of friends. A best friend that I sacrificed everything that I loved and held dear to
If you didn’t know, that is a picture of what appears to be numerous, seized oxycodone pills, AKA Percocet. Even though it’s been a few years since I’ve even seen one in person, I can still name exactly which brand, and the markings on each one, without even having to read them. Needless to say, my addiction was off the hook before I even graduated to heroin. Just to give you an idea, I could probably have gone through the amount of pills in that picture, single-handed, in less than a week. That is a nauseating thought. The realization of how bad that is, is sickening.
Anyways, it didn’t take me much to get started. By the time I was maybe, fifteen, I had been prescribed extremely low-dose pain-killers a handful of times for minor injuries. I never had considered that I could get high off of them. Until one day, a friend of mine introduced me to an Oxycodone 30mg tablet. She showed me a whole new world. She taught me how to crush these little pills, to have the time of my life. The first time I tried it I was so dizzy, I had to fight vomiting. It seemed to take me an hour to make it to my other friend’s house, that only lived five houses down.(*I am NOT blaming her for my addiction, I am simply stating how I was introduced to using prescription pain-killers to get high.*) I was sure that it was only going to be one time. I had a parent at home that was prescribed high-dose pain-killers. I thought to myself, “She would kill me if she had any idea what I’d done.” That ended up being my biggest downfall. For the longest idea, she had no idea.
By the time I had reached sixteen, my one parent’s prescription strength had increased. It had also coincidentally happened, that by that parent innocently offering me a pain-killer here and there, for a headache, or stomach ache; a switch had been turned on in my brain. My immature mind had suddenly realized, why should I have to always pay for them? I can get them for free at home. So, instead of doing the right thing and asking for help, I suddenly became a “sickly child”. I all of a sudden had a terrible “headache”, “stomach ache”, or “cramps” nearly every day. Very seldom would I be questioned on my intentions. So, my slowly growing addiction, was becoming a demon, that I was letting my own parent feed, without her having the slightest idea of what she was doing. Again, another nauseating thought. Hindsight is always 20/20.
By this time in my life, I thought I was just so cool. I would save what my parent gave me, to take as many at one time as I could. I would share with friends. I had absolutely no idea that I wasn’t just playing with fire, I was running through it. About a year later, I met what would later in life, be my son’s father. For purposes of keeping his information private, we will call him Jeff. Shortly after my seventeenth birthday, I met “Jeff”. We met at a mutual friends house, where my parent would frequently take me to visit. The first night I met him, he was drunk. But, boy, did I think he was something. Little did I know, he was eight years older than me, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyways. That just fueled my, “I’m so damn COOL” phase harder than I could’ve ever imagined. By the end of that first day I had met him, he had slipped me his number, and I was absolutely hooked.Â
Within a week of us meeting, we were dating. I thought I was really something. A senior in highschool, dating a twenty-five year old. Hindsight…hindsight. In the beginning, things were actually great. I had found out he liked to sniff pills, just like I did! WOW! So, as he worked a full time job, and I went to school; we would hang out as much as possible and use in our spare time. At this point in time, I had never used more than a day or two in a row. I had never had the ability to. Until I had the means, and he had the money. We were absolute poison for each other. Within about a year of us dating, I had convinced my parents to let him move it. I had myself convinced that we were going to live a beautiful life. Right. Under my parents roof, me not working, him not working, using drugs, using my family. What a good life. I was riding that cloud so hard.
Why didn’t someone punch me?!
It understandably didn’t take long for my parents to get tired of an adult not working for a year and a now twenty-six year old not working at all. Within the year of him moving in, we had jumped into a full blown addiction. You couldn’t have told us that, oh no. We weren’t addicts. We could stop anytime we wanted! Sure, sure we could’ve. It actually didn’t set in for me until one day, on specific day that I will vividly remember for the rest of my life. I promise that.
I wasn’t feeling to well. I was convinced it was because I had just did too many pills the day before, and had what I called, a “pill hangover”. I had a runny nose, my stomach was a little upset, and my joints hurt a tiny bit. I told myself, just like when you drink too much, right!? Wrong. Luckily, our dealer that only lived a neighborhood away, decided to tell me about a little something called, withdrawal. W i t h d r a w a l. One tiny little word changed my life forever. We proceeded to ask him, “What’s withdrawal?” To which he replied with words that would forever echo in my mind, and change my addiction forever. I googled vigorously on our way back home. Running that stupid word through my head, over and over, and over again.  Â
Do me a favor and read those symptoms. Once I googled those symptoms a few years ago, I couldn’t ever rid myself of them, ever again. I realized that I was addicted. I read the symptoms over and over. I didn’t have a damn pill hangover, I was in withdrawal. I was addicted to opiate pain killers. Sure enough, from then on out, every time I didn’t have enough oxycodone, I felt every single symptom you see above. I felt symptoms that I had NEVER felt before. All of a sudden, I felt them all. The day that I first learned about withdrawal, was the first day of the rest of my love affair and addiction with opiates.Â
By the time one year had passed with my then boyfriend, my parents had enough of us. As much as I selfishly blamed them then, I could never blame them now. We were BUMS. We didn’t do anything but sit on our behinds and sleep in as late as we possibly could. We were both capable, as far as they knew, but they didn’t know the crippling addiction we were hiding. They would mention it once in a while, we would just ferociously deny it. I’m still not sure who we were trying to fool, them or ourselves. Either way, around the age of 19, we were kicked out. More or less they were intending to kick him out, hoping I wouldn’t follow. Well, it didn’t go as planned. I idiotically chose to follow him instead. I was then nineteen and him twenty-seven. His mother allowed us to move in with her, and her deceased finances boyfriend at the time. I thought it was going to be great. My first thought wasn’t what you’d think. My first thought was, “WOW! I’ll be able to sniff as many pills as I want without having to hide it from anyone!” Seriously!? What was I thinking? That just shows you how twisted my sense of reality was at the time. Very, very twisted. I wish I never left my home.Â
Life was going to get really hard for us, really fast. “Jeff’s” mother was on pain killers as well. Goodie goodie! So we thought. She was taking them as prescribed. She had helped her son pay rent while we were living at my parents home. Now without rent, we were giddy at all the extra money that could be freed up. Freed up it was. It didn’t take long for her to catch on. It took even less time for her to be needing to take them too. Without us there, that would’ve never happened. Within about six months of moving there, Jeff’s best friend came over, like he always did. He introduced us to a little gem called heroin. I remember being so nervous to try it, that I was shaking viciously. I also remember him telling us, “OH don’t worry! It’s no worse than what you’re already doing! It’s about a quarter of the cost, and triple the strength!” He assured us we wouldn’t be struggling anymore. He assured us we would be able to support our habit. What he didn’t tell us that what took years to build up a tolerance of in pills, would only take a month to surpass with heroin. Like the adult I thought I was, I chose to try this “scary-but-not-really-scary” thing called heroin.
WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?!
Right on cue, that magically one-year-long welcome mat wore out. We came home one day to Jeff’s mom packing. She was going on a “trip to North Carolina”, that she’d coincidentally forgotten to tell us about. I knew with the amount of things she was packing, that we’d never see her again. Not to mention all of the bills being behind from the bill of our three’s addictions totaling nearly $800 a day. Both vehicles were gone by this point. The mortgage, electric, cable, and phone bills were all three months behind. They were all going to be cut off. She swore and swore she’d be back in two weeks. She swore she’d be back go pay to get my car out of tow. She swore she was coming back.
Needless to say, I never got my car back. She never came home.Â
About a month after the disappearing act, everything was gone; including the fiances brother. The power was gone. The cable was gone. Everything was gone. We decided to go walk and meet our middle man one day, because we were still in the true baby stages of our heroin addiction, where we had to pay someone through the roof to get it for us. That was totally awesome. We had nearly lost everything we owned trying to cover the cost. Anyways, as we go to meet our guy, we met his friend! His friend had nowhere to go, and we needed a ride. We offered him and his girlfriend to stay with us, basically in our now “squat house”. A house that was once a home. A home that we destroyed. Â
Within a week of knowing them, they no longer hid the fact that they shot up. Something I was NEVER going to do! I meant it too. At the time anyways. I used to really mean it. It didn’t take long of seeing him in a nodding bliss, again, preaching of how much less it took and how much stronger it was! Boy, those words sounded familiar. It should’ve been a red flag to me. What did I care anyways? It didn’t take us long to try it. It took even less for that tolerance to skyrocket past the point it already was. And once again, that welcome mat wore out even quicker. The now owner of the house, made sure we were removed. We didn’t care! All of our other friends that we had helped, were going to help us! Well, they better have.
I bet you can guess that didn’t last.Â
ONE WEEK. One freaking week, the first friend let us stay. One week before we managed to screw that up. One week before “Jeff borrowed” his friends chainsaw. The same friend that showed us heroin. Jeff told me it was given to him because it was junk. Jeff had me pawn it, because he “lost his ID”. That same friend of his, had us both charged with theft. A charge that Jeff would eventually beat, and I would be left fighting on my own for years. To this day, I’m fighting to get it off of my record.Â
The full blown homelessness didn’t take long. For the next…you guessed it… YEAR, we spent our day wandering the streets of Edgewater and Annapolis, Maryland. We spent the next year, through the rain, sun, and snow, huddled up next to each other working every odd job we could. We spent the next year, convincing ourselves, that we were all we needed. While my mother began developing health problems, my once best friend, I avoided her at every cost. I avoided my dad, my brother, my grandmother and grandfather, however I could. I didn’t avoid them because I stole from them. No, I have never stolen from my family ever. I never would and never will. My suffocating, crushing guilt is why I avoided them. Don’t get me wrong, as much as I denied it, and lied to anyone I met, to convince them it was all their fault, I knew it wasn’t. I spent my days wallowing in my own damn stench and guilt, knowing I was destroying my family with my addiction. I knew I was, but I couldn’t stop. More or less, I guess I didn’t want to stop. Which made me feel just so great, when a friend from highschool and her family, opened up their doors to me. Just to me, not to Jeff. They allowed me to live there. They fed me, housed me, treated me so well. What did I do? I chose to leave every day and get high. I chose to use them for the nice, warm home they offered me, for the streets. By the time a month was up, barely seeing Jeff, now destroying him from loneliness, I got a call.Â
Jeff called me and told me a woman had a approached him while he was sitting sad, lonely, and homeless in Kmart. She approached him, a heavy set woman, sixty-years-old, and offered him her home to the both of us. She offered a house with power, water, just no furniture in the basement, to us! How freaking wonderful. So I thought. It took me no time to pack up, telling my friend and her family that I would be back, and disappearing to Brooklyn Park, to ignore them forevermore, until I got clean forevermore. I had no idea what I was getting into. All I was told was…
We made it about a year-and-a-half this time! Over a year before the power was cut off! Isn’t that just AMAZING! We made it a whole year by just working under her. We made it a year in a roach infested home, thinking we were kings. We allowed people to live with us. We allowed people to destroy this woman’s home. All while I continued to ignore my family. All while I continued to ignore my mothers ailing health. That woman cried all the time. All she wanted was her daughter. Well, while she was going through repeated heart surgeries, I found scramble! Scramble is a mixture of raw heroin and cutting agents. It was cheaper, and it was better. So, I became acquainted with scramble and Baltimore, as my mother began to die. I really deserve the daughter of a lifetime award. I know. Anyways, like I said, eventually just like the last home we lived in, the power got cut off. The water got cut off. We had nothing. Once again. The other tenants stole everything, including the door knobs. It was getting bad, in a bad neighborhood.Â
One morning, my friend, that we’ll call “Jamie”, woke me up, exclaiming that police were surrounding the house. I thought she was joking. Until I looked out of the window. They really were. We gathered as much as we could, got Jeff, and ran out of the back door. Just as we got down the alley way, they surrounded and entered the house. We would later find out that when a house is sold in foreclosure, the minute it changes hands, you no longer have right to the property. You are instantly a trespasser. Thankfully, we got out in time without burglary to the fourth charges. The nice woman that opened her doors to us, that made sure we had work all of the time, who’s home was gone and now destroyed for good, came and got us. She luckily had ANOTHER home! Another home she opened our doors to. Again, about six months later, the same thing happened. Nearly the same exact story, we were just further into Baltimore. So, she had another solution. Mind you, she loved Jeff. She didn’t want me to go home, because she knew he would follow. It would’ve killed her to lose him. I didn’t care. I was starving, I was tired, I was homeless. I was tired of it all. So, she gave us her car to use. Her car became our home. Our home that we helped drive into the dirt. Thanks to us helping her, she also lost nearly everything. Nothing cold get any worse right?
Little did I know, my entire world would be rocked one day. My mom called me all the time. Like she always did. Except something was different. Something felt wrong. But, I was in withdrawal, I was SICK, so nothing mattered. Even though my mother was dying, even though she sent me numerous messages telling me it would be over soon and that I would regret it all, it didn’t matter. Nothing was going to happen until I got well. Who was I kidding? I wouldn’t have called her anyways. I was a bad person and an even worse daughter. That specific day, November 1st, 2014, my mom called off of the hook.Â
Then it stopped. The calls stopped. I was so relieved. My guilt subsided, until she’d call again. There was a problem. She never did. My dad called later that night, to tell me my mom died. That was it. No goodbye. No going back. That was the beginning to the end of my addiction.Â
Within weeks of her passing, is when I ended up pregnant. Which is a story I told in my last entry. A story you all know. The story that saved my life. As you know, having my son, was what saved my life. I won’t go more into it. You can read it in my last writing piece.Â
My entire life was saved, mainly in part to having my son. I’m not telling you to get pregnant while addicted to an illicit substance. I’m trying to say, if a girl like me, no one special made it, you can make it out too. I now sit here writing, listening to my son sing his goofy little baby song. I sit here writing, advocating to give others a voice. I sit here writing telling you that you can do this.
I promise you. No matter how low of a point you are at in your life, you can get it. Don’t ever think you aren’t worthy of a good, sober life. Â
