A Survivor’s Story
Heroin and Other Drugs
From Anonymous
2016
I recently posted on Facebook that I
have lost approximately 30 former students to drug overdoses. This fact overwhelms me and saddens me. Several people responded under my post with
all sorts of comments. But one person
spent much of the afternoon, sending me private messages about her journey to
recovery. Here is her story. I have edited it to maintain her privacy and
to provide some clarity to our discussion.
I admire her honest assessment of her life and struggles.
I saw your post about losing students to drug
overdoses. I wanted to share with you something rather personal. I am a
recovering addict. I have 15 years clean in August. My husband who passed away
in 2011, and I met in rehab.
I used everything. But heroin brought me to my
knees. Someone told my father that I was using after 2 years shooting dope. But
I used drugs, or they used me for about 12 years. My father asked me if I
needed help. I said yes. We got me into a rehab the next day. After 30 days I
left rehab and lived in a recovery house in Baltimore for several years. I
started from nothing and worked my way up. The recovery house was located in a
very drug infested area in east Baltimore. Every night after the meeting I
usually attended, I would step over a man selling dope on our front step just
to get inside the house.
Most of the people I knew using or in recovery,
went back out. Many died. My husband died because of the disease, although I am
unsure whether he was using when he drove his motorcycle into the back of a
pick up truck parked in Baltimore.
For me, recovery is about gaining the confidence
to compete in this world for the things usually set aside for those who never
did the things I did. My life is littered with crazy stunts, thrill seeking,
and blunders galore. But I am here today to try and make the best of the life I
have left.
I am sorry you have lost so many people to
addiction. I intend to figure out a way to work with the police, medical
personnel and politicians to help keep children focused on living a drug free
life. I know intimately what led me out to use was boredom and rebelliousness.
I know it is not the same for everyone, but for many people a sense of self
worth, and a commitment to others will provide them with enough support to get
off, stay off, or never try drugs in the first place.
I hope we can convince the medical community to
stop prescribing drugs to people, especially when they truly do not need them.
That is the other facet of this. People who unknowingly become addicted because
they are prescribed something that takes hold of their soul.
The getting and using, and finding ways to get
more... is insanity. Yet too many people become "insane" over the
unquenchable thirst drugs leave with them. I have seen and done some crazy shit
because of drugs. I was homeless, hurt and hurtful, crazy and full of rage.
In rehab I was skeptical. I never got past step
2. I could admit freely that there were powers greater than me: money, politics,
the wind, water, volcanos. But to come to a personal relationship with a power
and call it god was just bullshit. I left the rooms determined to do it my own
way. everyone insisted I would use again. I insisted that people with a god or
higher power also used so that was not the deciding factor.
A belief in myself, a belief that I could become
more than I was before, drove me to distance myself from using. I have used
exercise, food, love, children, education, family, career, and hobbies as
fillers for times when I felt the urge to use.
My life today is spent trying to curb that
inner appetite I fear my sons where born with. To seek out thrills. To try any
new thing, to outdo the last adventure. I am just one woman, but I know all too
well how much pain and anguish drugs and users cause to themselves and to those
who love them. I usually share as a way to inspire, right around my clean date.
Surprising how much perspective comes to me because of a simple day.
Not sure that much would had I not been in
rehab during 9/11. I remember watching the towers fall and thinking:
"fuck" why am I sitting here clean? for what? the world is ending and
I am helpless!" And then I
realized... wow! I am going to actually remember this like a normal person
without a needle in my arm for the rest of my life.
A few years ago I took my sons to Ground Zero.
We walked around the city and the site. There is a tree there all strapped
together. It was saved even though buried in rubble for months. Without the
straps it would die. But it is a symbol that we "life" can not be
destroyed. We are bigger than ourselves. We have a purpose, and we rise from
ashes repeatedly. I am that tree. It and I have the same rebirth day. Whenever I
get down I remember how strong that tree is and I think "get moving!"
I wanted you to know that not all addicts’
stories end in death. Most unfortunately do. But there are quiet testaments to
perseverance all around. Remembering those you have lost must be incredibly
difficult. I am sure you have touched a great many who still live on!
Addiction is not about drugs. Drugs are just a
filler for the disease’s desire to control. Control in one's own life, and
feeling out of control and not liking it, that drives addicts to use something.
Some use religion, food, gambling, sex, hatred, power but what they use is just
the mechanism for wanting control. When I realized I could live out of control,
when I accepted that control was just an advertising gimmick, I learned to love
myself and the chaos around me.
Addiction kills. It drives many people to
behave in way they normally never would. I am and will always be an addict. My
responsibility to myself is identifying when my need for control in an area is
becoming a problem in other areas of my life. Learning to let go, and be ok
with not getting what I want when I want it... that is an amazing gift.
