My story.

[pd766]

I'de like to share my story with everyone here regarding my "minor" drug use and my, 3 year addiction to cocaine and heroin, and how I got solber.
If you wish to only read about my major addiction and how it really affected my life scroll down until you see 3 line breaks.

Ever since I was 13 I've been involved with drugs, it started out with marijuana, I lived in Wisconsin, as far as I knew at that time that was the easiest cheapest drug to get. My parents also smoked at the time so I saw no harm in it. That continued for a few years, I got in trouble with the law plenty of times for burglary x 3, my stupid idea was to get enough cash off the stolen goods to get a good supply and start selling pot at school. My parents ended up paying upwards toward $7,000 for a lawyer to get the charges dropped, I ended up with 1 felony burglary charge and was sent to a behavioral treatment center about 100 miles away from home up in the boonies in a >100 population town. In my opinion that was the best thing that ever happened, even though I hated it so much at the time, I realize now that it taught me alot of structure and how to deal with people. A sidenote I had been to counslers and psychiatrists and had been diagnosed with adhd, bipolar disorder, and manic depression. To this day I dont believe it, if you can control your mind you can do anything. Anyways, after I left the treatment center (9 months there), I was a good kid, I didn't smoke pot, I didn't smoke cigarettes, and I had no interest in crime. What I consider the worst mistake my parents ever made, is right after leaving the treatment center we moved to phoenix, AZ.
Let me tell you a little something about AZ, everyone hates everyone else, nobody can drive, and drugs are dirt cheap.
Anyways, when we got to arizona, I went to high school and got good grades for about year, straght a's as a matter of fact, then a buddy of mine gave me some pot. Up until this point I had been solber ever since I left Wisconsin. As soon as I felt that familair feeling again, I had to get more. One more year of high school and my grades shot down, I was tired and couldn't concentrate. At that point I was in with the "wrong" crowd, getting high every night, staying out late. At this point I would like to add, my parents did there best to stop this, unfortunately for me like every other human being, they slept. So when they did I would leave the house. That continued until finally, my attitude on life changed so much I wouldn't even goto school, just walked around high all day, smoking cigarettes, getting bitched at by the school guards as I walked off campus. Finally, the school counslers considered me an "at risk student" and I was transferred to an alternative school. They also suggested I see a psychiatrist, so I did, and got prescribed Adderal. That prescription med is the WORST, it is legal methamphetamine. So what I began doing with those is opening up the capsules, which were time release, crushing them and snorting them. I did that for about a year, it let me graduate high school 1 year early, know why? because I would go a week without sleeping making these masterpieces of homework and normal school work. The work I did was even better than when I was solber in school, I guess a super heightened awareness will do that to you, if youre reading this and ever done crystal meth, you'll know what I'm talking about. What that magic super pill did for me was allow me to anything I put my mind to. When there was no school work I would stay up all night on my computer doing computer programming creating computer programs and doing some artwork and animation, I really enjoyed it. Everything was sort of ok I guess, the only problem was I had no pot connect, I met a kid at the alternative school that had connections to everything, I regret so much to this day meeting this kid, let's call him Bob ok?. He was just recovering from a 3 year crystal meth addiction, I didn't know that at the time. He got me my pot and I began smoking again, it didn't do much for me, mainly because of the adderall I was on. SOOOOO we began hanging out, alot. At this time I had gotten my first car and license, so I had transportation and he didnt. He introduced me to cocaine. I remember to this day that first time I tried it was the most magnificent feeling in the world. I knew how bad it was, and swore up and down when I was younger I would never get into harder drugs, ha ha ha. ha. I didn't do any more coke after that for about 6 months or so. In that mean time we had this strange relationship, I didn't notice it at first but it came to me later. I would drive him around, we would pick up drugs, he would share, alot. Everything was free for about a year. He had some magic skill where he knew so many people he could this for this price, then trade it for something worth more, and do this over and over, I thought it was really brilliant. The drugs we were doing were still mainly pills and pot, pills like benzos (atavan, xanax, klonipin) and of course the oh so popular oxycontins, morphine. I didn't like those, mainly because I was allergic, I would snort any opiate based pill, feel the high, and then puke everywhere, everytime. Bob got this great idea, hey I know alot of people, your computer smart, teach me. We started trading bootleg movies and music to alot of people to get drugs, mainly coke. It was a bad cycle at this point. I was going to college, so was he. I got him into ITT Tech down here, and we would hang out all day, making movies, alot of bootleg movies, im talking at least 40 different titles at 50 copies each to people that redistribute them. Shortly after we started this I turned 18 so my free health insurance ran out and I stopped getting my adderall. This payed for "the cycle" do a bunch of coke stay up all night, make movies, goto school, sell, do more coke, more movies..so on. After a while, everyone that was redist the bootlegs got arrested for drug/crime. For my own reasons, I did crystal meth 3 times in that entire process, never liked it. Everything was perfect in my perspective, I kept all the drugs out of my parents house, I would come home at godly hours of the night and pass out, wake up and do it all over again, it seriously had no negative reprocussions. After the bootleg **** stopped, things went a little different between Bob and I, I wanted the drugs, but he had no way to afford them. So I got a job at subway and started paying for the same drugs, mainly pills,pot and coke. Now I would to tell you part that ruined my life.



One day, we were gonna buy some kind of opiate based pill and this kid, let's call him John. We've known John for about 1 month as a connect for opiate based ****. As soon as he walked in the door I sense something about something very very bad. I didn't know what though. He showed us this foil with brown trails on it, and said he try this it's heroin, but you dont have to put it in your vein you just smoke it. And at that point, 1) I didn't know much about heroin 2) It seemed safe enough because you didn't need a needle (ignorance). 3) I had grown tired of everything else, the coke was tiring, the pills made me stupid and we're dangerous when I drove, omg so many close calls driving on all that. So on we all went "chasing the dragon" as they say. Let me explain the "difference" between me and them. They explained that they had alot of pain, which they did. Bob had severe headaches, John had a back injury. This was the reason for opiate pills. Anyways, that first hit off that foil was beautiful it made everything so good. Now, let me tell you something about heroin dealers, if you dont know. They're selfish, they dont care about anything or take anything but cash. We were already paying for drugs at this point so we said what the hell, we would go out every night drive for about 30 minutes to south phoenix to pick it up. (we lived in the outskirts of phx). At that point I had just got a new car, like brand new, on credit. So I loved to drive it, and hey the heroin made me feel wonderful, no problems right. Now after this the details are going to get fuzzy, youll understand why. Also, I had just got a job as a PC tech making 2000$ a month, so money wasn't an object. Every night we would go down to south phoenix and pick up our ****, little bits like 2/10th to 4/10th grams and Bob, John, and I would smoke it up that night. All go home, pass out, goto work and do the same thing at night. After about a month straight of doing this I began to feel the withdrawl of not having it when I wanted it. At this point, we had about 7 other friends that started doing it too, so I figured hey maybe I should sell this and get more for myself. That's when my personality changed. One night I met a guy that wanted some and said he would sell me a connect to get this **** at 30$ a gram, which at the time I was paying 100$ a gram. So I was like OK cool introduce me to this guy. The guy was mexican, had 6 different cars and looked like pablo escabar. This is where **** went wrong, I sold for about two more weeks and then just started buying for myself. At first 1/2 gram a day, picking it up on my lunch hour. Then 1 gram a day. Then my health started to decline, I was gone all the time. Only because I had worked on computers ever since I was 5 y/o could I keep my job, it was instinct to me. Plus the heroin didn't have any physical signs when I was on it, except the horrible smell on my clothes from smoking it and the deep bags under my eyes. But hey I smoked cigarettes too so it was a good fungschway smell. At this point I am hardcore addicted, it became solely my drug of choice. Because nothing mattered at all when I was on it, nothing at all, the world could end, the sky could fall, but as long as I was high **** I didn't care it was all me. I began spending all my paycheck on it. I dropped out of college I cry because of this today, my credits too ****** to get back in. I began getting 2-3 grams a day. I stopped paying my car insurance and car payment. Now GOD showed me, he tryed to put me on the right path. I say this because I began nodding off while driving, swerving back and forth between lanes. This was a daily problem, until finally I passed out taking a corner a little ways away from home. I took the corner at 45mph, ran up over the curb and ripped both wheels off the front of the car and funked the frame. It was totalled. Of course this happened right after I stopped paying the insurance, I owe the credit union 3500$ for what I owed on the car, boy were they pissed when they came to repo and I told them "it's all yours, sorry" as it sat in my driveway wheels missing fluid everywhere. Now if you think that's bad, it gets worse. I got a new car the next day, it was christmas. I got a 2005 same model as my old one, I knew I couldn't afford it, but I was high at the time and wanted it so I said I'll take it. I continued on 2 grams a day, meeting up with the mexican at lunch everyday, sometime twice a day. when I ran out of money I began screwing over check advance places. I made about 1500$ that way, spent away in a couple of days. Never paid them back. Never made one car payment on my car, somehow I managed to keep it for 6 months without paying. On my birthday, I was totally out of money and withdrawling really bad, I can't say this part but let me say this, illegal. I had to quit my job after that, because it was involved with the previous statement. So I started pawning **** I had, old computers I fixed up, old stereo equipment. Got some money from my parents. This part may sound funny but it's absolutely true. My new car was being repo'd so I said **** it, I called up my mexican drug dealer, the only friend I had left, and asked him if he'd give me something for my car. He said I'll hold it for you for 150$ worth. So I drove down there gave up the car and got my ****. I got high in an empty apartment storage thing on a patio. At that point I knew I had a serious serious problem. But it still continued, my parents would give me a ride I would cover up what I was getting. And then one night, 4 days ago, something hit me out of the blue, I said "Mom I have to talk to you". I spilled everything it broke her heart, but she swore she would help me. I called my insurance's substance abuse crisis hotline, they came and got me. And took me to this crisis center which said that they would allow me into detox. I got to the place at 11 and got in at 3am, apparently people had worse problems than me. I slept there that night, they denied me the detox in the morning and sent me to a halfway house, ugh as soon as I got there I knew I wasn't staying, I was used to a fluffy nice, clean, 5 bedroom house with a nice bed and good food and caring people. This place was a dump, the fridge was older than me, everything was broken, the beds were stained. I called my parents and said come get me please. They did, and they put me on "parental house arrest" they tore apart my room while I was gone making sure there was nothing left at all. I couldn't use a phone, I couldn't leave the house. If I did they would call the cops. So I went with it, I swore to GOD that I would quit. I prayed for him to help me through this, and he did. Even though I hadn't spoken to him the entire time this fiasco started he still helped. And I know it, because I had experienced withdrawls before and they were absolutely horrible. The only problems I've had since I've been solber is alot of leg pain, insomnia (I just got my first night sleep last night).

Now, today. I am solber and it feels wonderful. I can think again. I've realized that the way I feel now is pretty damn close to how I would feel when I got that first hit after not having any for more than a day. I'm starting to get feeling back in my body. Technically, my life is kind of ruined. Not totally, but pretty damn close. I have no car, I have no job, I can't use my last job as a reference. I've got a traffic ticket warrant for arrest. My credit is most definatley ruined. All the check advance places went to collections, along with my two car loans, along with my student loans, along with the 3 credit cards I maxed out the second they came out of the envelope. I'm 1000$ in debt with my bank from my debit/credit card. Oh did I mention my license/registration was suspened from the second I got the 2005 car, yea it was I still drove it though, anything for my lady heroin. I'm never touching that **** again, or any drug for that matter. I look back on my life, I don't regret because it was fun. It was fun while it lasted, it was like living like a rockstar. But I know now that I cannot be like that. GOD has much more in store for me....
Oh and parents if you ever see your kid with tin foil, go full force on them rip apart there room, I wish that would've happened to me.

If you ask what happened to everyone else I used to know? Theyre all still addicts struggling to stay high with no intention of quitting. Everyone that were good friends, just smokin a little pot on the weekend. Theyre all traiters trying to screw each other out of a 10$ to get a little peace of that sweet hell, heroin.

"If I can apoligize for being wrong, then it's just a shame on me, I'll be the reason for your pain and you can put the blaim on me."

So yea that's my story, if you don't care to read it that's fine. I just needed to tell it to the world.

[Gmoney]

Your story sounds all too familiar, and I think it's great that you're clean. Are you attending NA meetings? I didn't notice anything in your story about working a 12 step program to sustain/maintain your recovery. It would be a good idea to attend some NA meetings, join a home group, get a sponsor to guide you through the steps, and get involved in service work. Getting clean can be pretty tough, but without the support we find in the fellowship and doing the "inside job" of getting spiritually, physically and mentally healthy, it can be even harder to STAY clean.

Best wishes & keep coming back.

GarryW
Clean date: 8/24/98

[caileesnana]

Thanks for sharing! God bless you in your recovery, you're headed the right way!
susan

[REZ]

I would like to repeat what Gary said. Not many addicts can stay clean on their own for very long. I sure couldn't. NA saved my life.