Newcomer here...first post
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Chesapeake, VA
Posts: 1
Newcomer here...first post
I found this website through a friend. Today I am 43 days clean. My drug of choice was heroin, but I would also do coke, pills and sometimes pot. I was never a drinker....socially if that...so alcohol was never a problem for me. I am one week and one day off my suboxone and I feel great. I never thought I would be able to get off heroin but I am here today with no meds to help me and I am doing it, taking one day at a time.
I am a 36 year old female who has two small children. I have a 9 year old girl and a 3 year old boy. I was addicted to heroin for 3 years. I started shortly after giving birth to my boy.
I started snorting oxycontins on weekends for fun. I also had a pain in my back from giving birth?? so it helped relieve that pain. It was also an escape from the chaos of having children and working full time. My boyfriend was the one who introduced me to snorting it. I never snorted anything in my life and now that I took my first hit I was in heaven. I never ever felt that good again because as you know the first hit was the best ever and I always expected to feel that way again, until I built up a tolerance to it and then I couldn't get up for work on Monday morning. I knew nothing about the drug, especially the part about becoming physically addicting. I would have never done it if I knew that.
So I started snorting oxy's daily after my first hit probably about a month and a half later. My boyfriend was doing it too. I didn't think it was a problem because we didn't spend a whole lot of money on it in the beginning, just knew it made me feel on top of the world and energized at the same time. We went about a month doing oxy's until we couldn't get it anymore. I guess the dealer couldn't get anymore but he gave us something similar...heroin.
I remember the first time I was introduced to heroin. My boyfriend brought it home and was like it is the same thing as the oxy's. I was so scared because it is such a hard drug. I didn't think oxy's were that bad because it is prescribed...just thought it was like vicodin and I have taken vicodin before when I went to the dentist years ago and never got hooked on that. But the word Heroin scared me because all I knew about heroin is what they showed you in movies. Major drug addicts strung out, shooting it up...etc. I never thought that would ever be me. I thought I had control over it. I was wrong.
The first time I snorted heroin, it was a tiny bit, and it made me throw up so bad. I always had to chew gum of have lollipops because I hated the taste of the oxy's and heroin. It made me gag. But stupid me just did it anyway because it made me feel so good. So for about the first month of snorting heroin I was throwing up and I was using daily.
The more heroin I snorted, the more I wanted. I would always try to control myself from snorting anymore than we could afford. And I was also scared if I snorted too much, I would OD and that scared me to death because I am a mother of two. But the tolerance just built up and soon me and my boyfriend were using more than we could afford. We tried to make ends meet and mostly did with working full time, loans, credit cards, selling stuff...etc. I lost my job from being late and falling asleep at my desk (nodding). It was hard to keep up because now we had one income coming in. We did that for almost a year until the money became hard to handle as we did more and more just to feel ok.
After about a year we got into major financial problems. I lost my car due to repo, my boyfriend couldn't pay the rent because we were using more than we could afford. We lied to his parents for them to pay our rent and some of our bills. They helped us because they didn't know. But the one day came where we knew we needed help and my boyfriend told his parents that we were using heroin. They immediately tried to help us get into a program. And that we did.
The only program I heard about was a methadone clinic. So we joined. We made our appointment for 3 weeks later, and hoped we had enough money to survive the three week wait. By this time we knew we were going to try to get clean. My boyfriend had a friend who shot up, so he wanted to try it. He said it was the most awesome feeling. So I agreed to try it. I was scared because I hate needles but I let him shoot me up and I never looked back.
We finally got into the methadone clinic three weeks later. We paid $13/daily for each of us and drove 30 miles daily to get our methadone. It made us feel fine but it was draining our resources. It never made us stop using heroin, we just didn't have to chase it everyday. We just used heroin when we could, maybe 2 or 3 times a week. I don't know why we used heroin because methadone is an opiate blocker. But in our heads we needed it. We were also shooting up at this point and using alot of heroin to even feel it. We never paid attention to our bills until it was absolutely necessary and because I got another job and had another income coming in, we could afford the methadone clinic and some heroin....but things got bad when we couldn't afford our rent anymore. It was just too hard.
We lost our apartment a few months later and we had to go live with my boyfriends parents. It was nice to have the help with the kids too. We weren't as stressed about money and the kids. We also were still shooting up heroin and going to meth clinic. His parents didn't know about the heroin. All they knew is that we were on methadone getting better??? but were we really getting better still using? We were messed up mentally. Not even trying to quit.
So I was working full time at a good company as a temp and they wanted to hire me. So I cheated on the drug test...and they told me I got the job as a permanent full timer. About a week later they tell me that because my credit wasn't that great, that I couldn't be hired. I was crushed. I loved the people I worked with and I loved the job. It was also our money for our methadone. My boyfriends business slowed down and it was getting close to Christmas and my last day was a week before Christmas. So we were going to have to quit the methadone clinic because we couldn't afford it anymore. Our last dose was around January 2 and we had to quit around 65 milligrams daily down 7 mgs a day for about a week and a half down to 0 mg. Kicking methadone was worst than quitting heroin. The withdrawls were so bad. We couldn't get out of bed for about a week and when we did get out of bed we felt so bad. It was hard to function. We did that for about 3 weeks.
Around this time my boyfriends business started picking up again so of course we started using again. We started out slow knowing we didn't want to get in over our heads again. We "thought" we could control it this time. Our sick thinking. We just made people think that we were straight when we weren't. We just used enough not to be sick. And then a few months later it started again the using to get high. We did this for about 6 months. I got another job in the meantime, so we had two incomes coming in and still living with his parents who didn't know we were using.
So around November, I think his parents found out that we were using again. I either left something in the bathroom (paraphinalia) and they found it. So I agreed to check myself into a psych center that dealt with drug abuse. I was there for two days and I couldn't take being locked up so I checked myself out. I was clean for two days, but as soon as I got home, the first thing I asked my boyfriend for was there waiting for me, as he never quit using.
We made his parents think again we quit, I went to rehab for two days and my b/f just did it with suboxone he was buying off the street. But he never did take suboxone, just made his parents think he was on suboxone. They were clueless to drug addiction. They thought I quit but couldn't take the bad feeling and thought I was on suboxone too, but we were both using still and still thought we had control.
We went five more months of doing this. I had received my income tax refund and we spent $5,000 in a month and a half on heroin. We were out of control. We also did coke and crack occassionally when we could afford it the whole 3 years. I was still working full time and we never had a problem getting heroin or affording it as we weren't paying rent and his parents were clueless to our addiction. It all came crumbling down when we ran out of money and couldn't afford to buy it one day and I couldn't get to work. I couldn't go to work sick for three days and blamed it on depression. My boss told me to take my time coming back as I had Family Medical Leave Act, so I took my time. A week and a half later they tell me I am not qualified for FMLA because I haven't been there a year and they fire me for missing a week of work. I am livid about this but there is nothing I can do. I am a heroin addict so basically I wasn't going to fight something I would lose. They didn't know I was an addict but it was too much to bear at this point.
His parents found out again we were using....probably left paraphinalia in the bathroom again....and they told us we had to get into a program or risk getting kicked out or our kids taken away. They had enough of our drug addiction. I checked myself into an outpatient program. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I wanted to get well. My boyfriend on the other hand still wanted to get high...because he insisted on getting into the methadone program. I didn't want to do that program because I knew it was a dead end like the last time. I chose the suboxone program because I never tried it and I heard good things about it. My counseler got me to a doctor within a few days and my b/f had to wait over a month to get into the methadone program.
I started taking my suboxone as prescribed. It worked really good. I felt normal. I felt like myself again. I knew it was an opiate blocker so even if I relapsed, the heroin wouldn't work. Well since my boyfriend was still using heroin it was hard not to. So I relapsed once a week. Once I even stopped taking my suboxone because I wanted to feel that high just one more time. The doctor almost gave up on my because I kept failing tox screens. But my counseler knew the situation with my boyfriend and he stuck up for me. I started going to weekly group counseling 3 times a week for 3 hours. I also had my doc appt, plus an hour of suboxone counseling and on top of that I had to see my counseler once a week and go to a minimum of 2 NA meetings weekly. So I was spending about 12 hours weekly on my drug recovery and it was getting into my head. I made some friends and we went to NA meetings. I got a sponsor. Things were good except for my boyfriend still using. He was working with a guy who uses as well. So as I was on my way to recovery, he was hindering my recovery. I couldn't stand to see him high as I was trying to stay away from it unsuccessfully. When my boyfriend finally got into the methadone program, the first 3 or 4 days he was still using so I told him I was leaving him if he didn't stop and he didn't stop using.
So I finally left him and came to live with my family. I took his little boy away from him which he loves more than anything in this world. It crushed him. I was 3 states away and I finally got clean. It wasn't hard because I never used here and I had my family to support me. I hadn't seen my family in 3 years because of my addiction so I was also mending broken relationships which my addiction caused. It was great.
It is 6 weeks later and my boyfriend finally cleaned up his act. He stopped using and started going to counseling and NA meetings. He understands what it is going to take to get his family back. He is promising to do everything I want from him which is no more alcohol and drugs. I am getting really homesick as so are my kids. They miss home. So I am agreeing to go home this week on the promise from my boyfriend to never bring drugs into the home again. I never actually bought them just got them from my boyfriend when he scored. So I am going back to where I used and I am kind of scared. I am a week and a half off my suboxone detox and I felt no withdrawls from it. It was great. I just wish my boyfriend took the same path I did. I feel so much better. I can deal with my daily tasks without having to rely on a drug to control me. I am mentally better as well. I take it day by day and I hope and pray my recovery is going to work. I know I will have to work at it daily but that is life. I know what my life was before I did drugs and I want that life back. It is better than any life I have ever known. I wish I would have never took that first hit, but as life goes, it is never easy. It is a disease I will have to deal with daily. As long as I keep my mind on other positive things such as my children, I know I can do it. I went from using 50-60 dollars daily on drugs to 0 dollars a day in a month and a half. I feel great and I know the recovery will have some bumps but I plan to take those in stride and deal with it as it comes.
I am glad I found this website. It may help me along the way to getting clean. I am surrounding myself with nothing but positive things and hopefully I can find on here people who share my feelings and know what it is like to be an addict and in recovery.
Thank you for listening.
I am a 36 year old female who has two small children. I have a 9 year old girl and a 3 year old boy. I was addicted to heroin for 3 years. I started shortly after giving birth to my boy.
I started snorting oxycontins on weekends for fun. I also had a pain in my back from giving birth?? so it helped relieve that pain. It was also an escape from the chaos of having children and working full time. My boyfriend was the one who introduced me to snorting it. I never snorted anything in my life and now that I took my first hit I was in heaven. I never ever felt that good again because as you know the first hit was the best ever and I always expected to feel that way again, until I built up a tolerance to it and then I couldn't get up for work on Monday morning. I knew nothing about the drug, especially the part about becoming physically addicting. I would have never done it if I knew that.
So I started snorting oxy's daily after my first hit probably about a month and a half later. My boyfriend was doing it too. I didn't think it was a problem because we didn't spend a whole lot of money on it in the beginning, just knew it made me feel on top of the world and energized at the same time. We went about a month doing oxy's until we couldn't get it anymore. I guess the dealer couldn't get anymore but he gave us something similar...heroin.
I remember the first time I was introduced to heroin. My boyfriend brought it home and was like it is the same thing as the oxy's. I was so scared because it is such a hard drug. I didn't think oxy's were that bad because it is prescribed...just thought it was like vicodin and I have taken vicodin before when I went to the dentist years ago and never got hooked on that. But the word Heroin scared me because all I knew about heroin is what they showed you in movies. Major drug addicts strung out, shooting it up...etc. I never thought that would ever be me. I thought I had control over it. I was wrong.
The first time I snorted heroin, it was a tiny bit, and it made me throw up so bad. I always had to chew gum of have lollipops because I hated the taste of the oxy's and heroin. It made me gag. But stupid me just did it anyway because it made me feel so good. So for about the first month of snorting heroin I was throwing up and I was using daily.
The more heroin I snorted, the more I wanted. I would always try to control myself from snorting anymore than we could afford. And I was also scared if I snorted too much, I would OD and that scared me to death because I am a mother of two. But the tolerance just built up and soon me and my boyfriend were using more than we could afford. We tried to make ends meet and mostly did with working full time, loans, credit cards, selling stuff...etc. I lost my job from being late and falling asleep at my desk (nodding). It was hard to keep up because now we had one income coming in. We did that for almost a year until the money became hard to handle as we did more and more just to feel ok.
After about a year we got into major financial problems. I lost my car due to repo, my boyfriend couldn't pay the rent because we were using more than we could afford. We lied to his parents for them to pay our rent and some of our bills. They helped us because they didn't know. But the one day came where we knew we needed help and my boyfriend told his parents that we were using heroin. They immediately tried to help us get into a program. And that we did.
The only program I heard about was a methadone clinic. So we joined. We made our appointment for 3 weeks later, and hoped we had enough money to survive the three week wait. By this time we knew we were going to try to get clean. My boyfriend had a friend who shot up, so he wanted to try it. He said it was the most awesome feeling. So I agreed to try it. I was scared because I hate needles but I let him shoot me up and I never looked back.
We finally got into the methadone clinic three weeks later. We paid $13/daily for each of us and drove 30 miles daily to get our methadone. It made us feel fine but it was draining our resources. It never made us stop using heroin, we just didn't have to chase it everyday. We just used heroin when we could, maybe 2 or 3 times a week. I don't know why we used heroin because methadone is an opiate blocker. But in our heads we needed it. We were also shooting up at this point and using alot of heroin to even feel it. We never paid attention to our bills until it was absolutely necessary and because I got another job and had another income coming in, we could afford the methadone clinic and some heroin....but things got bad when we couldn't afford our rent anymore. It was just too hard.
We lost our apartment a few months later and we had to go live with my boyfriends parents. It was nice to have the help with the kids too. We weren't as stressed about money and the kids. We also were still shooting up heroin and going to meth clinic. His parents didn't know about the heroin. All they knew is that we were on methadone getting better??? but were we really getting better still using? We were messed up mentally. Not even trying to quit.
So I was working full time at a good company as a temp and they wanted to hire me. So I cheated on the drug test...and they told me I got the job as a permanent full timer. About a week later they tell me that because my credit wasn't that great, that I couldn't be hired. I was crushed. I loved the people I worked with and I loved the job. It was also our money for our methadone. My boyfriends business slowed down and it was getting close to Christmas and my last day was a week before Christmas. So we were going to have to quit the methadone clinic because we couldn't afford it anymore. Our last dose was around January 2 and we had to quit around 65 milligrams daily down 7 mgs a day for about a week and a half down to 0 mg. Kicking methadone was worst than quitting heroin. The withdrawls were so bad. We couldn't get out of bed for about a week and when we did get out of bed we felt so bad. It was hard to function. We did that for about 3 weeks.
Around this time my boyfriends business started picking up again so of course we started using again. We started out slow knowing we didn't want to get in over our heads again. We "thought" we could control it this time. Our sick thinking. We just made people think that we were straight when we weren't. We just used enough not to be sick. And then a few months later it started again the using to get high. We did this for about 6 months. I got another job in the meantime, so we had two incomes coming in and still living with his parents who didn't know we were using.
So around November, I think his parents found out that we were using again. I either left something in the bathroom (paraphinalia) and they found it. So I agreed to check myself into a psych center that dealt with drug abuse. I was there for two days and I couldn't take being locked up so I checked myself out. I was clean for two days, but as soon as I got home, the first thing I asked my boyfriend for was there waiting for me, as he never quit using.
We made his parents think again we quit, I went to rehab for two days and my b/f just did it with suboxone he was buying off the street. But he never did take suboxone, just made his parents think he was on suboxone. They were clueless to drug addiction. They thought I quit but couldn't take the bad feeling and thought I was on suboxone too, but we were both using still and still thought we had control.
We went five more months of doing this. I had received my income tax refund and we spent $5,000 in a month and a half on heroin. We were out of control. We also did coke and crack occassionally when we could afford it the whole 3 years. I was still working full time and we never had a problem getting heroin or affording it as we weren't paying rent and his parents were clueless to our addiction. It all came crumbling down when we ran out of money and couldn't afford to buy it one day and I couldn't get to work. I couldn't go to work sick for three days and blamed it on depression. My boss told me to take my time coming back as I had Family Medical Leave Act, so I took my time. A week and a half later they tell me I am not qualified for FMLA because I haven't been there a year and they fire me for missing a week of work. I am livid about this but there is nothing I can do. I am a heroin addict so basically I wasn't going to fight something I would lose. They didn't know I was an addict but it was too much to bear at this point.
His parents found out again we were using....probably left paraphinalia in the bathroom again....and they told us we had to get into a program or risk getting kicked out or our kids taken away. They had enough of our drug addiction. I checked myself into an outpatient program. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I wanted to get well. My boyfriend on the other hand still wanted to get high...because he insisted on getting into the methadone program. I didn't want to do that program because I knew it was a dead end like the last time. I chose the suboxone program because I never tried it and I heard good things about it. My counseler got me to a doctor within a few days and my b/f had to wait over a month to get into the methadone program.
I started taking my suboxone as prescribed. It worked really good. I felt normal. I felt like myself again. I knew it was an opiate blocker so even if I relapsed, the heroin wouldn't work. Well since my boyfriend was still using heroin it was hard not to. So I relapsed once a week. Once I even stopped taking my suboxone because I wanted to feel that high just one more time. The doctor almost gave up on my because I kept failing tox screens. But my counseler knew the situation with my boyfriend and he stuck up for me. I started going to weekly group counseling 3 times a week for 3 hours. I also had my doc appt, plus an hour of suboxone counseling and on top of that I had to see my counseler once a week and go to a minimum of 2 NA meetings weekly. So I was spending about 12 hours weekly on my drug recovery and it was getting into my head. I made some friends and we went to NA meetings. I got a sponsor. Things were good except for my boyfriend still using. He was working with a guy who uses as well. So as I was on my way to recovery, he was hindering my recovery. I couldn't stand to see him high as I was trying to stay away from it unsuccessfully. When my boyfriend finally got into the methadone program, the first 3 or 4 days he was still using so I told him I was leaving him if he didn't stop and he didn't stop using.
So I finally left him and came to live with my family. I took his little boy away from him which he loves more than anything in this world. It crushed him. I was 3 states away and I finally got clean. It wasn't hard because I never used here and I had my family to support me. I hadn't seen my family in 3 years because of my addiction so I was also mending broken relationships which my addiction caused. It was great.
It is 6 weeks later and my boyfriend finally cleaned up his act. He stopped using and started going to counseling and NA meetings. He understands what it is going to take to get his family back. He is promising to do everything I want from him which is no more alcohol and drugs. I am getting really homesick as so are my kids. They miss home. So I am agreeing to go home this week on the promise from my boyfriend to never bring drugs into the home again. I never actually bought them just got them from my boyfriend when he scored. So I am going back to where I used and I am kind of scared. I am a week and a half off my suboxone detox and I felt no withdrawls from it. It was great. I just wish my boyfriend took the same path I did. I feel so much better. I can deal with my daily tasks without having to rely on a drug to control me. I am mentally better as well. I take it day by day and I hope and pray my recovery is going to work. I know I will have to work at it daily but that is life. I know what my life was before I did drugs and I want that life back. It is better than any life I have ever known. I wish I would have never took that first hit, but as life goes, it is never easy. It is a disease I will have to deal with daily. As long as I keep my mind on other positive things such as my children, I know I can do it. I went from using 50-60 dollars daily on drugs to 0 dollars a day in a month and a half. I feel great and I know the recovery will have some bumps but I plan to take those in stride and deal with it as it comes.
I am glad I found this website. It may help me along the way to getting clean. I am surrounding myself with nothing but positive things and hopefully I can find on here people who share my feelings and know what it is like to be an addict and in recovery.
Thank you for listening.
SR Fan
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Mississippi
Posts: 7,910
Hi cottoncandy - It's great that you posted your whole story - you can come back to it when you think "just a little" wouldn't hurt. It sounds like you're really committed to staying clean so kudos for that!
I can understand how going back to where you lived would be scary. I felt the same thing when I first got out of a 30-day rehab. You have a LOT on your plate right now, so try to keep things as simple as possible. You, your sobriety and your kids come first. Take everything one day (one step) at a time and it will work out.
I can understand how going back to where you lived would be scary. I felt the same thing when I first got out of a 30-day rehab. You have a LOT on your plate right now, so try to keep things as simple as possible. You, your sobriety and your kids come first. Take everything one day (one step) at a time and it will work out.
Being Me for the first time
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Wishek, North Dakota
Posts: 1,160
HI Cotton and welcome to the SR forum family , were glad you found us , tho myself im a recovering boozer . And have no clue to that sorta DOC but I have many friends on SR who like you are in recovery and workin there program .. glad to see your takin your seriouly this time . But please be careful returning to where you used to use .. keep in constant contact with your sponcer and just remeber the word NO ..
massive huggles and welcome ~ Endzy~
massive huggles and welcome ~ Endzy~
Member
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Florida
Posts: 649
Wow - that's quite a history CC! Sounds like you came a long way and determined to stay off the drugs. As long as BF is NOT using, I think you'll be just fine.
Welcome to the SR Family and good luck with the move back home. Please keep us posted.
Welcome to the SR Family and good luck with the move back home. Please keep us posted.
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