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My Heroin Addiction Story

Updated on August 11, 2016

"I would NEVER do that crap!!!!" - Me (20s)

Never in a trillion years would I have thought to myself that I would be homeless in St. Louis and addicted to heroin so badly that I would get violently ill without having it. Me? NEVER! Well as it turns out, this is exactly what has happened to me. Most of my life I have struggled with chemical dependence of some form. Whether it be alcohol or prescription pills, I would over indulge and then become addicted. There were times of my life where I did not struggle with that as well. These times of not struggling with addiction and losing is where I would like to be currently.

I have no idea why or how my mind worked when I would classify the abuse of heroin as compared to the abuse of prescription opiate painkillers. Somehow in my mind I had thought that heroin users were such pieces of trash and just pure garbage and wastes of humanity but those of us who were addicted to opiate painkillers were somehow better or more justified. Boy was I wrong. For one, ANY person suffering from addiction is not a bad horrible person by default because of the fact that they have become addicted to a substance. No matter what. It is the actual person and their standards and morality that determines if they are just crappy human beings or not. For two, who am I to judge another human being? At the time, I was just another human who is an alcoholic and who abuses prescription pills. I had enough of all of that. I was ready to stop using ANY mood or mind altering substances. So what I did next was something that I also would never have seen myself doing and that was to get TOTALLY clean and sober cold turkey.

There is always a beginning, a middle, and an end; this is the beginning.

Since 2009 I had abused prescription opiate painkillers. My grandmother has just passed away and I was actually clean and sober working an A.A. program. I was very active in my recovery at this point. When she passed away I turned to narcotic painkillers to numb everything I felt at the time. I eventually moved to Arkansas and then became even more addicted because I was able to more readily find Oxycodone pills and they were pretty cheap compared to what I was paying. I was scoring 30mg Oxycodone pills for around $10.00 each. I was using anywhere between 10-18 a day, every day. I would spend every dime of the money I was making on pills because without them, I had felt ill and THOUGHT i could not get out of bed hardly. I would force myself to do what I needed to do to be able to make it to work so I could afford more. Was a paying rent and my bills? NO. Could I have paid my rent and bills had I not had this issue with addiction? YES....times 10. This went on from 2009 to about 2011. I had got off the pills for about 8 months in 2012 and I was doing pretty good. I had money in my pocket, a place to live, a girlfriend, a car, etc. So why did I go back to using? I went back to using pills again because I had my life somewhat together and I honestly missed the feeling of being "high" so I figured if I just used again, on weekends or 2 days a month, then I would not become addicted and my life would not fall apart for the 3rd time. Long story short, I was wrong. I became addicted and this time worse than ever. I was using Oxy again, everyday, and it was a monster of a bad habit. I had lost my job, lost my motivation, and eventually lost EVERYTHING I had worked so hard to gain. 2013 into 2014 I was fed up with losing everything AGAIN so I stopped, cold turkey. Stopping using pills actually was not as bad as I had always anticipated it would be. I felt lethargic for a few days and then I felt ok again.

2014, I was clean and sober and had started to work really hard at getting my life back on track. I was doing pretty decent but it was slow going. I met a girl in August 2014 and she had been a pill addict for many years. She was the first active pill addict I had encountered since I had gotten clean this time around. I really liked her and felt a deep strong connection. She had come from Missouri to Ohio to visit me for the weekend and just days before she arrived, she had asked if I did pills like Oxy or other painkillers. THIS is when things started the great downfall. I told her "Yeah I do" and that was that. She had gotten to Ohio, spent the weekend, and I had totally fell head over heels for her. The bad thing was that I was using again. I felt really conflicted about that so I took off and fell off of the map for a few months. Knowing that being with her and knowing myself, I would be back using in full force before too long. The time came where I came out of hibernation and decided to contact her again so I did just that.

In October 2014 I had contacted her and explained what was going on in my life, which was a complete mess. I had trusted her to help me get back on track because at this time, I needed help from someone. She came and got me and brought me to St. Louis with her. Before we got to St. Louis we stopped at her friends house in Ohio and she had introduced me to heroin for the very first time in my entire life. She had a gram or more of it waiting on her from her best friends brother. I guess that is how it happened. She had been using heroin off and on for a long time now at this point. Nothing mattered to me at this point other than escaping mentally and physically from what I had just went through during my hibernation period in Arkansas. Nothing. All that mattered to me was the love I had for this girl and the idea that maybe we could have a long happy future together. I did not want her to think less of me or that I would judge her for using heroin so I made the adult decision to partake in the heroin with her and her friends. THE DUMBEST CHOICE I HAD EVER MADE IN LIFE. That weekend I had witnessed her completely at overdose level and had to wtach her 2 year old son AT her friends house because she could not. She could do nothing but sleep. She told me it meant a lot to her that I watched her son while she was OD'ed on heroin. In retrospect, what guys had she been used to at this point? Guys that WOULD NOT have watched a child out of sympathy and good heartedess because the mother was on overdose level? Anyways, I had actually hit a point myself where I felt like I had overdosed myself. I could NOT open my eyes, talk, walk, anything. It was kind of blissfully frightening. I carried forth. I REALLY liked this girl. A LOT. She had called into work because she could not drive in this condition so we ended up in Ohio for I think 3 days. So now, we were off to St. Louis and I had hopes and dreams building in my mind and in my heart. We had stars in our eyes and nothing mattered other than what we had together. I became completely in love with her and I had also become active in my using of pills again. We would use more pills than I have ever used before. HUNDREDS of pills EVERY week. I had found work soon as I got there but at this point I was already fully addicted again and when I did not have any opiates to put in my body, I would become sick.

I received news that my mother was likely on her death bed in I.C.U. on life support after getting an infection from a back surgery. So I was a mess and I could not turn to anyone because when I would try, I would get the same fake response. I got sick of that quickly and then sank VERY deep into my drug addiction. The day came that we had no more pills and no one to buy pills from. I had JUST moved into my OWN apartment all by myself in South City St. Louis in a bad area. I had met a heroin dealer

So, we were out of all of our pills and she kept saying she needed to have some for work and I knew I needed some for work myself. I inform her that I had met a guy that sold heroin (dope) so we went that route. It was new and exciting for me. I liked the way it made me feel and I really liked her. At this point I had no idea that the girl I was getting to know and falling in love with was in fact ONLY THERE when she was on drugs. I was falling in love with the version of someone who was severely mentally intoxicated with opiates to the point of just not being herself. The sex was GREAT and she was my wildest dreams come true in every sense of the word. But, I had no idea that I was only falling in love with a VERSION of her. Falling in love with HER ON DOPE. I honestly had no idea who she was as a true person. I only knew who she was ON DOPE.

Eventually the times got tough, I experienced what is called being "dopesick" for the very first time of my life. We were using a gram or more EVERYDAY of heroin and then the day came when I did not have any. We argued and fought. She said some really hurtful things to me and I hauled off and put my hands on her. INSTANT REGRET. I instantly started crying and in my mind begging myself to stop using heroin. She had become a MONSTER when she did not have heroin. I had become a mirror to that monster. Times would get better...they would get the best...they would get bad...then...they would become the worst.

September 2015 I had enough. I was being evicted and facing life on the streets of St. Louis literally. I did not want to lose the girl and I wanted her to get clean. I made a phone call to her parents and pretty much spilled the beans about her using heroin. They honestly had no idea. She wormed out of that and made me look like the bad guy. Now I have her parents thinking I was lying about some of the stuff I had told them that she was not honest to them about and on the other hand they blamed me for her using. I was screwed either way. I was watching her actually BECOME as a person the MONSTER that she turned into when she did not have dope. I watched as the girl I loved more than any other girl on this planet before her, turned into this horrible, lying, would do anything to preserve self person. She was becoming everything that was the exact opposite of who I was tricked into thinking she was as a person. My heart shattered. I went to rehab. Her father and her both gave me a ride and wished me luck. While in rehab, she was out scoring dope and doing God knows what else. At this point we had both become people that were not very good people and had done things that we were not proud of. That is life on heroin I guess. That is why I did not want to be on heroin any longer.

I got clean! YAY! WOOHOO!!! Now I just had to deal with literally having NOWHERE to go and NOWHERE to live along with trying to find a job that could fit into my new homeless life. It was proving to be impossible. The ONLY person I had in my life and that i could turn to was this girlfriend. She was still using although her father paid$3k for her to go to a suboxone clinic. She was still using heroin just not as much. We had decided that we would use one weekend a month and that weekend would be Halloween weekend 2015 then we would stop. WHAT A JOKE?!? We had become more addicted than ever. I could not get dope without her and she ALWAYS had dope. She was buying my dope for me and it was pathetic and said. She enabled me greatly but I enabled myself even more because I would talk her into loaning me dope, etc. She had ALWAYS lived with her parents in their basement so she really had no bills. Her car got repossessed within months of us being in St. Louis together. Everything had fallen apart and I had lost everything and she also lost everything. It was both of our faults but yet either of us would say the other is to blame.

I was homeless and hopeless throughout the entire winter and still to this day I am homeless. We remained together until very recently when she dumped me so she could go and do her thing and not feel guilty about it. She looked out for me with all the dope I could ask for. She was also using dope. We have things in pawn, we have stolen from stores, she had stolen from her parents, I had gave up ANY money I would get and would spend every last cent on dope for both of us because I OWED ALL MY MONEY TO HER because she had spent so much on dope and shared with me. So I am stuck in neverending debt with her.

Anyways, boofrigginhoo...who cares about the patheticness of how I had become and how much it hurt me that she did not live up to what she said she would when it came to the relationship. She is moving with her parents to Ohio in less than a month, has connections there for heroin already, and she never has to deal with seeing me again. This is the end of me using heroin. The girl I loved more than I have ever loved, the girl I would do anything just to see smile, HATES me, judges me for being homeless and being a junkie. I have to admit, I have become kind of a piece of trash and it IS hard for me to find steady work when I SLEEP ON THE GROUND OUTSIDE or in a bug infested homeless shelter where people are catching tuberculosis from within the last 30 days. \

I have been stuck in a perpetual cycle of homelessness and heroin addiction ever since I met this girl, fell in love, and moved to St. Louis. I have never been this low in my life and I have NEVER FELT this low in my life. I have been literally suicidal for MONTHS now and have no one to turn to. I have tried going to the hospital to try and kick the heroin habit but I get turned away because I am uninsured. I can not afford bus fare to even get to work because I "HAVE" to buy heroin first so I can even function. This is sad, pathetic, and disgusting. I turn to this girl I love and break down in tears only to be told "Stop crying you p---y a-- b----!", "God I hate you!", "Why can't you just die already?". This is all very true and what I have just typed is the VERY mild rendition of events and what is said. I am not innocent. I can be a real jerk...


STOP


WHO HAVE I BECOME??? It is realizing all of this when I sat and thought about EVERYTHING and how things are that I realized that I have become a true piece of crap. How could someone that stood against heroin as much as I did just 2 years ago become someone so ravished and devastated by this drug? How could a drug take a very hard working stand-up guy with very strong positive morals and turn him into the bottom of the barrel scum that he has become? It is because THIS IS NOT WHO I AM. This is the face of heroin. This is what is seen when HEROIN decides to wear my face. Everyone is different and everyone has a different negative story and downfall. This is mine. The time has come to change that.

GATEWAY CITY to a better life....

So now that I have shared with you a VERY brief version of what has happened to me in the past two years let me share with you where I am at currently and what I plan on doing about it. I have been homeless and not even able to shower or eat at all sometimes since I got evicted on September 7th, 2015. I am fed up with this life. I am fed up with getting decent employment and then losing it because I can not afford to make it to work, or I might be sick vomiting with a case of diarrhea so bad that I would not be able to function at work. I am fed up with allowing someone else to say things to me that make me feel like killing myself. I am fed up with beating myself up for the wrongs I have committed since I started using heroin all the while watching another person commit wrongs daily without any shame. I AM FED UP WITH LETTING HEROIN CONTROL MY ENTIRE LIFE AND RUN ME INTO AN EARLY GRAVE. Heroin does not make people into bad people. People just exhibit their worst portrayal of humanity while being addicted to heroin and stuck in active addiction.

I have no idea what to do now. The only thing that matters is that I do not use one day at a time until I can completely detox my body from heroin. I could make it, I could not make it. I will never find out until I try though.

There is no place for me to go to detox since I do not have insurance in St. Louis. I HAVE to quit cold turkey and HATE every minute of it. This is what my life has become. My biggest worry is not how I should pay the mortgage payment, the car payment, what the kids need to go back to school....I am 33 and my biggest worry is how to stop using heroin and get my life back on track.

I am currently homeless living on the street. I am currently unemployed. I currently have ZERO cash to my name. I currently feel suicidal more than ever. I currently have no desire for this to carry on as it has been in any way, shape, or form. I am DONE! I do not want this life addicted to heroin any longer. I do not want to be homeless anymore. It has been the roughest thing I have EVER experienced or have even heard of another person experiencing.


I will keep any readers posted....so please SHARE my story and feel free to ask me any questions so I can answer them in public. I want to share this story so much so that some day...in a month or two...or 6...0r 12 months. I can look back and see where I was mentally when I first got clean. I want to post regular updates so I can be held accountable for whomever reading this and staying tuned in to my story of this journey. I am honest for the most part still in my addiction so I will be honest and also say...the more this story is shared, the more I could potentially earn within a few months that I could have a deposit or SOME SORT of financial help with getting into an apartment.

THIS WILL BE MY STORY OF HOW I HAVE OVERCOME HEROIN AND HOW I STAY CLEAN. This will be sort of a journal that i will write in for the public to view so that I can be held accountable and so that maybe one day someone else is where I am in their thinking and reads this, and they get a little hope from my lack of hope, and then they stop using heroin themselves. Who knows? Anything is possible.

working

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