Drug Addiction Stories

Sometimes people on drugs feel like they are all alone. Sometimes it is paranoia. Sometimes it is the truth, whether the drugs did it or the loneliness led to the drugs or whatever. I know because I am one of those people. No family, no close friends. I got deeper and deeper into my heroin and alcohol and could have easily ended up dead if it had not been for someone who totally depended on me. The truth is, I think he saved my life just as much as I saved his. 

Do you change the channel during commercials? I do, too, most of the time. One night, however, the remote control was just out of reach and I was too into my high to reach it. A commercial came on about abandoned animals. I looked into their eyes and saw my own feelings there. Weird, I know, but I could see their pain and feel it. Someone else could see it, too, and snuggled more into me. My dog, Henry.

I looked at him and saw the same look I was seeing in the animals on television. It was like he was saying, “Yeah, that’s me when you off yourself by overdose some day. How can you be sympathetic to their plight when you are doing the same thing to me by slowly killing yourself?”

I know some of you might be reading this and if you have never done drugs you are thinking that’s the paranoia coming out. Some of you may not like animals and will not understand the connection. But I bet there are still others out there who do know, who do get what I am trying to say.

That night, the commercial kept coming back and haunting me. I kept glancing at Henry asleep on his side of the double bed. Maybe I did not have a family, my parents dying just after my 19^th birthday in a car accident and no siblings, aunts or cousins to speak of. Maybe I had never married since turning to heroin and alcohol shortly afterwards. But I was 23 and I did have someone depending on me who showed me every day that he loved me, my dog, Henry.

I made arrangements the next day to get clean. I got Henry situated with a neighbor I trusted who was delighted I was getting help. She had sort of adopted me and took care of my parents’ home and Henry while I was in rehab. Today, I am working, involved with a couple of community projects, pursuing my interest in art, dating a little and every day, I come home to someone very important: Henry.

I have read many stories on here. I am not sure if you will post one that is third party or not. It did happen in my family but it was not a family member who caused it. Anyway, here is our story. The reason I think it is important is because it involves children being used by someone they should have been able to trust. 

When my son was in kindergarten, I received a call one day from his principal. He told me that it had been decided that my son had a behavior problem and needed to be put on Ritalin as he suspected my son had ADHD. Now I was concerned and a bit aggravated that his teacher had not told me of her suspicions. I was a hands-on mom, I had all of my children involved in sports and I was right there with them as either a soccer coach or baseball or football team mom. When I asked his teacher why she had not said anything to me, she was shocked. She told me that she had never seen any behavior problems in my son other than those that normal five year old boys go through.

Still, I took him to his pediatrician who did a thorough screening and based on his knowledge of my son, the two conversations with the teacher and the principal and my own active participation in my child’s life, he said there was no need for my son to be on any form of medication. What I did not know was that there were other children in the neighborhood also being told the same thing who shared the same pediatric clinic and pharmacy as we lived on a military installation.

With the rise in prescription refills being requested by the parents of children attending that elementary school as well as the parents of those children not on medication being encouraged to seek it, it soon became apparent that someone was stealing the prescription medication that was intended for the children. When a person does not need ADHD medication, it can be crushed and snorted and acts as a form of speed.

To this day I keep my guard up where teachers and principals are concerned. I stay active in my kids’ academic lives. I know sometimes teachers say that they have to clean up a parent’s mess but in my experience, my kids had some really good teachers and even some good principals. Still, I will never forget that one principal wanted to feed his addiction at the risk of hurting my innocent five year old. He picked the wrong kid, though, because my son had a very involved mother who knew his personality inside and out.

The principal lost his job but I am thankful every day that it was not at the expense of endangering my child by putting him on medication he never needed to begin with. My advice to every parent who is told by a principal or teacher that their child needs ADHD medication is to make sure, know your child, check with the doctor and with other parents in the school to see if it is being requested of them as well. Your child deserves to be protected in case there is an ulterior motive.

 I found an old diary the other day from my childhood. I dreamed of going to New York City and becoming an attorney. I dreamed of being completely on my own, making a lot of money and marrying some rich guy. What I did was completely opposite. I became a homeless druggie and ended up dumped by my own drug dealer for girl after girl after girl.

I was on drugs for years. My family begged me to get help. Thankfully, I never had any kids or they would have been part of that nightmare. I could not believe how fast time flew. One day I was a teenager dreaming of graduating in two years, the next I was a drugged out high school dropout who did not care about anything but my next fix.

I finally got clean when I was in my 30s. I moved back to my home town from Sacramento where I was just losing it with one drug fix after another and took courses to help at a local drug rehab center that appreciated the fact that I had first hand experience and could offer a different type of help to the teens and local townspeople. I would run into people I knew and they would be shocked at my appearance. I looked older thanks to my drug use.

I found that old diary in the garage when I was cleaning it out for my mom. I sat and cried over what could have been. Then I remembered that now I am making a difference. Just the other day I took part in a graduation ceremony where a young girl thanked me for helping her through her detox and listened to her fears and dreams. She is only nineteen and has her whole life ahead of her. I just know she can do it.

I may not have become a great attorney in New York City and married some millionaire but I am richly blessed all the same. I am making a difference in my own community, with the kids of some of my past classmates, and I just started dating a wonderful man who is the brother of someone in my Narcotics Anonymous group.

My life did not go the way that sixteen year old girl dreamed in that diary over twenty years ago but I have been given a second chance and I appreciate it more than words can say. I made a success of myself after all.