Drug Addiction Stories & Info

Sometimes people do know that they have a problem with addiction. I knew I had a problem. I was hooked on my pain medication. Several years ago, I had a car accident. Every time I was taken off the pain medication, I claimed a recurrence, whether it was true or not. I even went to a couple of different doctors in other counties, even one across the state line.

My best friend and my husband tried to talk to me about my addiction but I shrugged them off. What really got me to change was the evening I fainted at my daughter’s junior high play. I caused quite a commotion but seeing the fear in my daughter’s eyes was more than enough for me to finally admit that my addiction was not only a problem, but that it was affecting those I love the most.

I was quite active at her school and in our church. Some people seemed really surprised when I disappeared for a couple of months. It’s ironic but true: some people really do not know the face of addiction unless they are close to it, such as best friends and family members.

My daughter was terrified that I was having a heart attack or dying. It was simply the fact that I was over-taking my prescription pain medicine. It was simply my addiction coming first in my life.

I was in rehab for nearly two months. When I returned home, I had the best support system. When I returned to being active, I had support, but I also had surprised expressions at my confession of where I had really been, as well as some raised eyebrows. But one night with my daughter made all of that worth it.

She and I were watching a movie and when it went to commercial, she looked at me. “Mom? When you fell at my school that night, I was so scared you were going to die like Grandma did.” We had lost my mother the year before.

I hugged her close to me. She was twelve and knew the truth about where I had been and about my addiction to the prescription pain medication. I told her I was okay, that in fact, that “fall” when I passed out had been a life saver because I was clean for the first time in four years. I told her to learn from my mistake and to always know she could come to her father and me with anything, that we could handle it together, just as we were handling my rehab.

Then I hugged her again and told her that the look in her eyes that night saved me more than anything. She hugged me back tightly and we snuggled in together to watch the movie when it came back on.

I watched the mailman walk away from my mailbox. I did not really want to go out there and get the mail. No, I wasn’t hiding from mounting bills or bugged about wasting my time wading through junk mail. It was a letter from my boyfriend. There was always a letter from my boyfriend in the mail, telling me how much he loved me and how much he needed me. He was not writing from a combat zone overseas. He was not writing from college. He was writing from the penitentiary. He was serving a sentence for armed robbery. He had been in for eight months and had a little over nine years to go. 

We had gone together since high school and gotten hooked on crystal meth the summer following our senior year. We had just thought to try it one weekend with friends but before we knew it, we were both hooked. Neither of us could keep a job for very long because when we got a fix we would miss work. Desperate for cash to feed our addiction, my boyfriend pulled an armed robbery and got caught.

He was inside and clean for the first time in three years. I was still trying to get a fix where and when I could. He was begging me in his letters to get clean so that when he was paroled, we could be together and start a new life.

Thanks to my own foul up by drinking and driving one night, I was clean and had been for about a month. However, I was also finding out through my counseling sessions that deep down, I did want to change and I wanted to have a real life.

The days went by, I got a job and I attended support meetings for my crystal meth addiction. I also attended alcoholism meetings as mandated by the court. I got a job and as the next month went by, I realized I had held the job past getting my first paycheck. I usually got high then and never returned to work.

I had shared with my boyfriend getting clean but as even more time went by, I found myself wanting to experience other things in life such as well, a normal relationship. I began dreading his letters more and more as I yearned to be out living life instead of letting it pass me by. Still, I opened his letters, read them and answered them. Then one day came a different letter. He told me it would be his last letter. He said he wanted me to get out and have a life not tied to him. He was giving me what I had been wanting. That was when I knew I still loved him. I told him I would wait.

Eventually he was paroled. He came home and began rebuilding his life. He got a job through a friend of his brother’s and we are living in a small apartment. We both go to meetings, sometimes together, sometimes separately. We take it one day at a time but we are together and we are clean.

I sat there with the other inmates and watched her walk out the door. People come and go when you are in the tank. I had been here myself this time about seven or eight weeks. I had heard all of the stories, nothing was ever anyone’s fault. I certainly played the blame game myself, having been an LVN and losing my license and control of my life to my addiction to heroin. 

She was different, though. She was actually a few years older than me. She did not blame society, other people or anyone but herself for what she had done. Her name was Nora and she also held her head high, saying she would do the same thing again. When her story got out around the tank, some people scoffed. Most of us who had been in repeatedly knew the score. She was definitely a different breed.

I stole drugs from the clinic where I worked. She wrote several hot checks. I stole prescription sheets from the doctor I worked for and wrote bogus ‘scripts for non-existent patients, then traded them off for heroin. She fed her kids with the checks she wrote at grocery stores. She said it was wrong, but when you have a sick kid, you can not work because of his medical care schedule and no one is around to help, you do what you have to when it comes to your kids.  It was her choice.  She made no excuses. 

I stole to feed my addiction. She stole to feed her kids. I blamed everything else. She blamed herself. I looked around at those of us in the tank who had blamed exes, parents, friends, bosses. She quietly went about her business the few days she was there reading. One of the long term women began picking on her. She ignored it. When a young girl came in terrified and was picked on, however, the mama bear in her came out and she stood up to the cell block bully bitch and would not back down. The bully went to the guard to complain and was shocked when the rest of the women stood up for Nora. They were sick of the bully behavior themselves.

When Nora left, those of us left behind had the usual feelings of jealousy, wishful thinking and resentment mixed with being happy for her. I watched her leave, took a breath and went over to the phone and called my own mother collect. “Mom, it’s me. When I get out next week, will you drive me over to the rehab center? It is my fault I am in here and on drugs. I want to get cleaned up for good this time.”