Drug Addiction Stories

My battle with drugs began as a teenager. I know now that it was a cry for help. I was the only survivor of a three-car accident that killed my parents and my brother. I was in the hospital for about a little over a week and became addicted to the pain reliever they had me on. I went to stay with my grandmother. I did not realize until I lost my family that I really had no one else besides her because both of my parents had been only children and my father’s parents were gone as was my grandfather on my mother’s side.

Somehow I made it through my junior and senior years. When the doctor and my grandmother decided I had been on pain relievers long enough, I found a new way to relieve my physical and emotional pain: crack cocaine. If my grandmother ever suspected, she didn’t let on.

After high school, I went to work in a call center for a major telephone company. I continued to live with my grandmother. While hitting up my dealer every chance I got for crack cocaine, I was also getting back into prescription meds. My grandmother’s health was failing and she began having a home health aide come in. It was this woman who would eventually answer my call for help and save my life.

One night I barely made it in from partying with friends. I took a couple of my prescription meds and dimly remember spilling the bottle of pills on the table. I began lining them up and playing with them. Then I passed out right there at the table.

My grandmother’s aide was staying over and she wandered into the kitchen sometime that night to get a drink of water and found me at the table surrounded by the pills and some white powder. She checked on me and found me to be breathing fine and somehow helped me to bed. The next morning when I got up, I went into the kitchen to find her at the table having coffee.

She sat me down and told me that she had a family member who had been on drugs and gotten clean at a local drug rehab center. She wanted to help me do the same. Seeing someone talk to me like they cared, having a conversation that was about me and my needs for a change made me break down and cry. She got someone to come in and watch my grandmother for a while and we went over to the drug rehab center. They helped me set up a leave of absence from work and helped me get off drugs.

My grandmother lived two more years. Her home health aide was there again for me as I was for her when my grandmother passed away. Aides become attached to their patients sometimes and she had fond feelings for my grandmother.

I did not slip into the abyss of drugs that time thanks to my support group and my grandmother’s aide who had become a good friend as well. I also met a wonderful man and I am engaged to be married. I still miss my family very much but now I know how to grieve properly without having a relapse. It is hard sometimes, but I know if I can do it, you can, too.

My parents like to use the excuse that I do drugs because I am a homosexual. That is not true. I have known since I was fourteen that I was “gay” when I was more attracted to boys than I was girls. I did not get into drugs until my junior year. It had nothing to do with being gay, though. Truth of the matter is, it was one of my straight friends who talked me into trying it and before I knew it, I was hooked on crack.

As my grades started falling and my parents figured out I was on something, they began to believe it had to do with me being gay. They even set up an intervention for me. The intervention did work but it also worked where they were concerned as well. I broke down and told them flat out that I was not ashamed of being gay, it was my straight friends who got me hooked on crack, and I could accept that I had a drug problem a lot easier than my parents could accept me for me.

I went into rehab and got cleaned up. I had only been on crack for about four months. I was able to get my grades up. More importantly, something wonderful happened. During my rehab, we started family counseling. My parents finally accepted me for who I really am for the first time since I came out to them. We were able to have open heart to heart discussions. My parents came to realize that being attracted to boys did not mean something was wrong with me. It simply meant that I was attracted to guys and could not help it. That was just how I was born.

The big break through came the day my dad turned to me and said, “Son, I can accept that you are homosexual. I can not accept that I could lose you any day to crack cocaine.” Then he gathered me in his arms as he, my mom and I all three cried.

That was three years ago. I am now in college and I have a boyfriend. I brought him home over the Christmas holidays. I was nervous. This was the first serious relationship I had been in and I was scared about how my parents, especially my dad, would react. When they met my boyfriend, though, my dad just looked at him and asked if he was on any drugs. He said absolutely not. My dad smiled, shook his hand, and said he was glad to meet him. We had a great visit over the holidays. My parents even say to tell him hi when they call to touch base now that I am back at school.  I love that not only do my parents accept me but these days they accept friends like me as well.