Drug Addiction Stories

Funerals of family members are hard.  Funerals of young adults your children grew up with and considered close friends?  Just as hard.  As I sat there that day and watched my son and his friends carry the casket of a close friend he had cared about all through junior high and high school, I hurt for his loss and the parents of the young man.

Some kids consider themselves fortunate to have one or two close friends.  My David was part of a group of seven close male friends with plenty of female close friends and girlfriends along the way.  A lot of times, Super Bowl parties and sleepovers were at my house.  Sometimes they were at Jacob’s house.

Jacob lived right down the street from us.  He was the only one in the group of seven who still had mom and dad married to each other.  The rest of the boys were living with mom or dad in divorced homes.  I always felt guilty when I would pick up David from Jacob’s house.  He could see one of his best friends with a full family experience.  Many times I heard the boys all talk about how lucky Jacob was.

So why were we at Jacob’s funeral?  Because Jacob committed suicide. The one member of the seven who seemed to have it all left it all one night.  As the others went off to college and work, Jacob stayed in our small town.  I asked David once where Jacob was and he said that they had grown apart.  For while David and the others grew up, Jacob discovered heroin and stayed home stoned and feeling no pain.  Or so one would think.  But instead, Jacob was filled with pain and one night took a gun and ended it all.

It has been over a year and I know the boys still miss Jacob.  They are all still in college and make sure to get together on special occasions.  It still boggles my mind that the one of the seven who seemed to have it all was the one who felt the most alone.  Out of fear, I asked David one night if he had ever felt like Jacob.  Had I let him down in any way?

David told me that he knew times were tough for us when he was younger but he always felt rich because I always cooked enough for not just him but his friends as well.  He never felt like an only child because his friends even called me Mom sometimes.  There was no arguing in our house and he knew when he woke up, I would be there.

To this day I feel for Jacob’s parents.  I can not imagine losing David, especially to suicide.  I am thankful that I was able to be there for him the first time he suffered a major loss.  I am also thankful David and the others did not fall victim to heroin use like Jacob did.  The boys learned the most painful lesson there is about substance abuse.  It is a lesson I don’t believe they will ever forget.

If you have any personal stories on heroin addiction, submit it to www.heroinaddiction.me. They will publish your story on their website and maybe your heroin story will save a life…

The thing is, Diane was heavy, hard core.  She injected too, but a lot more than Kelly did.  We didn’t think much of it.  Diane must know what she was doing.  It sure hit her differently than it did Kelly though.  We decided to go out for a walk by the river and then went back to the railroad car, just like any other normal night.  What we didn’t know was that it wasn’t going to be all that normal at all.

We all slept until afternoon the next day.  I guess we had done a little more than we had planned.  I woke up first and nudged Kelly.  After groaning for a minute, she sat up.  She reached over for her morning fix.  I called out to Diane but she didn’t answer.

I said to Kelly, “She’s probably in a coma after all of that stuff she did last night”.

We both laughed and I got up and nudged Diane.  No movement.  Now I was getting nervous. “Diane!” I shouted; again, no response.  I reached down and took her hand.  It felt cold.  I felt for a pulse and there was none.

I scooted back against the wall of the railway car as Kelly continued to make jokes.

“She’s dead,” I said flatly.
“What?  Oh stop playing” Kelly replied.

I simply pointed and Kelly went to check for herself.  Her face went pale and she asked me what we were going to do.  Like I knew.  If we told anyone, we could be blamed. If we left her in our “home”, we could probably never come back.  What little we had of lives were falling apart.  I reached for my morning fix so I could think clearly and decide what to do.

We decided to move her away from the railroad cars and to a place where she could more easily be seen by passersby or traffic.  We didn’t spend that day looking for tricks.  We spent it in a place where we could see Diane, but weren’t likely to be seen ourselves.  We didn’t say much to each other.  After what seemed like hours, someone finally spotted her and within minute’s cops and fire trucks and ambulances surrounded the place.  It took everything I had not to run to get into that ambulance with her but then I would have had to explain everything.

Kelly and I went about our business.  That is, for about 3 months when we realized we could not shake the memory of our friend dying.  We made a pact to get help and get off the drugs.  That was 3 months ago and life is better, but some days are still a struggle.  We are still going through drug addiction rehab but I have her and she has me and together, we will beat this.

We don’t want to end up like Diane…

I was always a rebel child ever since I could remember, I think being rebellious came naturally to me. Defying my parents and going against what they wanted me to do seemed to be my sole mission. I always thought the generation gap was much wider, and with every passing phase it only got worse.

As I turned 16 my life turned a new leaf, I started skipping school. I’d even sneak out the of house in the dead of night and sleep among the homeless. I nurtured this deep feeling that no one ever understood or loved me. Skipping school and leaving home, gave me a complete sense of freedom.

The look I sported was trashy, unkempt hair, ill fitting and dirty clothes, the punk style with the ‘I don’t care attitude’ was my favorite. With loud colors that scream ‘look at me’ and garish makeup I felt really safe hiding beneath all of it.

Since I would hang around the streets at odd hours, it really wasn’t difficult for me to get drugs; I would often be asked by small time peddlers if I needed any. I used to refuse, but ended up buying some with my pocket money and the money I had gathered from working at the deli. One possible reason could be that because of my angst, I had no friends and was looking for some.  There were some I knew from school who were already into it, and bought from the same peddlers.

I was doing chemicals like LSD, and I quite liked it, it took me to another world that I could associate with easily. I slowly became more adventurous and hooked on to anything I could afford and lay my hands on. I wanted to graduate even further, and was looking for something that would satisfy me, that’s when I noticed heroine. In the mean time, I was kicked out of my home, since I stole some money from my parents, used their credit cards to take care of my needs. Lost about 10 pounds, and was doing the rounds of shelters where I could spend my nights in. I soon discovered heroine and the feeling was indescribable. I now needed to shoot drugs into my blood stream, and was totally hooked on heroine for a year.

My parents had to look for me, and found me out on the streets one day; I think what they seen came to them as a shock. I was taken home and cleaned up, the confrontation was long. I didn’t agree instantly. It took me several months to pick up the phone and call the drug addiction rehab. Since then I have been clean.