Drug Addiction Stories

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.

He had been coming to church with us for several weeks. I loved him and we had a history together. He was my cousin and our families had always been close. Still, as teens, I went off to college and Jamie turned to drugs. While in college, I met the guy I was to marry and moved to the northeast with him. A promotion and transfer brought us back to the south in the city closest to my small home town.

One day, I ran into Jamie. He grabbed me and said “Cousin! I’ve missed you!” I barely recognized him. The drugs had made him seem older than he was. Still, he was my cousin and I loved him and was happy to see him.

As time went by, I noticed that Jamie’s perception of things was vastly different than that of most people. He insisted events happened that never did or didn’t that everyone else clearly remembered. He even became adamant that he knew things more experienced people didn’t, such as the night we were in a restaurant and a person had a heart attack. Fortunately, a doctor was there with his family and was able to aid the person until the paramedics arrived but Jamie began yelling that the doctor didn’t know what he was doing. Jamie said he was certified in CPR and he was, in high school during a class that we were all taught nearly 20 years earlier. But that was no match for a doctor’s skills and here was my cousin, starting a ruckus as my husband and I steered him out of the restaurant.

We began inviting him to church. He went for three weeks and then one morning, as I called to let him know we were on our way, a stranger answered the phone. He identified himself as a police officer. My cousin Jamie had overdosed and his roommate had called it in. The paramedics had been unable to revive him.

My heart broke at the news. Jamie had needed help. I had talked him into going to church but he had refused rehab and was trying to stop on his own. With friends and a roommate in that lifestyle, overcoming addiction had turned out to be impossible.

That was two years ago. To this day I miss the Jamie I grew up. I just wanted to share this because I want others to know that if they hooked on drugs, rehab really is the way to go. So please, do it for yourselves, for your families and for those who no longer have that opportunity…like my cousin, Jamie.

I found them as we were cleaning up the house to do some changes. We were getting marred soon and getting the place ready to move my things out of storage. I asked him about the pills I found. They were prescriptions and I was concerned about his health. He quickly assured me that he was fine and that the painkillers were old. They were outdated by about a year. I asked him why they were hidden. 

He told me he had a friend from college stay with him for a while and he had noticed several changes in him during the four years they had not been around each other. He had invited his friend to stay with him while he was finding a job and getting his feet on the ground so to speak. It wasn’t too long though, before he began finding things missing and discovered his friend was on drugs and pawning stuff. He got his stuff back and talked his friend into rehab.

He seemed sad as he told me the story about his friend. I asked him what had happened to the guy and why the prescription bottles were still hidden. He said his friend’s mother had pleaded with him to let the guy stay with him after rehab. Things were going good until his friend met a girl who was on painkillers and before he knew it, his friend was back drugs himself and the painkillers my boyfriend had been given following a motorcycle accident were disappearing faster than he was taking them.

“I confronted him again. This time he wouldn’t be helped because his girlfriend kept denying they had a problem.” He ended up asking his friend to leave and had to change the locks on his doors and install a security system.

“The friend I had in college? He wasn’t the same one who was here. It was like they were two different people. He had turned into a stranger.” 

We flushed the prescriptions down the toilet as they were expired. I had only seen that look of sadness on his face once before, and that was when he talked about his parents’ passing. I asked him if he knew where his friend was these days. He nodded. His friend’s mother had called to tell him that her son and the girlfriend had committed suicide together by overdosing. They had left a note saying they couldn’t find jobs and there was nothing to live for.

I held him close to me as he told me the story about his friend. He had helped his friend before, yet this last time he refused help. I knew then what the survivors’ guilt felt like that I had heard about.  My boyfriend cared about his friend, tried to help him, yet still felt bad because of his friend’s choice not to get help a second time.  Now he was drowning in a feeling of guilt he didn’t deserve to have