Drug Addiction Stories & Info

Word got around pretty quickly and for a while, I was making pretty good money. Then someone taught me how to shoot the Oxycontin. Wow! I thought chewing them was the ultimate high but shooting them was even better. It took more of a supply of the drug that way but as far as I was concerned, it was well worth it. Soon, all of the extra money I was making was going for drugs. I started taking even more because some of my loser customers would slap me around a little bit but the Oxycontin made everything feel better.

I needed even more customers but for some reason, I didn’t attract them like I once did. The ones I did get were, let’s just say, below average people. It became a struggle again to pay for my room and get my Oxycontin. The landlady suspected something was going on too since more of my customers were getting violent. She came up more than once and warned me I would be thrown out. Sure enough, a few nights later a customer got rough and it got loud so she came upstairs and told me I had to leave the next day. As I shot up the Oxycontin that night, I wondered what I was going to do.

The next day I threw what I could into bags and headed down to one of those women’s shelters. They started talking about religion and taking classes and getting up every morning at 6AM. “Look, all I need is a place to sleep” I told them. They informed me it wasn’t a flophouse. The only good thing was that when I had to be gone during the day I could do my drugs and make a little money. I had to be really careful about having the drug around the shelter. Too many eyes there. I got caught though and was thrown out. I was in a real mess then. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I found myself alone with no where to sleep, or eat, and I was out in the cold. I thought to myself “Oh my God! I’m homeless!” It was like someone had hit me upside the head. I’d lost all of my friends, I’d lost the life I once had, all I had was my drugs. They got me through for a while, but then even I realized I needed help. I was sleeping on the ground and sleeping with strange men that I didn’t even know so I could shoot up and forget for a while. That’s what made me go to drug addiction rehab.

How did you find out about the Narconon program?
I found out about Narconon because of an overdose:  While I was in Toronto I would come home sometimes for a few weeks and then run away again and hitchhike back.   One time while I was in Toronto, I overdosed on heroin and my parents were there, which was very embarrassing.  They arrived at around 2:00am after they got a call.  They decided that they would find a solution for me – and this was Narconon.

At the time (1998) Narconon was just getting set up in Quebec Province so I was one of the first people on the program here.  At first I was scared and by the third day I wanted to go back to drugs, of course.  For the first two weeks I was staying at home while on the program, as it was not fully set up, and all I talked about during this time with friends on the phone was heroin.  That’s all I thought about and all I talked about.  My life was heroin and I still sneaking it, even though I was on the program.  I convinced people I knew from high school that it was a good thing to do, so they would do it with me.  My motivation was to have people doing it with me; people would not give me a guilt trip or try to get me off it because they were doing it too.

Did you stick with the program?
I eventually ran away back to Toronto and started panhandling and doing drugs every day.  It got so bad it even got up to twice a day.  I remember getting sick when I stopped using and thought it was just a cold or something, but of course as soon as I took drugs again all the symptoms disappeared – so then I knew what was actually happening.

I recall someone afterwards offering me cocaine, but I said “no thanks,” as I was not interested anymore. I knew then that the Narconon program is really effective.

After a couple of weeks I woke up one morning all depressed and everything hit me: what I was doing to myself, what I did to my parents by running away and so on.  Then I was overwhelmed with a lot of grief.  I called my mother but I couldn’t even talk because I had this knot in my throat.  There was my pride and at the same I felt broken from my own doing.

She told me to call the director of Narconon in Canada, who fortunately was in Toronto, and I went to see him looking and smelling like a dirty street kid.  He was really cool and very understanding of where I was coming from.  After that I was on the bus that night and in the morning when I arrived in Montreal, someone from Narconon picked me up and that was it.

So now you wanted to get off drugs?
It wasn’t so much that I wanted to get off drugs; I just didn’t know what I wanted at all.  I didn’t even think I had a problem because I was doing drugs which is what I thought I wanted (back then) and that was it.  But I was depressed and I did the program because I felt bad for my mom and dad.

Then at some point, while I was at Narconon, it turned around for me: I no longer cared about drugs – my only interest was doing the program.  The Narconon staff had a lot to do with that because of their knowledge, experience and their understanding.

I recall someone afterwards offering me cocaine, but I said “no thanks,” as I was not interested anymore.  I knew then that the Narconon drug addiction rehab really effective.

What benefits did you get from doing the Narconon program?
One big win for me occurred one day during the Detoxification program: I actually remembered my past!

Before that I had not realized that I did not really have a past or a future.  I was not in present time and I was just kind of “there.”  In the sauna, all these memories of me being a kid with my parents – all these happy memories came back.  And that was a huge win.  It was like “Oh my God, I was a kid at one point!”

Another win was being rehabilitated in other ways: I was a vegetarian before I started drugs and when I was living on the street, the more drugs I used the less I cared about my health or what I was eating.  Free food was free food and I would eat whatever.  While I was on the program I started caring again about what I was eating.

I also remembered that I was an environmentalist (as well as a vegetarian) and that I cared about all these things.  I would then go through Narconon to make sure that the recycling was properly separated from the garbage; I would ensure that I was eating healthy again and so much more.  I actually cared once more!  And this included wanting to help people – and this was because of the Narconon drug rehab program.

TO BE CONTINUED…

How did you end up living on the streets?
A few days before I turned 16 years old, I ran away from home and started staying with street kids. Before that on weekends I would go downtown and, while pretending to stay at a friend’s place, I was with street kids, staying at shelters or wherever – so I was already familiar with the street. I know it sounds strange because I was not homeless, but this is what happened.

At the time I saw this as a form of “freedom;” I did not want restrictions or a curfew, having to tell my parents where I

The truth is that I was already hanging out with junkies before I went to Vancouver. I knew I would do needles so while I was still in Montreal...

was all the time, or whatever. I also thought that “trash” looked good, not actual trash that you throw out but the mix of styles, the look of falling apart. I also liked the punk style a lot, the bright colors, the “resist and refuse” attitude, the “I do what I want” attitude, rebel and whatnot. On the street you don’t really exist, you are off the “grid” or off the “radar.”

So how did you get into the “drug culture”?
The drugs started with PCP as it was easily available. I would be asked “Do you want some?” and I would answer “yes” because I felt I couldn’t say no. It was peer pressure in a way; it was like “I don’t know these people so I have to impress them.” They were doing it and so did I. After that I took whatever was around and ended up liking it, the dead feeling that you got from drugs. All the pain would go away, any physical pain I had in me, mental pain and so on. I didn’t think my life was fun, or so it seemed.

All the people I was hanging out with were alcoholics, although they wouldn’t typically consider that a problem, and pot smokers – no chemicals and definitely no needles. Sometimes it was chemicals, and this was usually acid (LSD ) or PCP.

I was curious: since I was doing drugs now I wanted to try heroin. But there was absolutely no way you could do it with them. So I didn’t even mention it. I heard that in Vancouver there was a street called Hastings and you could just get it easily, so I hitchhiked to Vancouver with some “friends” (they weren’t really). We got stuck in Calgary on the way and I stayed there for about three weeks (my so-called friend did not want to continue), where I started doing mushrooms a lot. I really liked them so I took them too much and although I would not overdose to the point of going to the hospital, I would have a bad trip almost every time. Or I would take alcohol or whatever was available – there was not something specific I was going after.

It took about three weeks before I found someone else to go with – you need someone because there are rules to hitchhiking: It’s best to have a guy and a girl, never a guy and a guy or a girl or guy alone, because it is too dangerous or suspicious. That’s what you learn – a guy and girl just look like they’re going somewhere.

So I found a suitable individual and when we got to Vancouver, we parted ways. Then I met up with a friend that I knew from Montreal and stayed for about two months in the city or maybe more, I don’t really remember. I did whatever drugs were available as something to do: When you are on the streets you are either panhandling to get money to eat or doing drugs. What else is there to do living like that?

Tell us how you escalated to using heroin…
When I arrived in Vancouver I started looking for heroin but it was more of a covert search. I knew it was something not to be proud of. The majority of individuals think that heroin is not a good thing, it’s a dangerous drug, no one actually wants to do it, you don’t go after it, you don’t ask, etc.  So I didn’t because I knew that people would just talk me out of it.

I met up with friends, got to know the area somewhat – the shelters and the good areas to sleep, like churches which don’t kick you off their land if you sleep on their front porch, I go to know good panhandling spots and so on. I would tell all kinds of stories just to get money. The goal was $20 and I got bored easily, so I would spend a couple of hours on average panhandling. (It was easier in Calgary: one guy gave me $160, I got free pizza to eat, etc.)

After two weeks when I arrived in Vancouver, I was hanging out with this guy and some friends, and one day they started smoking some powder in a light bulb. I was fairly intelligent and so I knew that this was heroin but I pretended I didn’t know. This was because I didn’t want them to know that I really wanted to take the drug as they may have taken it away from me. So they went “Here, you want some?” and I said “Yeah, sure… what is this?” This was my introduction to heroin.

I was only smoking it, which was called “chasing the dragon,” while I was there. However, when I returned to Montreal I started shooting drugs for the first time. It was cocaine and it was free, so I took it (it was already in the needle which was not very bright). Then I decided – as I was already using needles already – I might as well start shooting heroin.

The truth is that I was already hanging out with junkies before I went to Vancouver. I knew I would do needles so while I was still in Montreal, I would find free needles at needle drop-off places and practice taking blood out of me – just to get the feel of what it is like. I wanted to know how to do it right for when I started shooting drugs. I used needles for about five months in all and was taking heroin for about nine months in total.

TO BE CONTINUED…