That there is hope. The AMA, pharma, countless rehabs halfway houses, outpatient programs and insurance companies are stealing the right to recovery from their clients. Recovery does not have to be impossible, relapse is not necessary, one does not need to acquire a trigger list and avoid these things at all costs, drugs cannot treat drug addiction. No one has to shelter themselves from everyday life, to stay off drugs. Hope and the power of purpose is all anyone needs.
I hope America decides to look at results of alternative treatment. Rather then dumping more money and creating more beds for a solution with recovery rates in the single digits. There are great programs that are underfunded and cannot receive insurance that have 50-90 percent recovery rates. This is recovery not maintenance. It is freedom from addiction, freedom that does not require a person to avoid people places and things, one that does not need you to attend a meeting every day like your life is dependent upon it. Freedom that is offered "freely."
How it can take over anyone's life. My childhood was beautiful. My life was beautiful. I was motivated, active, successful, and loved my family. My addiction stole everything from me. Recovery is possible though. In two years clean and sober I have gained so much back.
Opiate detox isn't the nightmare that it's portrayed on TV/movies to be. Detoxing from opiates includes nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, aches and pains, and the sniffles. Symptoms decrease over time up to 10 days, with the worst being the first 4 days. It does not include "DT's" or the severity we see with alcohol or benzodiazepine withdrawal that does include the medical emergency of "DT's." It is more like a case of flu. This is not to say they aren't miserable throughout detox, they are. What is more concerning is the addict's behavior. Giving them methadone or Suboxone is only a temporary fix. We are substituting one drug with another. Methadone and Suboxone can be used in a needle and it too is abused by those addicted to opiates. I've seen it too many times. It's a lie that these treatment drugs "help" addicts. They do not. Detox off of methadone is a nasty long detox process that's even worse than the other mainstream opiates.
The opiate addict needs long-term addiction treatment and counseling to address addict behaviors -- lying, manipulating, hurting others, criminal behavior to achieve getting their drug. They need counseling to repair themselves and start building bridges back to their family and community. Many have had their children taken away and family members don't want anything to do with them further isolating the addict and increasing their likelihood of relapse. Rehabs need to be at least 90 days, not a 5-day detox program which is a joke. 30 days is barely enough to get them well enough to think clear. 90-day minimums should be required for the standard rehab program and continued counseling up to 2-3 years afterwards. If we don't invest heavily into real treatment options then we aren't talking about real solutions.
It is taking bright, educated and promising young people and utterly destroying their lives, families, their futures and their dreams. My little sister was in college, on the golf team and getting straight As. Now she has been to prison, convicted of felonies, lost everything in her life including her relationships with us, her family and is living on the streets.
We feel so helpless and unable to reach her. We have tried and tried to help her "restart" only to fail every single time. She blames us for her failed attempts. She falls deeper and deeper in a pit that we can't reach into. It happened so fast and nothing seems to work. It is very heartbreaking and infuriating that someone you love is trapped in this hell that you cannot rescue them from. You just want to run in and scoop them up and whisk them away from their bad choices and unsafe lifestyle, but every time they run back.
I provide education and support for families, referral for treatment for addiction and co-dependency. It requires sustained long-term intervention and support, and Suboxone is another big-pharmacy drug that is now so widely available, abused, sold on the street and prescribed by doctors to a heroin addict in an outpatient setting without requiring or making available any well studied evidenced-based practices.
If you have someone you love living under your roof actively using opiates at the very least you should look into obtaining Narcan (Naloxone) and some training on how/when to use it. After you speak with one parent who could not revive their overdosed child, well, this is the sort of advice that sobers up the family -- get them help, or prepare for the funeral. There are no old heroin addicts, unless of course you are old when you start.
That it's a public/mental health disease, it's not about being a bad person or morally weak. I also want people to know that with proper long-term treatment it's possible to recover and live a beautiful life. I feel incredibly fortunate to have my recovery of almost 6 years and to have my life back.
It's a horrifying addiction that destroys the lives of not only the user, but their family members. Watching its effect on my son for the last 7 plus years has drained me emotionally and financially. Heroin and opioid addiction has no bias. I've seen people from all walks of life fall victim to this monster — people who were straight up users and people who started out managing legitimate pain, only to graduate to heroin use. So many people dead. My own son has nearly died more times than I can count due to secondary issues (endocarditis, staph infections, etc.) all brought on by infections from the syringe use. He has had to have multiple surgeries to his heart. One time he was found unresponsive in the hospital.
One of the most painful things to watch is to see how other people treat addicts: as less than human. My heart and prayers go out to the families and loved ones. This is someone's son. A daughter. A father. A brother. A mother. No words can describe the despair of watching a bright and articulate son succumb to the drive to use again. How does one explain the feelings of being isolated and powerless to help? How can WE, in the Unites States, continue to prescribe opioids, make them so readily available, and not make it easier for addicts to get the help they need? It's a vicious and evil circle. I wouldn't wish this hell on anyone. I refuse to give up on my son, though. If it weren't for my faith in God, I'd have jumped off a cliff a long time ago...
You can not help anyone who does not WANT to get better, and you can not take everything personally an addict says or does while in active addiction. The drug will come first until they make a conscious decision to get help.
It is not something you just quit. It is a painful everyday battle, whether you are using or not. I have been fighting for 18 years. I have been to the needle and back and am currently on a Suboxone program. I really wish "maintenance" programs were not looked down upon as they are. It has saved mine and many others' lives, but yet it seems to have a bad reputation.
Who it really affects. And how hard it is to get off of it without using worse drugs like methadone. The consequences last longer than the use. I'm over 3 years clean. My wife just got off of methadone but was stuck on it for over 2 years without a way to get off.
You must be vigilant at all times against relapse and you must surround yourself with different places and people. Being in recovery is hard. It's almost impossible if you stay in your neighborhood and are friends with the same people. You basically have to dump your life and start over.
I wish people could take a walk in my shoes, because (before receiving treatment) I loved the feeling I got from opioids, but when dependent, I hated the fact that I couldn't stop it. I stole massive amounts of prescription grade opioid analgesics from a friend's father who was a physician. For some reason he had massive amounts of these drugs in his home in pharmacy stock bottles. People need to understand that we are affected by a horrible disease. We hate the disruption and pain it causes with friends, family, and peers. We are also very functional. I began using when I was 15 and I got good grades in high school while on these drugs. By 16, I had a dependence, and when I could not access the drugs at times, I would have to endure withdrawal syndrome. It was the acute phase that lasted about a week, but then afterwards there is a long period of anhedonia.
I have an anxiety disorder along with depression and ADHD. I would say that most opioid abusers have an underlying mental disorder. I finished high school, and went off to university and I was out of options until I found that Oxycodone was in a new formulation that was nearly impossible to abuse. So I switched to heroin, and I also used a needle exchange program and clean syringes. This was in the spring of 2011. I was an isolated user, and I worked hard on my studies and did well. Finally everything came tumbling down while on summer holiday. I decided to go onto Suboxone (buprenorphine naloxone medicine) therapy. I did inpatient, and then did an intensive outpatient program at the hospital system in my area. I saw a private practice physician within my insurance consortium to obtain access to the buprenorphine therapy. I think this drug is much better than methadone, and it is outpatient. I was 19 at the time and I really needed help. I have no desire to consume opioids, and I also see a psychiatrist for my underlying mental health issues.
I am 24 now, and I am working and after transferring universities and finding out what I wanted to do. I study mathematics and business (accountancy). I think if the buprenorphine prescribing limits were removed and all physicians had prescribing powers for the purpose of opioid abuse, things would get much better, and had access to universal health care. I wish people knew what it was like to simultaneously love the rush and euphoria of the drug, yet hate how one needs that rush to function properly. I think that the public at large needs to understand that opioid abuse is prevalent nearly everywhere.
I am lucky to be on a medicine that stabilizes me and makes me not desire to chase that rush. 12 step programs made my use worse, and I instead used smart recovery. It is so hard to describe the horrors of being hooked on this terrible drug. There are legitimate pain patients that need it, but some gets diverted. I feel stable on buprenorphine, and this medical option is a tool that works. I am glad I am on it, and I wish those hooked on opioids for the wrong reasons had access to the drug buprenorphine. My heart aches for those that are chasing the high and want to clean up. The war on drugs needs to treat users as a public health issue. Not as a criminal justice issue. Period. Harm reduction works and helps. Access to treatment that I have is necessary for those addicted.
This opioid addiction is terrifying to an outsider looking in, but as a user it seems natural and normal. People don't wish to be this… it seems to just happen. No one grows up saying, "When I grow up I want to be a drug addict." I've been on both sides of the fence. I'm a person in long term recovery. …It means I haven't had a drink or drug since February 23, 2014.
I was that hopeless broken girl, the girl with no purpose, no goals, no values. I felt as though I didn't matter, I didn't have a voice, and I would just die a "junkie." I hated myself and thought "people would be better without me." I had goals and dreams, I had a great family and friends, I had the world at my hands and I traded it first for a pill that later turned into a needle. The needle took me to a whole new world of addiction. It took my morals and values away. It took my family and friends; it took my education, my purpose. Lastly, it took me.
Heroin changed me into this "other" person. When looking in the mirror I didn't recognize my reflection, I no longer was the girl I knew. …At the end my family was done, they couldn't take it any longer. I got an ultimatum get sober or get out. I always thought they hated me but I was wrong. I decided I couldn't live as an active user any longer. I've changed my life around. I work in the field of addiction and I'm a student... taking classes for my drug and alcohol license. I work in a recovery home for women. I see how powerful this disease really is from a different perspective and it's scary. I had so many great accomplishments in a short amount of time. I've rebuilt important relationships that I broke. I worked really hard to get to this point in my life.
The best part of my job is seeing that broken lost girl find her voice and purpose in life just as I did. Seeing the light come back into a girl's face and seeing her shine. I think because there are so many unsuccessful and sad stories out there we miss the successful stories. The stories with hope attached to them. The stories where mothers and children are being reunited, the stories where women are standing on their own two feet and working towards goals and achieving them, the stories where that broke lost girl finds her way and makes it. These are the stories of hope, if you look hard enough they're on every corner... Advice? Never lose hope in a person with substance abuse disorder.
Federal legislation does not allow Nurse Practitioners to prescribe buprenorphine as a treatment for opioid addiction -- even though we provide all other primary care services for our patients who often also suffer from addiction. Buprenorphine can only be prescribed by physicians and not all physicians choose to offer this safe, life-saving treatment. We have a huge demand for treatment, and a shortage of providers to offer this treatment. Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants could offer this life-saving prescription if there were changes made to this federal policy.
When a person is heavily engrossed in the cycle of addiction the notion that most loved ones seem to not be able to comprehend is that of -- "why can't you just stop." This is not a rational thought for an addict. There, within this vicious cycle of lies, pain and remorse that encompasses and takes over a person's thought process one axiom is ever present; that is the complete lack of the ability to say "no."
I know it is hard to comprehend but just imagine waking up in the morning and your first thought being of heroin. The ways and means of how you will get this one thing into your body to make life worth living. Now imagine the person doing these things despite any and all responsibilities that they may have. Children will take a back seat. Basic morality never comes into play when it comes to the end goal of putting this substance into your body. That is what it does to you mentally -- it is an ever present thought. Physically, imagine the worst flu-like sickness you have ever had then factor it by ten. So you have a mentally and physically tortured person who knows that if they obtain this one thing "all will be well." Would you have a choice? It's as if a tortured prisoner were offered the key to their cell door, they are going to take it, there would be no choice. This is the short, short example I have of the cycle. Something drastic has to happen to break it. For some, a stint in rehab works. Others may just experience enough pain and be ready.
But like anything addiction is progressive, I used heroin for over six years, things were bad, very bad, I felt I had no way out. It was either continue using to numb the pain or kill myself. Eventually I was arrested and spent a few months in jail, after my physical symptoms were gone I was able to reflect on my life and at that point I had a choice. Continue to use and die or go to prison, or to do something with my life for a change. I was given Drug Court and the structure of this intensive probation has worked for me. Today, I have not used. Tomorrow morning, I am going to get up, iron some cloths, put on my tie and go to work. This was an impossible task when I was using. But tomorrow I have a choice. I see so many news reports on the heroin epidemic that is widespread and all the fear it must put into every parent. But I see almost nothing about the stories of the people who have battled this thing and won. There is so much hope out there and it was the knowledge that someone else got out of the living hell I was in gave me the motivation to do it too. If you are reading this as someone who is in that cycle right now seemingly without HOPE, know that there is a way out.
Because heroin is so addictive, I will live in fear for the rest of my life of my daughter overdosing and dying. In 2014, she overdosed twice within a two and a half month period of time. I found her the first time and thought that she was so scared of almost dying that she would never touch it again.
This addiction affects the entire family. I have been caring for her son ever since she had the second overdose. He was not quite nine months of age when she overdosed the second time and went to jail. Finding treatment is very difficult. The only way that we were able to get her into treatment was to foot the bill ourselves.
I struggled with opium addiction for years bc of an abusive childhood and feeling unloved. Being a musician brought easy access to beautiful people who had substances that made the past hurt less. When I became involved in Anonymous, doing peer support for jailed hacktivists, the stress was unbelievable. Even as the founder of Free Matt DeHart and as an activist for Free Barrett Brown, I was still struggling to stay clean. It was only after Matt (who is my biological cousin) won the Courage Foundation Award, that I had time to look at my life and realize my potential to create real change in a suffering world was being stifled by heroin. I went to rehab and have been heroin free since October 2014. I am in school and plan on going to law school and continuing my activism in surveillance, defense, and intelligence reform.
The pain of withdrawal, and the mental struggles, including cravings. The amount of time and money addiction consumes. How getting money and selling your body is the only way to get well.... [and] the fear of getting sick.
The addict doesn't want to be an addict. It's easier to chase the demon (heroin) than get the help to recover. Most addicts don't have insurance for treatment or family that has money to pay for it. I'm proof that without treatment the addiction has two paths, jail or death. My son died on November 22, 2014 from an overdose and his twin is in jail for drug possession charges.
It is an addiction. Yes, we made the choice to use the first, second, maybe even third time but that addiction takes hold and we really do become slaves to it. It requires treatment for withdrawal and staying clean is almost impossible without help. This is a very serious problem in our culture today that needs to be taken seriously. I have many years clean, but I also suffer from a lot of mental health issues that are finally being addressed. I am being medicated and treated for those now correctly and that is my saving grace!
It's an illness and doctors and big pharma are culpable. The sources of synthetic heroin need to be cut off. Treatment options are too expensive and far too scarce. Selfishness is not the reason why addicts become hooked. Many addicts (and their families) desperately try to help them(selves). That stigma only exacerbates the epidemic. That criminalization of the addict is not a solution. That doctors and big pharma are culpable (my repetition is deliberate).
I wish people understood that once the addict becomes addicted to heroin or opioids, it’s no longer a choice. It does and will consume every part of your life. The drive to get the next is no longer about the actual high, but more about not being sick. The drive turns into needing the drug to just feel normal. The body needs the heroin just to function.
When a heroin addict finally has the desire, desperation, or willingness to put the drug down and get help, the psychological battle will begin … the mind will literally go into panic mode for the next high. Without the right guidance and support it is almost impossible to get clean from this drug. It is a complete lifestyle change, not as simple as just don’t get high. The shame guilt and embarrassment will consume the addict without counseling or therapy.
Recovery is possible. This is not a death sentence. We do overcome the disease of addiction. I am a recovering heroin addict. I have 20 months clean from heroin and any other mind- or mood-altering substance. I now work as a recovery specialist in one of the city’s detox facilities. Also one of the four organizers of my town’s Overcoming Addiction, which holds candlelight vigils but also helps families understand addition and offers support. With that I am also a panelist with the district attorney’s opioid task force, where I can give my experience to lawmakers and city officials — a perspective on the life of an addict, and hopefully give hope to the families that have lost it. Most importantly I am a daughter again a sister, a fiance, and a friend….. no longer a hopeless junkie!
The best advice I can give to people that do not understand this disease is every person in the throes of addiction is someone’s child, mother, brother, sister, father. They were not always the drug addict you see before you. They are lost and need to be found. So before casting any judgement try encouragement. You never know what someone is battling.
Kicking the habit is very hard and painful. Then, to relearn how to live can be just as taxing. Find support wherever you can get it, as well as taking a lot of ownership for your own success and failure during recovery, and be sure to pat yourself on the back each day for successful days. Staying clean is an every day/life-long challenge but worth it.
