Living Life as an Addict

I started at a young age using just like many other people I grew up with. I was considered "dirt" in high school. Ditched school, smoking, drinking, and drugs. But it always fathomed me how all the other "jocks, cheerleaders" all did it too But since they were in sports and doing things in school they just got away with it. But this is about me not them. But I do know that some of those so-called goodie goodies also grew up addicts too.

Being an addict does not discriminate. Rich, poor, old, young, sick, even healthy. It does not matter who you are or how much you think "that will never happen to me!" When you have that type of attitude it may not happen to you for a long time. You have a very strong mind over matters but before you know it the fun and partying on the weekends start to spill over into the week. Then every day And even at that point, you can still say "I'm not an addict.' But the truth is you are. You just don't want to admit it.

It creeps up on us and before we know it, family is telling us we are drinking too much or smoking too much weed, or whatever your drug of choice may be. But let's look at the bigger picture and see where this all began.

For my addiction, I lived in a house and other family members full of addicts. So growing up, this is what I knew. When you see your mom, your dad, uncles, aunt, brother and sister all use... you being the youngest think, this just must be how everyone in the world is. Going to school teaches you different. When we had to do DARE(Drug Abuse Resistance Education) in school and even that program was considered a failure. Studies show that kids who took DARE in the 6th grade were not impacted by this program at all and a lot of them were more likely to use drugs. The program showed new drugs to students, drugs they had never otherwise would have seen for maybe many years. Policemen were the ones who did the lectures and showed these drugs to the students. All in all, they say it just failed miserably.

I started my journey of using drugs back in high school like most. Just partied on the weekend with friends. Got drunk with strangers (friends of friends, anyone old enough to purchase alcohol). Years went on and it slowly had gotten worse because of doctors.

When I was 25 my back had gotten so bad I could not function. I went to doctor after doctor and all they would give me is pain medication. They did not help in any other way. Even before I got addicted to pain meds I asked what else can be done. This is just masking the pain, it is not taking care of the pain. Nothing was done. More pain meds.

A normal day for an addict is taking any pills you might have left before your feet hit the floor and get out of bed. If you were out of pain meds, the next thing is to start calling around to see who has some and how much money I would have to get together somehow. Some days the calling around could last all morning or afternoon. Then go drive and pick up some money because being an addict, this is where all your money goes. So to get more beg, borrow, and some resort to stealing. I did not though. I still thought of my kids first before doing that type of stuff. Then go pick up the pills, go home take the pills, and finally after taking enough would be almost nighttime already. Clean the house and do the same thing the next day.

People who are on harder drugs do the same thing. They are usually the ones who will do the stealing if their addiction is that bad. But when you are sick from not having any drugs in your system, you feel like you're going to die. Honestly. This is why people are willing to do such terrible things to get money for drugs or the drug itself.

My father just thought I was drug seeking cause I would ask him for pain meds knowing he had them and did not use them much. He smoked weed which was his addiction and his pain reliever over pain meds. Until I found the right doctor. My back is deteriorating by that point, my bottom two discs were already gone. My whole back had grown wrong so it made everything shift and start to deteriorate and cause a tremendous amount of pain. This doctor burnt the tips of my nerves and had me on fentanyl patches, which he said was the only way I was getting the slightest amount of relieving that I was getting.

Well as you see from his words, was only giving me the slightest amount of relief. I started taking a little more so I would run out early. I would buy some pills from the streets, which was the worst headache before the patches. If you didn't have any meds, headache, vomiting, body aches, and diarrhea all were would all be withdrawal symptoms. Some people would get more some would get fewer withdrawal symptoms. Everyone's level of addiction is different.

So after one bad urine analysis, I got my patches taken away, no lowering my dose just took them away. At the time I was very mad that he did not lower me and then end it. But it made me go get the help I needed. I am not on methadone for my back and people say, that is not being clean. When people use many drugs and can't stay clean even after going to detox, this is the best way so they are monitored and they don't get too much from the streets and overdose. That is always the result of an addict who doesn't get help. Your tolerance goes up and up and you take more and more and more can be too much sometimes.

Next time you see an addict in the street. Remember one thing, you do not know how they got to that point. You don't know their life. Don't judge someone until you know. Too much of that going on in the world as it is and this is why people die every day, drugs, shootings, murder, any way you want to look at it.

I will always be an addict, I just choose to stay sober. Not all addicts have this choice by Kerrie Gutierrez-Diaz

Any questions feel free to drop me a message. I can answer anything or help anyone who may need some advice. Thanks for reading.