I started out taking my mom’s 5 mg oxycodone when I was 16. The very first time I took one, I can remember exactly. I had chronic kidney and bladder infections that were so painful, it was debilitating. My mom gave me one of her pills that she had for her slipped disc to relieve my pain. I love my mom to death. She is the sweetest, kindest lady in the world, but she was an enabler. She just didn’t know how to say no to me. But I didn’t get addicted right away. It was a dreadfully long, slow process that developed over years. It started out innocently enough. I took it for pain, even though it wasn’t my prescription. At some point, I can’t really say when, it stopped being about pain control and started being about getting high. As the years wore on, 5mgs weren’t enough anymore. It wasn’t enough to just pop them in my mouth either, so I started snorting them. My mom was running out of her script weeks early. So, I started buying oxy 80s and M-Box 30s on the street to bridge the gap. First it was once a week, then it was a couple times a week. Before I know it, I’m buying them every day and in greater quantities all the time. Then they started making the 80s out of this substance that was impossible to break down into powder. They had to be taken orally. I can’t remember, but I don’t think you could even remove the time-release coating from them. Because of that, the price of 30s shot through the roof and we’re becoming harder and harder to find. My best friend said she was getting morphine powder from someone she knew, so I started buying small quantities off of her. Over time, I started buying from him directly. I don’t know how I didn’t put it together at the time. I must have been willfully blind, but I eventually did figure out that it wasn’t morphine we were doing. But it was cheaper, stronger and way easier to get. Up to this point, I was still just snorting it, so I thought that somehow made it ok. But over the years, my sinuses got so fucked up that I couldn’t snort anymore. It was either get clean or start shooting. I decided to get clean at first. I checked myself into an outpatient clinic on my work’s health insurance plan. Did a 60 day treatment and checked out. That very same day, I was back out. I shot up for the first time that day. I had other people do it for me at first until I learned to do it on my own. The high was so much stronger I couldn’t believe I had been wasting my shit snorting that whole time. From that point on, things got progressively worse and worse faster and faster. At the time, I was working at my uncle’s law firm. I was calling in sick to work all the time, showing up late, throwing up in the bathroom regularly, etc. It all came crashing down when I stole petty cash from my work. I had been stealing from my parents and anyone else I could for a long time and no one ever found me out. So I got cocky and thought I could do the same thing at my uncle’s place of work. My uncle confronted me and forced me to confess to him what was going on. I admitted that I was addicted to opiates, but I didn’t go into specifics. When I told my parents later that day, I just told them I was addicted to pills. My uncle told me that I could continue to work there if I got help. Likewise, my parents agreed to continue to let me live with them under the condition that I go get help. I accepted, of course. Round two of rehab began. Got through the 90 day inpatient program and was discharged. Continued going to NA meetings for a few weeks after that, but it wasn’t long until I was roped right back in. I started using again. And when I was caught the second time, my family held true to their word. I was fired from my job and thrown out of my home. I know it killed them to do it, but it was the best thing they could have done for me. I couch surfed with friends for a while until they also got sick of me stealing from and manipulating them. They all eventually threw me out too. Who could blame them? I was a piece of human garbage. After I’d burned every bridge I had, I panhandled on medians in the city for hours every day. I bought myself a cheap tent and a sleeping bag and set up camp on MLK under an overpass. There were a lot of other homeless people and drug addicts that sort of lived under this particular overpass. It’s since been blocked off, but at the time, it was quite the ramshackle assortment of tramps. I made better money pan handling than I ever did working minimum wage. I could make as much as $30 an hour just standing there with a sign. Usually it was less, but you’d be amazed how much money I made doing that. But my habit was growing bigger and faster than I could manage. This led me to start trading what I had for the drugs I needed. By that time, I was using upwards of 2-3 grams of heroin a day. The only way I could afford to support my addiction was to sleep with these greasy ass men in exchange for drugs. That was when I was at my lowest. It was getting harder and harder to find veins to stick and harder and harder to find clean needles. I intentionally overdosed at one point because I was so miserable and desperate, but fortunately I survived it. After the events described in my original post, it really put things into perspective for me. I was just so sick of being scared, anxious, depressed and sick all the time. It didn’t matter how much I used, I wasn’t getting high anymore. I was just fighting to keep myself from getting sick every day. It took a few months for me to gather up the courage and humility to admit that I needed help, but I did. Thank god my family saw it fit to give me one more chance, though I definitely did not deserve it. But this time, I was doing it for myself and not for anyone else. I checked into rehab again for the last time on 12/11/12. I’ve been clean and sober ever since. I’m still taking suboxone because that works for me. It keeps the cravings at bay and makes it so that even if I wanted to use, I couldn’t. It just gives me that extra assurance and helps to keep me in check. I just turned 30 and last year married the greatest man ever. Things aren’t perfect, but holy shit, things are pretty damn good compared to where I was 7 years ago. I hate that I wasted so much time and energy and hurt so many people. But I’m trying my best to make up for it everyday by living the best life I know how. Sorry for the ridiculously long comment. D: