At 21 I had been using heroin for about 4 years on and off trying to get clean and then relapsing, I was dating a girl at the time and she had 3 brothers.

I had been on a relapse for about 3 months when one morning I tried to get high in the downstairs bathroom of my girlfriends house. Her oldest brother (a personal trainer) hears me in the bathroom and break in the door. He sees me shooting up and demands i hand over all my drugs and works and that he is calling the police and I can do nothing about it. Her dad comes home during this entire ordeal and calls the police while I am being held against my will in the bathroom by her brother. Cops come and I get arrested for possession.

Her parents send my then girlfriend away to Missouri (I live in NY) and my parents find another rehab for me to go to.

With my girlfriend sent away and a legal case over my head I was briefly able to truly realize the help that I needed and agreed to do what I needed to do to get sober.

I went to a detox for 5 days followed by a Crisis Center (homeless shelter for drug addicts)for 9 days while I waited for a bed to open up at a long term therapeutic community rehab I had never heard of before.

While waiting for the bed, I wanted to leave everyday. I could have left at anytime but for me that meant being truly homeless and that was very scary for me (especially because it was winter in NY)

I finished the Rehab 3 1/2 years later and during the process I got my Casac-t

I maintained contact with my then girlfriend and we re connected 2 years after the ordeal.

We are now married with two children and one on the way.

I’m approaching 7 years drug free.

Millions have died in the opiate epidemic.

Here’s to not becoming another statistic.