- Drugs
- Friends & Family
submitted by Susanne Johnson
My name is Matt F, and I am an addict who has been clean for about two years and ten months. The story of my addiction has become very commonplace in society today. Unfortunately people who are uninformed tend to look at addiction in a very judgmental way, to fail to comprehend that addiction is a disease. In fact addiction is a disease that completely takes over the mind and body of its victims. This is exactly what happened to me.
I was raised in a very loving household with two parents. I truly could not have been raised in a more responsible manner or have asked for a better childhood. They taught me everything a child needs to know to grow up to be a morally upstanding, contributing member of society. I played basketball from early childhood through college. I always lived a regimented lifestyle that included a lot of exercise and year-round training for my sport.
When I got to college, I began to experiment with drugs a bit here and there, trying things I never thought I would. At no point in these first few years was I ever concerned about my drug use. However during that time, my limit for what I considered acceptable to experiment with began to get lower and lower. By the time my senior year rolled around, I had begun experimenting with painkillers. This was when I started to get worried about the decisions I was making.
When I graduated college in May 2010, I was physically addicted to painkillers. By that point in time, everything I had known and been taught about how to live my life had started slipping away. All of the good eating, sleeping and fitness habits I had formed over years of playing basketball were disintegrating. The line between right and wrong didn’t exist anymore.
When one wakes up in the morning and needs a substance just to make them feel normal, it becomes all that matters. Very little can stand in the way of that, not friends, not family and for me not even the law. After about two years living in my own personal Hell, I landed myself in jail. That is where my journey in recovery began.
On August 24, 2012, I began a two to five year sentence that consisted of jail time in both county and state prisons. At first I thought my life was over. I had no hope and could not see how it would be possible to have a life worth living with four felonies on my record and after publicly embarrassing my friends and family the way I did.
During my incarceration I received an outpouring of support from the same friends and family that I had embarrassed. They simply refused to give up on me. They knew the person I was before drugs and knew that I was capable of turning my life around. After a few months in jail, I began to believe this too.
Of my own volition, I began to re-instill the good habits I had developed earlier in life such as eating, sleeping and exercising regularly. The last six months of my sentence were spent in a state prison where I realized how much I truly loved being and feeling healthy.
I have been out of prison for a little over a year now, and in that time I have regained almost all of the relationships with friends and family that I had damaged during my addiction. I live a very active lifestyle. It includes eating healthy, sleeping well and having fitness habits. I make my bed every single morning. This might seem trivial, but ask any addict and I can guarantee they will tell you they didn’t make their bed once while in their active addiction. I have a job, one that was given to me by people who own a company and were willing to give me a second chance because they saw me doing the next right thing. I have a girlfriend who loves me for the person I am today and does not judge me for the things I used to do. I help other people that are going through the things that I went through because that is what people did for me.
Every day I live my life focusing on doing the next right thing, making my bed, going to work, eating the next healthy meal, finishing the next workout, helping the next person who needs it, and loving friends and family unconditionally. I don’t over-complicate things.
My message to anyone struggling with addiction or any other life-altering circumstance is to never give up hope. People forgive. People give second chances. Neither of these things are possible, unless you give them the chance to do so.