- Drugs
- Friends & Family
This is the story of my daughter, Ammie, also known as “Shuggy”. Her addiction started in high school with substance abuse. You know, friends inviting her to have a beer, smoke a joint. By the time she was 18, she was using pills, had dropped out of school, and I was missing things from our home. She had to move out. Fast forward through six more years of hell, and in January 2013, she and her boyfriend were arrested in Kentucky for drug trafficking. It kept getting worse.
On June 16, 2014, she appeared in court on the trafficking charge high on heroin. After cursing the judge and fighting the bailiff, she was put in jail. She luckily survived detox. She decided a couple of weeks later that she didn’t want that life any longer and thus began her beautiful journey in recovery. Just shy of 16 months, she relapsed and overdosed on morphine and Xanax.
Ammie was enabled by her grandparents (my parents). When she spent a couple of weeks in jail in 2014 and her body detoxed from heroin and everything else she was using, she realized she needed help. Ammie spent three weeks at in inpatient care in Bowling Green, KY and then six months in another facility.
As the mother of an addict, I learned that only they can choose recovery. It’s a very hard struggle for them. My advice to family and friends of the addict would be DO NOT ENABLE.
My life today is very sad. Shuggy was my only child and I will never get over her death. No addict believes it will kill them, but it can. We are losing too many of our loved ones to drugs. It has to stop. Rehabilitation has to be more available and affordable.