- Drugs
My name is Enrico, and my current clean date April 5, 2012. My recovery started August 21, 2010 down in Winchester, VA. I stayed at a non-medical halfway house for 21 days and had the motivation to relapse on cough medication. I didn’t get high from it but I attempted to get high, so my new clean date from then was September 9, 2010. I then moved into another halfway house in the same area of VA.
The disease of this addiction is so cunning that wants to kill you. Nine of the roommates I have personally lived with are no longer alive today but their deaths still didn’t keep me clean. I didn’t stay clean even after a former roommate relapsed, purchased a motel room, flooded the room with gasoline and burned himself while high.
During that time, I started working as a cashier at a grocery store, where I had the job for over a year. This period showed me that miracles can happen if I stay on the right road. In May 2011, I got an opportunity to get experience as a bank teller. When I got hired I was in complete shock, since the bank hired a drug addict to handle people’s money. Unfortunately, I relapsed on August 19 2011 while working at the bank and the grocery store.
In January 2012, I had been clean for five months and I met the love of my life at a rehab center in Winchester, VA. We planned to get married, have kids, have a house, and anything that would be called the American dream. I was the happiest man but there was one small problem: she wanted to get high and I wanted to get high. At the end of January, my dog got ran over by a car, which led me to quit my job at the bank and get kicked out of a halfway house. My girl, who was an online escort, taught me how to stick a syringe in my arm, which brought out another side of me when I got high.
From the end of January to April 4, 2012, I was living in my car in Virginia Beach, VA. My girl became my way of getting drugs by driving to other guys’ houses so she could have sex and come back with money. Each time I got high, I was out of control, roaming everywhere destroying everything in my path, getting angry and feeling worthless and disgusted. I even got mad at her dog who was living in the car with us and threw it out of the car window. Soon after that, it died from a back injury. At this point, we wanted to get high even more so I continued driving her to more guys’ houses to get money. We got money for a motel room and learned how to IV cocaine and heroin.
On April 4th, we got on a massive fight and I threw her new dog off the motel balcony. I realized that I have more than just a drug problem. I have a mental problem and I need help. I grabbed my wallet and car keys and I got away from Virginia Beach, heading to my mother’s house. Using drugs is like a pair of scissors cutting paper in half until the scissors get dull. You have one stack full of remorse and other stack of pain. I didn’t know what to do at this point, but I had a few days clean at my mother’s house, so I did some research and admitted to an inpatient treatment facility. This was the best decision I’ve made in my life. I picked a Dual Diagnosis treatment program and spent every day learning more about the disease. I learned how to handle anger and stress and I received medical support. I had so much humility and pain that I was motivated to ask staff members for help and how to show me the right way to live. All the staff members would stop what they are doing to spend time with me individually, which was the best feeling in the world for an addict. They helped give me their experience, strength and hope.
I exited the treatment program and went home on May 20, 2012. Right away, I moved into a recovery house full of men who wanted the same thing I wanted. I got a sponsor and followed his suggestions to the best of my ability. My sponsor and I grew to have a relationship today that I would say is priceless.