My Name is Eain. I am a Recovering Addict.

My name is Eain.

I was born an addict.

This is my story.

My earliest memory I can clearly remember is when I was about three and I lived in Texas in a trailer park; it’s not a memory of my family and I, nor is it a memory about good times. The first memory is of me and the neighbor boy committing a breaking and entering. We went into another neighbor’s trailer and cleaned out their fridge for them. I remember taking all the condiments with glass jars and going under the trailer with them and smashing them, making a huge mess. I didn’t know what anarchy was at that age, but I knew it felt good and I liked it.

I had one sister who was two years older than I. Our parents were married then divorced when I was six. We moved a lot, but we mostly lived in small towns in Idaho. Both parents were loving, caring, and selfless when it came to my sister and I. They taught us right from wrong, kept us safe and healthy and provided an amazing childhood despite their separation. Both parents drank occasionally didn’t drug and neither smoked.

Growing up, I always wanted to be like my big sister and wanted hang out with her and her older “cooler” friends and be accepted by them, instead of being picked on.

At a very young age, before I ever used, I remember smoking hollow sticks, sniffing pixie stick powder, and speaking to a higher power which I didn’t understand, but knew was listening.

When I was in second grade, we moved to Spokane, WA where I attended a private Christian school. All I remember of that place was being picked on and discriminated against because I was “the poor kid”. I went home each day and never wanted to go back. The following year, my mom put me in public school where I easily made friends and was a kid again.

My fifth grade year, I met a friend who lived in the neighborhood. He was also from a low-income family. Simon and I were addicted to buying baseball cards and stealing them if we felt we had to. One day we went to the card shop and he had bags and bags of change to buy cards with. I asked him how he got all the money and he said, “I’ll show you,” so we went down the road and went into a random house and he started putting anything worth value into a bag, I then realized he was robbing the place and I left without taking anything. A few days later, my mom realized a bunch of her change was missing and I then realized he had robbed my house and I helped him spend the money without knowing. He was soon after caught and arrested for all the robberies he had done in the neighborhood.

Before middle school, I drank half of one beer and hated the way it tasted so much that I never felt the effects. But I remember watching movies with drug use and getting very excited and wanting to be like those people. When I got to 6th grade, I clearly recall the D.A.R.E. (an organization designed to teach kids about the dangers of substance use) officers coming into class for a presentation. They brought with them a wooden case with a glass front– inside were all different kinds of drugs.

I don’t know if they were real, but I know that when they started describing the effects they would have on me, I instantly started plotting and orchestrating a way to steal them. I didn’t want just one of them, I remember thinking, “I want one of those, one of those, one of those, one of those.” This is the first time I recall hearing the addict inside me and I loved the excitement I felt.

I began to see my sister and her friends smoking cigarettes and pot and talking about it a lot and was very curious but I wasn’t allowed. Then one day, I remember me and my sister being at home and she said I could try pot with her if I helped do her chores. I quickly agreed and only later remember her telling me that after I tried it, she found me laying on the ground staring at the ceiling with the vacuum running at my side. I don’t remember how it felt but I do remember her telling her friends and them laughing. For once I wasn’t the annoying brother– I was the funny brother and allowed to hang out with the cool kids.

In seventh grade, I met my first real best friend. We were as thick as blood, and liked to get high together. Our first conversation we had in class was about making water bongs. We got high on something every time we would hang out, even if we had to go steal glue or aerosol cans to huff.

One day, my best friend’s mom showed up at my house to tell us he had passed away the night before. He had mixed his medication with his mom’s and didn’t wake up. I don’t remember my emotions or grieving but I do know that when I got high I wouldn’t think about it anymore and it would mask my feelings for the time being. I made new friends instantly because I was Mac’s best friend and the whole school loved him, and that was comforting, in a way.

By the time I was in eighth grade I was a member of the “stoner” group of kids. There were also other groups, such as the “preppy” kids. Even the teachers called us by our titles; we were all proud of it. After a while, the school got tired of us (the stoners and the preppy kids) having fights, being in detention, throwing food at lunch, and being outright disrespectful all the time. They had a meeting with all of us in both groups to try and make peace. Needless to say, we stole all the snacks they supplied and went and got high afterwards, taking nothing of value from it.

I continued smoking pot almost daily and started drinking when we stole alcohol or beer from stores. At that point, I was using because I liked who I was when I wasn’t myself. I was no longer using because I wanted to be accepted. I had a whole clan of friends and we all used and smoked cigarettes. We walked around the school in our baggy jeans, wearing skate shoes and piercings, listening to the first Eminem CD in our Walkmans, feeling like we owned the place. We were always quoting the newest, crudest South Park (television show) lines. We sure thought we were cool. We would make fake money on the computer and exchange it, we would work as a group to go into stores and steal whatever we wanted. Little did we know that in the future, every one of us in that group, with the exception of two people, would become full blown addicts. We ended up in institutions, jails, and our own addiction produced purgatories.

I don’t have much memory at all of the summer between eighth and ninth grade, but I’m guessing it sure was fun, because my mom worked nights on the weekends and my sister had moved to Seattle with my dad, so the house was all mine. Before my sister moved, she offered me LSD and I denied it and soon after regretted denying it and promised myself the next time a harder drug was offered that I would take it.

By the time I started ninth grade, I had been arrested twice. I was arrested once for shoplifting and once for making Molotov cocktail gas bombs we found in the anarchy cookbook. In my first week of high school, I met a kid named José. We talked about drugs in class and one day he brought in a dollar bill full of white stuff. We both snuck out of class and went to the bathroom and I tried my first hard drug. I instantly fell in love and would asked him every day to bring it. I literally asked him every day, but he only brought it one more time and let me have it. I did all of it before school was out, so I began my mission to find more, and it didn’t take long before I found an older sibling of a friend.

This was a big day in my addiction because I realized I was crossing a line of no return. My friend, his sister, her boyfriend and I all hopped in her car and drove across town to the “bad” neighborhood. Once we arrived and went inside, I recognized this was a “crack house” based on the people coming in and out and how it looked, but I was still anxious to get the stuff. Once she got it, we left and drove down the road where I was handed a glass tube, and I said, “this isn’t what I wanted.” They replied, “it’s the same thing– you just smoke it.” I didn’t think twice about it. Once my head was ringing like crazy and the car was hot-boxed with smoke, I then realized what I had just done. I was scared but extremely excited at the same time.

Halfway into my freshman year, I was having a big party at my house and got caught. My dad showed up and I was throwing up non-stop. He said he slept next to me to make sure I didn’t choke on my puke in my sleep. The next day, all my stuff was packed and I moved to Everett with him. Once again, I had no friends, and had to start over. This time was different though because I knew “my kind of people”. Soon after starting at my new school I met another kid named John G.

John and I had a friendship that revolved around getting money and using together–and we did for years. Within a few weeks of starting at my new school, I was arrested again for breaking into a house and smoking pot during school hours. This was the third time within eight months or so and my parents now knew I smoked pot, drank, was a thief, and liked to played with fire– but they didn’t know the severity of it all. I was grounded for what seemed like a year, so I got my first job as a dishwasher at a local restaurant and soon my friend john worked there with me.

This is when I realized that if I wanted to get high successfully, with no repercussions, all I had to do was pretend to be a good kid, not get arrested anymore, lie better, make my own money, and I could use as much and as often as I wanted.

After ninth grade was over, we moved again I quit my job and I stated at my third high school in one year. Once again, I had no friends besides substances. This was early 2000 and my sister had been talking about the underground raves she went to in Seattle and I wanted to go. I knew little about them but I heard her say everyone took drugs there. The second time she took me to one, I wanted to try the hip party drug everyone was doing but she said “no,” so I left her and was on a mission. It didn’t take long and I heard a voice say “e-bomb” as I walked through the crowd, I saw a young guy my age. He had what I wanted. His name was Nathan. The following hazy Monday in class, I realized that the guy sitting next me was Nathan from the rave. That day after school, we left and used across the street and became friends instantly.

Nathan’s house was the new hangout and we had a crew of us. We had two dealers. Both were neighbors of his and we could get any drug we wanted at any time and we tried it all. We all hung out there daily, and went to raves in Seattle on the weekends or had parties.

I got another job with my friend John at a fruit stand so I could contribute to the party, share and have my own supply at all times. Skipping school daily became a habit once I figured out how to beat the system.

In my junior year of high school, my dad bought me a car and I got my license. A higher power was watching after my friends and I because we survived all times. We drove impaired and never got pulled over or wrecked. By the time I got to my senior year of high school, my grades were shot, so I had to attend an alternative school which had shorter days. By then, my expenses were more than my seasonal job could pay, so I got a job delivering pizzas. It was perfect. I could get high at work and left with a pocket full of cash every day. Most the people who worked there were young and partied. I worked that job for eight years. I got my first tax return when I was 18 and my new girlfriend Casey and I moved into our own apartment with my friend Nathan.

I stopped using hard drugs while I was in the relationship with Casey because she didn’t like them and I was ok with that because I knew they were bad. Nathan and I had a falling out while living together because he was still using hard drugs and my girlfriend didn’t like it. Our relationship lasted about three years and I ended it because it wasn’t exciting enough and I wanted something more. I was 21.

I moved back in with my pops and ended up finding something exciting, but it was only exciting until I saw the bottom of the bottle. This went on daily for over a year. Once that wasn’t doing it for me on its own, I met a guy at work that said, “try to take things when you drink.” Challenge accepted. Pretty soon after that, I realized that I liked the way the pills made me feel more than the alcohol, and that I didn’t have a hangover when I woke up. I thought it was the miracle substance.

I was now on my first run with a substance that made me feel whole with no need for friends. It numbed my soul. We were on our honeymoon and life was great. Her name was Roxy (Roxicodone). One day I realized if I didn’t have her by my side, I wouldn’t feel right. I would get hot and cold, feel sick, sweat and feel like I wanted to leave my body. I decided this was an extremely unhealthy relationship since we had only been seeing each other a few months.

I was confused. I had never had cravings like I was experiencing. It consumed my every thought and feeling. I didn’t know what to do and had no one to talk to about it because I was embarrassed. I met a girl at work and probably thought I could use her and alcohol to replace what I was missing, but within a few weeks, we were at her friend’s house and I was offered my nemesis (Roxy). I told them no and warned them of my experience. Minutes later, I had a glass of water in one hand and what felt like an old best friend in the other. As soon as the drugs were gone, I remember them asking if I could get more and my response being, “Yes, and they are smaller and stronger.” This is the only instance in my active addiction I thought less was more.

Needless to say, the new girlfriend and I moved into our own place. I now had a new drug buddy who liked what I liked. We were completely opposite people and only had one thing in common: get high and stay high. The happiness in this relationship solely depended on the amount of drugs we had daily. Within the four-year period of our relationship, we broke up many times. Toward the end, I tried to stop taking pills multiple times because I was waking up after five hours of sleep already in withdrawals. I could stop for a few days or maybe a week but couldn’t stay stopped and didn’t know why. I blamed my problem on the fact that she was using, which tempted me to I pick back up every time. It wasn’t the real reason why I couldn’t quit, but it sure didn’t help that she wouldn’t stop with me. This went on for about three years until I left because I knew I could only quit if she wasn’t around.

I was able to stop for a couple weeks but about a month after leaving my second-long relationship, I was using again and using more than ever. I met a girl named Mercedes and instantly fell in love with her. She could party and keep right up with me and my roommate. Little did I know, she was a recovering heroin addict with a serious drinking problem. After knowing her for a month she got a DUI and had to go to impatient treatment. That was the longest month of my life– I missed my new partner in crime.

When she returned home, I didn’t know what to expect. No one close to me had ever gone to rehab. I had so much admiration for her and wanted to also be clean and sober as she was. I started taking suboxone daily to seem like I had my shit together so I could be around her. One day, I found her story that she had written when she was in treatment and for once in my life I truly connected with her on a deeper level than I ever had connected with anyone. I connected because of her honesty about her disease. I cried while reading it and it was the first time I had cried in I-don’t-know-how-long, maybe since I was a kid.

The suboxone eventually never cured me or helped me. It only filled in the days that I could not get high and kept me from being “sick”. Mercedes and I moved in together and we talked about having a kid. Nothing serious but it was mentioned. She didn’t know I was still using almost every day. I had ninja drug addict skills. Or so I thought. She stayed clean and I stayed by her side, trying to understand and study how she did it in awe every day.

After two years together, we had a son named Christian. This was a huge eye-opening experience. I was so scared because I couldn’t even take care of myself. I had a great paying job but at the end of the week all I had were lies for my debt. I was now using as much as I could every day. It was all gas, no brakes. One month after my son’s first birthday, I was completely spiritually broken from having to lie constantly for my disease that I thought about suicide almost daily. One night, I couldn’t take it any longer and broke down and begged Mercedes for help, crying like a new born child.

She agreed to help me and made stipulations that I had to follow or she was going to take my son and leave. At that point, I was willing to do anything and take any advice to get better. I had surrendered. I took five days off of work and detoxed at home using a cocktail of over-the-counter medicines. After day five, I began to wake up and feel alive once again. She said I had to get counseling, so I did. She said I had to tell all my family and friends, so I did. She said I must regularly go to meetings, so I did.

Once I started attending meetings, I was extremely quiet and just sat and listened. I gained knowledge on the disease and learned why I was feeling the way I was and how my disease made my brain work. At the meetings they said “come early, stay late”, so I did. They said get a sponsor, so I did. My sponsor told me to start working some steps to heal my soul, so I did. I began taking everyone’s positive advice and for once was able to stay clean.

Today I celebrate a year and eight months of being one hundred percent clean and sober from all mind and mood altering substances. My recovery is strong, my support is strong, and I now have faith in my higher power and let him guide me through every day with his wisdom and right choices he presents to me. Clean life is not perfect or easy at times, but it sure beats the hell I mentally lived in for over half of my life. My name is Eain. I am a recovering addict. Thanks for letting me share!

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