- Drugs
*NOTE: For my 90-day commitment, I decided that instead of going to a group support meeting and sharing my story I wanted to do something that would really hit home for me. I put in a request at the middle school I attended years ago to go and speak to the entire 7th and 8th grade and share my story about fighting addiction. I chose to talk to the 7th and 8th grade because that is the age I began drinking and using drugs. I thought if I could save just one kid from making the same choices I made, then it would be a tremendous success! The outcome was better than I ever imagined. I can’t really put down in words what happened that day but it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I am heading back to speak again in February to celebrate one year clean. This is the speech I shared with the kids. This is my story about taking back my freedom.
I would like to start off by introducing myself. My name is Danielle and I am a 24 year old recent college graduate of Westfield University. I D.J. in my spare time and work full-time at an insurance company in Massachusetts. I am also a recovering drug addict. On February 12, 2013, I’ll celebrate one year of being clean and sober.
I have come here today to tell you a little bit about my past and about the biggest miracle and blessing I’ve ever had in my life, which is my sobriety. Nobody sets out to become dependent on substances or turn into a drug addict. Nobody I know wakes up one day and says, “Today is the day I am going to shoot dope!” Addicts often start with pot, which leads to pills, which inevitably becomes too expensive. The next thing you know, you could be curled up in a ball in the corner as you twist an elastic band around your arm, trying to find a good vein to hit and take your pain away. That is the reality of drugs. That is what will happen, even though everybody thinks it will never happen to them. You know how I know that? Because I also said that it would never happen to me!
I grew up in this small town all my life. I sat in the same chairs and at the same tables that you are all seated at today. I began using drugs and alcohol in 7th grade and by 9th grade I was smoking pot daily and drinking regularly on the weekends. Before I knew it, drinking on the weekends turned into drinking a few times a week, and I began to get high every day, multiple times a day. I didn’t consider smoking pot to be an addiction. What’s the worst that could happen? For starters, I wasn’t just smoking pot at my house. A majority of the time, I was smoking in my car and driving around with a car full of friends. I had this mentality that I was invincible and nothing bad was going to happen to me. It took me a long time to realize that I wasn’t invincible. I was just lucky until the day I got caught.
I was wearing a townie soccer uniform at just five years old and I absolutely loved it! Soccer meant the world to me. I actually played for this middle school and was the starting goalie in 7th grade. Like most sports I participated in, soccer slid down the drain in high school because getting high became more important to me. Peer pressure is real, and I can guarantee if you haven’t dealt with it yet it is only a matter of time before you do. For all you 8th graders this year, a majority of you will be heading up to the high school in the fall. It is an entirely different world up there. Some of you may laugh and think that you won’t cave into peer pressure, but I am living proof that it doesn’t matter how smart, popular, or into sports you are. If you don’t have a solid plan to say no when offered drugs or alcohol, you could easily fall into the dark world of addiction. Try to picture your darkest image of hell and then imagine it ten times worse than that and you would not even be close to the darkness to which I am referring.
On March 9th, 2004, I wrapped my brand new Honda Accord around a tree two miles down the road from my house. It was one of the worst ice storms to hit this town, and we were let out of school 20 minutes early. I was a sophomore at the time and was dropping a friend off who lived three miles down the road from my house. I had no experience driving in the snow or ice. I was not under the influence of anything at the time of the accident. I took a really sharp corner on a narrow wooded road and then all I could hear was screaming as I pressed the breaks to the floor and tried my best to steer the car. I woke up with an airbag on my chest, covered in white powder and immediately asked my friend if she was alright. On impact, she braced her legs under the dash, locking her knees in place. When we hit, by the grace of god she didn’t go through the windshield, However, she screwed up both her legs. I can’t even explain to you how mangled my car was. The windshield was smashed out, my trunk was twisted sideways, all four tires bent in different directions and a huge tree was where my front end was supposed to be. I had to kick the driver’s side window out just to pull myself out of the car and call 911. I had such an adrenaline rush that I had no idea the amount of pain I was in. I just remember that I kept rubbing my neck. I refused the ambulance ride only to wind up in the emergency room later that night.
I was immediately put on painkillers when I arrived in the emergency room. I was given a neck brace, which I needed to keep on for three weeks, and a prescription for Percocet (with two refills), muscle relaxers, naproxen and valium. Wondering how I remember all of this down to the last detail of how many refills I had on my Percocet prescription? Because from the very first time I was given a painkiller, I was immediately drawn in. It was as if someone took me from 0 to 100mph in 6 seconds flat and all my pain was erased from my body and my life. The weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders and the only thing that I could feel was complete euphoria. I couldn’t get enough of the high.
I took more and more until I had nothing left and then I would buy more. I guess you could say I have an addictive personality when it comes to drugs. One drug was never enough, and a handful was never too many. Doing drugs took a toll on my grades, as well as my attendance. I began skipping school regularly to go do drugs all day. I almost didn’t pass my junior year of high school due to attendance alone. When I look back on my high school days, I realize that I missed out on so many things because I was under the influence. I have no regrets because I can’t live life that way at this point or I wouldn’t be living at all. But I wish I could have enjoyed more things in high school as a sober student.
The thing about addiction is that it doesn’t target any one type of person. It doesn’t seek you out of a crowd. You seek it. Addiction will befriend each and every one of us if we let it. It isn’t picky nor does it care what you look like, who you are, or what a promising future you could have. It is loyal, though. I will give it that. Addiction will never leave you and it promises to always be by your side. Addiction turned me into a manipulative, vindictive, impulsive, angry, homeless junkie in a very short period of time. I was also one of the best con artists you’ve ever seen in your life. Waking up when you’re an opiate addict is like waking up every day with the flu, and it’s only going to get worse unless you get your fix. You have to fight to get away from this addiction, and every day will turn into a battle. I know because I live it.
Would you really risk cutting your chance of living life in half by using heroine? That should be enough to shake anyone to the core. It is important to remember that any addict who can stay clean for just one day is a miracle. What so many people don’t understand is that Oxycontin, Vicodin, opium, methadone, morphine, and a few others drugs are synthetic heroine, which basically means “man-made heroin.” Natural opium is extracted from the seed pod of the poppy plant. All the drugs I just listed depress the nerve transmissions between the spinal cord and the brain. Essentially, opiates make it impossible for the spinal cord to transmit pain messages to the brain.
People who take these pills don’t realize that they are popping, snorting, shooting or smoking dope. They think it is okay because it’s a prescription, even if it’s not their own personal prescription. As I said before, the pills get to be quite expensive. Eventually, you know that the withdrawals are only going to get worse so you cave in and buy a bag of heroine just this one time. It’s cheaper than pills, and you’ll get the same high. Here’s where it can get even more risky. I went from having a wonderful life to having my entire life revolve around drugs in the blink of an eye and I was comfortable that way. I kept a steady high in order to block the rest of the world out.
When I was in high school, I was always very popular. In fact, I even won “most fun to be around” as my senior superlative. I ran with a big crowd, but we were all into the party scene. I had a group of five girlfriends, and we were inseparable. We did everything together, side by side always. It’s been six years since we all graduated high school. During these past six years, all five of my best friends including myself have been in detox and rehab, some of us more than once. Tell me how cool that is at 24 years old? I can promise you that it’s not. Being addicts, we are not proud of the choices we made and some of the horrible things we have done. If we hadn’t all gotten wrapped up in the drug scene at a young age, I guarantee our lives would all be much different right now.
Here is a little quote I really like: “I’m sorry to say so but, sadly it’s true. The bang-ups and hang-ups can happen to you.” None of us ever imagined our lives would take such a drastic turn into the depths of substance abuse. None of us ever thought we would pawn our mothers’ jewelry for drug money, raid our grandparents’ medication cabinets, steal from our jobs, or take from a charitable donation fund. But this is what addiction will do to you. It will take your morals and stomp all over them. It will destroy your families and tear your friendships apart. It will wear your body out and drain your bank account. It will push you to the brink of insanity and then kick you over the ledge to fall.
I never would have thought that smoking pot in 7th grade would open the gates to more drugs than I care to list. I am a survivor. I am fortunate enough that, on the night of October 11th, 2011, my mother found me after an accidental overdose and rushed me to the hospital. I thank God every day that he didn’t take me away from my family and friends that night. Up until that night, my mother thought the worst thing I did was smoke cigarettes, so you can only imagine how she felt to see her strung-out daughter on a stretcher in the emergency room floating in and out of consciousness. That night was one of the longest nights of my life. I may not remember much but what I do remember haunts me to this day. I woke up around 6 a.m. when a doctor awoke me to be taken down to the psyche ward. Due to the amount of drugs they found in my system, they thought I may have attempted suicide. I was released around 10 a.m., after seeing about five different doctors who all asked me, “With a lethal dose of opiates in your system, what exactly were you trying to do?” I answered every one of them, saying, “I was chasing my next high.” The final print of my release papers said “Diagnosis: Opiate Addiction. Seek immediate treatment.”
My mom came and picked me up once I was released. I never again in my life want to see the sadness in her eyes that I saw on that day. I destroyed her with my addiction. I broke her heart more than I ever thought possible and that was only the beginning. I was admitted into a detox facility the morning after my overdose and I spent the following seven days in detox in rehab. Addiction is just so powerful. I can’t even sum up in words what it is like to have a constant voice in the back of your head screaming at you to go get high. I lost that fight my first time around and on October 28th signed myself out of rehab and went on the run for three months. Within 20 minutes of leaving rehab, my phone was shut off and my car was taken. My family had previously informed me of the consequences I would face if I made the decision to leave treatment. It resulted in me losing all contact with my family. They wanted nothing to do with me, until I was ready to get clean and finish the rehab program.
That is addiction for you. There are days when you feel on top of the world and days when you don’t think you’re going to make it. It’s unfortunate that I let that day turn into my reality. I picked right back up where I left off, which is something they warned us about in rehab. They also told us that you tend to get worse after you’ve had a little clean time under your belt. It’s hard work trying to cover up all the shame and defeat that’s trying to consume you when you relapse. I had nearly tripled the amount of drugs that I was using prior to rehab. Not only that, but I began smoking it. I was spending around $300 a day trying to feed my habit. Wondering how I got all that money? It’s simple. I was a thief. I never stole a single thing in my life up until the day that I became a drug addict. I thought it wasn’t that bad because I never once stole from my family or my friends. I only stole from my job. I had also conveniently gotten around $3,000 back in taxes. But it was gone in less than three weeks.
I graduated from college and had two separate graduation parties due to my parents being divorced. I received somewhere around $5,000 between the two family parties, which was gone in a little over a month. Things escalated out of control faster than I could have ever imagined, and I was living the life of a full-blown drug addict all over again. My worst nightmare became my daily reality. Every day revolved around how I was going to get drugs, getting drugs, getting high, and then repeating the process over and over. I didn’t care about anything else except getting high. I didn’t have my family. I lost almost all friends and was sleeping on a couch half the size of my body above the package store I worked. I had nowhere to go.
I would go days without eating, not because I had no money or no food but because I would be so high all the time that I would forget to eat. I have burned myself with cigarettes many times. Once I even lit a couch on fire due to being so high that I couldn’t even hold my eyes open. I’d spend my days at work snorting lines off the safe in the in back office and then walking out onto the floor to manage the staff. I was buying such a massive amount of drugs at work that I had the Massachusetts State Police Department investigating me for trafficking narcotics. I never sold drugs but I had such an outrageous habit that the police thought I was a king pin drug dealer. Fortunately I never faced any criminal charges because I hit rock bottom and left for rehab days before I was going to be busted. I didn’t find out about any of this until I came out of rehab. By working at a donut shop for six years, I made close ties with many of the state troopers. They vouched for me, knowing I was a good kid who was simply taking drugs, not trafficking narcotics. My decision to leave for rehab not only saved my life but also kept me out of jail.
I spent every night curled up on a floor, chasing my next high. I actually remember one night I was just lying on the couch after I did a large amount of drugs and thought to myself, “This is what I am throwing my life away for; to sit on a couch, drifting in and out of consciousness, alone. Why am I doing this?” I worked so hard in college, making the dean’s list four times. I finally got that diploma, just to throw my life away. But I couldn’t stop. At this point, my health was in just as much danger if I kept using as it would be if I stopped suddenly. My body could have gone into a seizure from withdrawals. I remember the doctors telling me when I was in detox that they had to put me on such a high dose of methadone when I came down from the opiates because I could have died without it.
Who would have thought that a few nights of messing with hardcore drugs would land me in detox and rehab twice in the same year? Those few nights of doing hardcore drugs turned into many years of complete chaos in the blink of an eye. Who would have thought my family would have to have three interventions for me before I agreed get help? I sure didn’t sign up for that, or so I thought.
I put my family through hell because I was hooked on opiates. I missed Thanksgiving and Christmas and celebrated my birthday alone getting high as my family wept, wondering where I was and if I was okay. Since my mom stuck to her guns and cut off all contact with me, she began writing in a journal every night as if she were writing letters to me. My mother and I talked every single day, no matter what, even when I was in college. Even when I was using drugs prior to my overdose, we never missed a phone call or an “I love you” up until then. It crushed my mother to not be able to speak to me. To this day, I have not been able to read past the first two entries in the journal that she gave to me once I checked back into rehab. It breaks me down to know the pain and torment I put her through because of my drug addiction.
I finally had enough and hit my rock bottom exactly four months after my overdose and returned home to my mother on February 11, 2012. I began outpatient rehab the following day and I began to realize one very import thing. I realized I had been living without hope. Either you will get real and live in the real world or you will die in a fantasy world of your own creation. I realized that if I get honest, I will begin to solve real problems. Once I step up and solve these real issues, I will be accepted for who I really am. I can’t even begin to tell you the pain and suffering that I put my family through. But I can tell you how grateful they are to have me back home, sober and becoming a bigger success with each passing day. Families can share in victory over drug addiction or they can become victims of it. My mother has been through more trying times in her life than someone should ever have to face. My mom cut off contact with me to try and force me down to my rock bottom. She refused to facilitate another overdose and enable me. Out of all the things my mother has had to face in her life, what she went through with me was by far the most difficult thing she has ever done. I am not just assuming that. She told me, although I already knew. It has been a long road to recovery. I have had my ups and downs and my slips and falls but I don’t want to live my life any other way than sober at this point. I won’t ever be able to say that I won this battle with drugs. It is a battle I suit up for and fight every single day and will continue to do so for the rest of my life.
I am fortunate enough to have landed a very good career that encourages and supports my sobriety and works around my rehab schedule, as well as my frequent suboxone clinic appointments. I wake up and thank God everyday for giving me the opportunity to start over and rebuild my future. Many of us addicts aren’t lucky enough to get that opportunity. Many addicts die before they ever get the chance to fight for sobriety.
I will tell you right now that doing drugs to try to fit in or gain acceptance in a particular crowd is the biggest mistake you could make. It will not make you look cool and it will lead you down a long and lonely road that some people never escape. Parents, family, and teachers often tell children that if you work hard, you can be anything you want to be when you grow up. Well, my parents never imagined I would choose to be a junkie and neither did I.
I am here today to plead with you guys to learn from my experiences and to tell you the things I wish I knew at your age. More often than not, the media tends to glorify drugs and alcohol. They try to make addicts look cool or make you think that you’ll be funnier after a couple drinks, hits of weed, or lines of coke. Well, I’m here to tell you about the reality of drugs and the truth about what happens.
Right now in the United States, we are facing a pill epidemic that is consuming our youths and taking their dreams away. You don’t have to be a statistic. You can be the difference. Drugs and alcohol are not something to take lightly. There is no way to just experiment or try it once. If you knock on the devil’s door long enough, somebody’s going to answer you. Focus on school and have fun without drugs or alcohol. Keep it simple and always hold your family close to your heart. Sometimes the toughest decisions you make in your life turn out to be the best decisions you could have ever made. Don’t make the same mistakes I did. You may not be lucky enough to survive it, and a parent’s worst nightmare is to bury their child. Embrace your life and don’t take a single day for granted. Success is failure turned inside out. Thank you all for your time. I hope that each and every one of you has a bright future, drug and alcohol free. I can promise you it is the absolute best way to live because using drugs or alcohol isn’t living at all.