Real Addiction Stories

John's story...

When I was 13-years-old, a friend got some marijuana from his older brother and wanted me to try it with him. I thought my parents were just bullshitting me about the dangers of drugs in order to scare me from ever trying them, so I wanted to see what it was like. I really liked the feeling it gave me. I felt relaxed and happy.

This experience with drugs led me down a road to hell. When I no longer got that great feeling from marijuana, I moved on to acid, ecstasy, cocaine, and opiates. My opiate addiction is now killing me mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

I continue to battle my addiction and am having a hard time to overcome it. I have lost my health, my reputation, my education, my job, my spirit, my self-esteem, and myself. I do not even know who I am anymore.

I am paying a very heavy price for a decision that I made as a teenager. I wish I could turn back the time and take back the moment that I decided to try drugs, especially the opiates that are killing me little by little. Since I can’t take that moment back, I pray that I can overcome this before it is too late. Many have died from this disease and I do not want to be one of them.

I was clean for 30 days recently when I was serving time in jail. I felt good about myself. I gained some weight and was getting my health back. It was the closest thing to treatment that I received for my addiction. However, the jail had very little in the way of actual treatment programs and I relapsed within a day of getting out.

I honestly do not know how to live without drugs. They have been part of my life since I was 13. I feel bad about myself now because of the people that I’ve hurt through my addiction. I hate what I am doing to my family. The cravings and withdrawals are so bad that I just want to die. I don’t know how to handle them so I use drugs to stop the pain. I don’t like myself very much, at least not this addicted person that I have become. The real me is here behind all of this but I don’t know how to dig my way out of this mess that I’m in.

I am sharing my story in the hopes that other kids will learn from it and not try drugs at all. I never expected to become addicted. I thought that I could handle it and stop when I wanted to. I was very WRONG.


Allan's story....

My brother started using drugs in Grade 7 and I was pissed. We always said that we would never use drugs (our parents put the fear of God into us about drugs) but he did anyway.

The next couple of years were hard. My brother - who was always so smart, well behaved, and respectful - started to change. I watched the stress that he caused our parents and I would get so mad at him. Why couldn’t he just listen to them and follow his curfew? I always came home on time. Why couldn’t he? They would try everything they could to get him to listen. Each time he stayed out late, they took something away from him – like his Nintendo games. They would ground him but he’d go out anyway, usually when they were in bed sleeping. They wouldn’t give him any money but he worked part-time so that wasn’t a big deal to him. They tried too many things to list here. I would get so mad at him!

As mad as I was at him about his drugs and what they were doing, it didn’t stop me from trying the drugs myself. I don’t know why I did it. I was just curious I guess. My brother and many of our friends were doing them so I wanted to see what it was like. I was 14.

It wasn’t long before I started changing too, although I was not nearly as defiant with the rules that our parents set for us. It bothered me to see them upset and worried so I did my best to prevent it as much as I could.

By the time I was 16, I was so wrapped up in my addiction to prescription drugs that I was lost. I ended up moving out of my parents’ house because I refused to get clean and they had my younger siblings to worry about. At this time, they knew that we were both using. I could see that it was killing them but I couldn’t stop, and neither could my brother.

They did try to help us by taking us to addiction treatment for counseling, talking to us, and loving us but we wanted our drugs and continued to use. Neither of my parents have an addiction to anything so they had a hard time to understand why we couldn’t stop.

At 18, I began using needles. I used to call another guy that I knew a “needle banger” because he used needles and I had zero respect for him. Now, here I was doing the same thing. I was a needle banger!

Only another drug addict could understand the pull that drugs have on you. It is like I have a demon living inside of me who is making all my decisions for me. From the time you get up until the time you go to bed, your mind is obsessed with getting your next fix. If you don’t get your fix, you become very sick and very sore so you try to prevent it.

I have been clean for three months now. I still have a long way to go but I’m trying. I am fighting this demon everyday but it is so hard. I feel better with each passing day but the cravings are still there. I am learning how to manage them.

 April’s story….

When I was young, I was well cared for and well loved. I was very happy. In elementary school, though, things began to change at home. I began to witness violence and drug and alcohol use. My stepfather was an alcoholic, which caused a lot of chaos in our house.

Even with all that going on at home, I was a really great student in elementary school. I never had to open a book and I excelled in everything. I was a good, kind, and pleasant little girl.

Things started to change for me in junior high. I started to feel depressed. When it got really bad, I would cut myself. It wasn’t long before I looked to drugs to make me feel better, starting with weed. Then, I moved on to using ecstasy on the weekends, which turned into weekdays. As time went on, I did acid a few times and also did what they call "candy flipping" which is dropping E and acid at the same time. I think I was the only kid in my grade doing hard drugs like that. I had an older boyfriend who had older friends and that’s how it began. My grades started slipping a bit but I made it through junior high without failing anything.

I got clean for a few months and broke up with my older boyfriend. Then I started high school! Those years were really bad for me. I met a new group of people, including a boyfriend, who liked to drink, so I started drinking A LOT. I think it’s safe to say that my new boyfriend and I were basically alcoholics. We drank a lot and each time we drank to the point of blacking out. There was no social drinking for us. We just couldn’t do it.

I remember the summer after Grade 10; we were drunk every single day in July by lunch time. I even spent a night in the drunk tank, but that did not stop me. I was back at it the next day. I can’t tell you exactly when my opiate addiction started, I just know it was sometime during my high school years. I failed classes left, right, and centre. I got kicked out a couple of times and it was all due to drugs. They were taking over my life. When I graduated I was a full blown addict.

I started stealing and manipulating my family to get my money for pills. I wanted to get better. I just didn’t know how. I knew my loved ones wanted me to do something with my life so I decided to enroll in college. By then, though, my addiction was totally out of control. My withdrawals were so bad that I dropped out of school. I was so sore and so sick that I couldn’t get out of bed. I wasted $8,000 and disappointed a lot of people.

I was in and out of detox four times. I attended a short rehab program but relapsed while in the program, and started using even more as soon as it was over.

My addiction has devastated my family members. My grandparents cry all the time because they are so scared of what will happen to me. I hate hurting my grandma and grandpa like that. My mom doesn’t want anything to do with me when I am using, and I can't really blame her.

I must say I am miserable. I get extremely sick without pills. I have watched my boyfriend, who I love very much, start using needles and going in and out of jail, which breaks my heart. I sure can’t say my life is great, and that I am happy because I am certainly NOT. It hurts me to keep hurting the people I love, but I can’t help it. It is nothing against them. I am addicted and I’ve ruined my life.

I am now waiting to start methadone treatment but there is a long waiting list. I feel it is my last hope. I have also been seeing an addictions counselor for a little over a year, but that really didn’t help me. I am too far gone. Perhaps those sessions will be more effective when I am on methadone and able to focus on something other than getting more drugs.

I live a sad existence. This is not how I thought my life would end up. If I could go back in time, I would NEVER have tried drugs.

Theresa’s story....

Hi, I am a Mother of 3 self confessed addicts. My elder son started using Alcohol when he was in his early teens. Then there were drugs but they didn’t seem to pose a problem because he was out on his own. He is now sober for about 5 years.

Our next son tried alcohol and immediately became addicted. He was in trouble with the law and spent 3 months in juvenile detention center. He is now sober for 2 years.

Our youngest son starting using drugs when he was 15. It started with marijuana, and led onto harsher drugs, opiates was his drug of choice. He has been in and out of jail on numerous occasions, --3 at least. The last time he was in jail, he was earnestly crying for help. So I intervened and got his drug counseling, he went to self-help programs, and was in a support house for 7 months. He had to go away to get other treatment. He tells me he is now on the methadone program and he tells me he is doing well.

All my sons are very kind, gentle persons. The youngest son has ADD and developmental delay. I always got him extra help through his primary years at school.

I wasn’t aware that he was using drugs and I knew all the signs to look for; lack of appetite, irritability, changing friends, being sneaky, lying etc. It wasn’t until he was well advanced in his addiction that I saw the signs.

Thank God, I have a self help program because I would be devastated otherwise. This program has taught me every person is a child of God and God doesn’t make junk. I know all addicts have a disease. It doesn’t help to enable them. I have to use tough love and that is hard but with the use of my programs, I know I am doing the right thing.

This program has enabled me to sleep at nights even though I didn’t know where my son was, to let go and let God, say “no” when he is looking for money, listen to him in the good times as well as the bad times, admit to the fellowship when I am having a bad day, reading the literature which gives me strength and hope.

I call my son every day and tell him I love him. I never hang up the phone from any of my children without telling them “I love you”. This program has taught me to pray to my Higher Power, whom I choose to call God, for all those suffering from addictions.