The struggles and triumphs of an addict

                                                           Opioid Addiction Opioids are a class of drugs that include the illicit drug heroin as well as the licit prescription pain relievers oxycodone, hydrocodone, codeine, morphine, fentanyl and others. Opioids are chemically related and interact with opioid receptors on nerve cells in the brain and nervous system to produce pleasurable effects and relieve pain. Addiction is a primary, chronic and relapsing brain disease characterized by an individual pathologically pursuing reward and/or relief by substance use and other behaviors. Of the 21.5 million Americans 12 or older that had a substance use disorder in 2014, 1.9 million had a substance use di...

This is the epidemic I have been screaming at the top of my lungs is here. I saw it first hand many times. Experimenting with painkillers doesn't take long to develop a dependence and once you're there you can't function without the opiates because of the terrible withdrawals. Let me tell you opiate withdrawal will make someone that has never even thought of suicide feel as though they would rather be dead. It is torture.  The feds cracked down hard on doctors, pharmacies, and especially pain clinics commonly known as pill mills. The crackdown made the pain pills harder to find which led to dealers raising the prices of the pills. The obvious and natural progression was heroin. It's an opiate just like the pills therefore it takes away the withdrawals. This is an opiate addicts main purpose for using. To stop the withdrawal. At first it's all fun and games and getting high. That does not last long. It becomes a daily battle to just not be dope sick.    When 20-y...

From here on out I will do my best to tell an accurate accounting of events, but this is the point in my life where, in actuality, I was in a walking coma. It's literally like fourteen years of my life have been erased from my memory because of the Methadone. The only reason I can even recall enough to tell my story is because so many bad things happened during this period. For some reason the negative memories have stayed, but if you were to ask me about my son's first step or the first time he called me daddy I would have nothing to offer. A few things have stuck around like his first day of kindergarten when I walked out balling like a baby. Before I started going to the doctor my relative lost her doctor and could no longer supply me with pills. I had lost my connection and had to figure something out quick. Without the Methadone the physical withdrawal was so bad I would have suicidal thoughts. This was a first for me. A lot of people have those types of thoughts ...

Dinsmore is a community in Jacksonville FL. It's where my family is from and where I pretty much spent the first seven years of my life. My mother and my aunt who lived together were  both pregnant at the same time. My cousin Tonia was born 11 days before I was and we were more like best friends than cousins into our teenage years. When I was really young she was the only friend and companion that I really had. We had a very strong bond. Dinsmore was what I would call countrified. Its always had its share of petty crime but drugs are the worst problem the community has. So, by now I'm around 20 and I start going to Dinsmore because a relative of mine always had some marijuana and I started self-medicating to deal with the pain from the accident. Returning to Dinsmore would turn out to be the catalyst for all my problems. My relative that was the weed man always had a house full of people including females. Basically I just showed up to my relatives house and never le...