San Luis Obispo
Addiction Recovery
Center
Compassionate Treatment of Substance Abuse
Treat Addiction -- Save Lives
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Compassionate Treatment of Substance Abuse
Treat Addiction -- Save Lives |
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Patient M
Hi everybody, My fiancé (My financee, I called her when I was using) is busy working tonight so I thought I’d take the chance to share my story, or at least the part of it that got me here. I’m a lazy typist so bear with me here: I have been no stranger to opiates for a
long time. I’d often partake in a vicodin or norco, or whatever it was offered
to me at a party, or gig, wherever. It was no big deal. I enjoyed the effects it
had on me very much but I’d only get my hands on them every now and then and
when the buzz wore off, no big deal. I’d just wake up the next day and go on my
way. It wasn’t until fairly recently though that through natural course I seemed
to be around situations where opiates were more and more common. I had a good
buddy who started getting a good size bottle of Vicodin once a month. The big
blue ones. 1000 mg I think. I would buy a bag of 20 or so whenever he got a
refill. I’d go through those in a couple days and again, after they were gone I
just went back to my normal ways. I had not yet become addicted at least
physically to opiates. It wasn’t until I was introduced to Oxycontin that that
all began to change. That same friend would every now and again get a hold of 40
mg Oxy’s and we’d get one each for a Saturday night, crush em’, snort em’ and
just chill and get really high, watch movies, or jam some music (we’re both
musicians) These new oxy’s were the shit. 1 pill and I was flying for hours, and
I slept like an angel the night after. It was wonderful. The supply was few and
far between however so there was no way to “keep rolling” with them at the time.
So getting one every now and then continued for awhile with no real bad
consequences. That all changed however a week before my 29th birthday June of
this year. Another friend decided to add oxycontin his usual repertoire of pot
he sold on the side for quick cash. He would get a bottle of 280 and he could
re-up every month! He only had 3 or 4 guys buying these off him so I could get
as much as I could handle. This is where the slippery slope begins. I began
buying them up like crazy. I had a good nest egg set aside so money was no
issue——-yet.
I am into my second week and feeling great. The Suboxone is doing it’s job very well for me. I have no more cravings. I need to get to more meetings though. The doc wants me to go. I don’t like to disappoint! Anyway, hope this story was worth the read. Probably similar to most everyone out there with my same problem. |
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At first I would use 2 a day, breaking them in half for each “session”. I did
that for awhile and all was great. I was sleeping well, I was not partying, so I
was kicking ass at work. I didn’t see any down side to using these things except
for the hefty price tag. Well as you can imagine the dose grew quickly to 3 a
day, then a month later it was 4. It was about that time 2.5 months into
everyday use that I began to have money issues. I had used up my savings stash,
and now had to rely on paycheck money to cover my needs. I have a good job and
it pays well, but a $100 a day habit cannot be sustained even in my fortunate
situation. Funnily enough it had yet never occurred to me that I was fully
addicted both physically and mentally at this point, but I was. I was fucked and
didn’t know it. I decided to give it a rest one day because simply I couldn’t
justify the cost. I had other bills to pay. I simply didn’t re-up with my
supplier one Sunday and thought I’d go about my usual ways. Well a couple hours
into the day I began the first symptoms of withdrawal. I didn’t know what they
were at the time. I just felt weird. Still, silly me, didn’t get it that I was
in withdrawal. But I did however find a way to justify another round of oxy’s
that afternoon and all was well again. It was then that I realized what was
going on. The pills made me instantly better. Holy shit fire I’m addicted! What
do I do? I kept flirting with cutting myself off, each time getting a little
deeper into withdrawal until it would get so bad I’d just say fuck it and buy
another one. I struggled daily like this for what seemed like forever (only a
couple months). I just could not stand to suffer long enough for myself to get
clean, so I’d go back. My plan was to get through a work week, cut myself off
Friday afternoon and withdrawal all weekend hoping I had the strength to do it,
and hoping by Monday morning I’d be at least good enough to go back to work.
That never happened. I’d score again by Saturday afternoon. This was the plan
and the continued failure of that plan week after week. I have no idea looking
back how I sustained that habit. It was up to 125$ a day on average. It boggles
the mind. Anyway, my fiancé at this point had seen me go thru withdrawals, she
knew I had a problem and that I was spending all my, and some of her money on
it. But I convinced her (I think anyway, you need to ask her if she knew I was
full of shit, haha) that I’d kicked and hid it as best I could. Of course when
I’d withdrawal she’d know what it was and I’d just say I had a relapse. Even
though I’d never actually stopped, I was just using behind her back. This was
putting an enormous financial burden on our relationship. We live together and
pool money to pay bills, rent, cars, etc. and it was always my share that was
mysteriously gone. She knew, and was getting fed up very quickly. She threatened
to leave and I swore I’d stop. I was faced with losing the best thing that had
ever happened to me, and there I was swearing to stop a behavior that I knew I
wasn’t going to be able to do. Luckily one day around that time I was flipping
through a New Times Newspaper and I saw an ad for SLOARC. “Look babe, an ad for
a recovery place”, I said, high at the time I’m sure because god as my witness I
don’t remember pointing that out to her. But she took note and researched the
place online and I think she had called as well. She told me all about it one
afternoon, about the people, the Dr, the Suboxone. I said, I would do this
(clean up) on my own, I don’t need that right now. I was hopeless though. A week
later we were in financial dire straits once again. She confronted me about my
use and begged me to at least call the program. That was 2 Saturdays ago. I was
a mess, I took stock of what I had left to lose, and there was a lot. I didn’t
want to lose anything in my life. I was at a dead end. I gave in. We called
immediately and to our surprise Steve called back minutes later! We talked for a
bit about my problem and he suggested I come in that day. First of all I was not
anywhere near expecting to even hear back from these people for days, now here
he wants me to come in in an hour? Holy shit no way!! I still have 3 oxy’s left!
I compromised on coming in the next morning. One last hurrah for my Oxy life
that night. The next day I came in and we got going just like everybody else
here. I began withdrawing that night and got the call to start my Suboxone. It
was a miracle. I was better within 20 minutes. I slept great, went to work the
next morning and began my new program and my new life. And there we have it.
That’s the Cliff Notes version of my story.