Working as a waitress in Mobile, I easily got any drug I wanted. I don’t know how I lost control or when my opioid tolerance became so high. One day I was fine; the next day it was all I thought about. Suddenly, I was taking 10 Lortabs at a time, 10 times a day. I moved to Dilaudid, OxyContin, and Roxies (Oxycodone), but I never pictured myself being a drug addict.

I tried to stop several times. I went to rehab twice at Bradford Health Services in Birmingham and took Suboxone, a narcotic medication used to treat opioid addiction. Then I started heroin.

Heroin was everywhere in Birmingham, and it surprised me that it took so long to get to Mobile. It was much cheaper than other drugs and spread as soon as it arrived here.

Cheaper heroin meant I didn’t have to worry as much about getting money and could use it more often. I went from spending $150 a day on pills to $40 a day on heroin, using every few hours to keep the withdrawals away.

I stole money for pills, but I sold just enough heroin to a few daily customers to support my habit. Having a few buyers meant I didn’t have to do the things I used to do for pills. Heroin comes from hell. It’s the devil. Men use it to prey on women who have a drug addiction and who would do anything to get it.

Deep into my heroin addiction, the next hit was all I thought about. Heroin controlled my life all day, every day–with no days off. I felt like I would die without it. Heroin and other drugs became even more dangerous because suppliers now mix in fentanyl most of the time, and people don’t know what they’re getting. The last time I overdosed, I was just doing a tester line. I only remember waking up after the Narcan reversed the overdose.

After my first time using fentanyl, my tolerance went through the roof and plain heroin wasn’t as good. I preferred fentanyl because it was cheaper and stronger. It also put me to sleep. Sleeping was my favorite thing to do, and fentanyl got me there. I wasn’t trying to kill myself, but I also didn’t care. Maybe I was intentionally flirting with death. My whole body was numb, and nothing else was as pleasurable.

But shooting up takes a toll on the body, and I blew out the veins in my arms, legs, and stomach. The withdrawals came fast, but when I held what I needed in my hand, I automatically felt better. I was depressed, and drugs sent me into my comfortable place. It was heaven and a home away from reality. After being numb for so long, it was hard to find motivation to do anything–including cleaning, showering, or taking care of myself. Wrapping my mind around being sober was hard.

I had three children during my 15 years of addiction. I got pregnant in high school and had my first child at 17. My children were raised by my parents, who refused to let me come around if I couldn’t get clean. I didn’t see my kids for almost five years because I couldn’t change, no matter how much my family tried to help.

I wasn’t ready, and I didn’t want to quit. I have broken my family’s heart time and time and time again. My mom finally said, ‘Enough.’ She did the right thing because if she hadn’t put her foot down, I never would have stopped.

As the years went by, it was easier not to think about my children, but every now and then, I was allowed to talk on the phone with them. On June 26, 2021, my son asked me to come home for his birthday. It was a moment of clarity.

Two weeks later, I went into detox and to Home of Grace, a faith-based recovery program. The withdrawals during detox were horrible. I was on the bathroom floor, throwing up and sweating profusely. But something– it must have been God–made me stay, but I didn’t believe in God before Home of Grace. Since then I have been sober for a year, the longest I’ve ever been clean.

At first, my parents were reluctant to let me see my children. But two months after graduating from Home of Grace, I went to their home for Thanksgiving. My thinking was: how could someone who is worthless and screwed up her kids’ lives, get clean and be a mother again? I never thought that moment of seeing my kids would come. It was like a bad dream, and I was going to wake up at any time back in my old life.

I missed out on so much of my children growing up. They could have had different lives if I had not been addicted and messed up in so many ways. I will have that guilt for a long time, but the reward of getting clean is having restoration with my family. I am getting better at being a mama.

I recently graduated from the Restore Class at Ransom Ministry. I passed my medical coding exam, paid off my legal fines, and am working on getting my driver’s license back.  I am a house mother at Home of Grace, giving back and showing women there is a life after drugs.

I thought the drugs had done so much to my brain that I wouldn’t be able to comprehend anything, but that wasn’t the case. Renewal of the mind is real. There’s so much more to life than being miserable. You don’t have to live in hell.”

Amanda

(August 31 is Overdose Awareness Day and September is National Recovery Month. We have so much to learn from people in recovery or family or friends who lost a loved one to a drug overdose, so I am going to share some of these stories over the next six weeks. If you have a story of recovery, substance use disorder, or losing someone you care about to an overdose, message me because I would like to hear it.

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If you are in South Alabama, come to After Dopesick: A Conversation with Steve Loyd and Friends on Wednesday, Aug. 31 at 6 p.m. at the Saenger Theater. I will be on the panel with Dr. Steve Loyd and Beth Macy talking about addiction, recovery and what more our community can do about it. Dr. Loyd’s early medical career and addiction became the inspiration for the doctor played by Micheal Keaton in the hit Hulu series, “Dopesick.” Based on the best-selling non-fiction book, “Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America,” by Beth Macy, the series was watched by 10 million viewers and was nominated for 14 Emmys.

The event is free and sponsored by the Drug Education Council.

Lynn)