The day my addiction died.

I look back a lot on how I got to where I am.  I know that a series of decisions and events led me to this apartment that I share with my husband and little boy.  He is asleep in his own room and I am enjoying the small amount of time that I have to myself.  It’s really nice to feel secure and loved and to find enjoyment in things.  In my active addiction I couldn’t find joy in anything-not like I even tried.  I remember an intake counselor that I had at a rehab I went to asked me what I like to do for fun.  I really tried to think and ended up telling her that I don’t like to do anything, all I like to do is get high, that’s the only thing that brings me joy.  I didn’t have any hobbies or goals or anything that I could answer these questions with.  Today I have been on methadone for three years next month.  I often think that if I had started taking it sooner, like years before, I would have been saved from a mountain of heartache and damage to my body.  Had this been something that was encouraged in rehab and in the media, I might have not done some of the things to get my drugs that I have nightmares about.  I’m always in shock when I hear that taking this life saving medication is discouraged and not even offered in a lot of rehab facilities.  I had once asked a nurse while I was going through detox if there was an option to be started on methadone while I was in here. (There was a clinic attached to the rehab and some of the patients in the rehab program with me were also on methadone, some were not)  She looked at me, almost disgusted and said, “You can’t be started on that unless you came in here with a prescription for it.  And trust me, you DO NOT want to have to take that every day.  You’ll be stuck on it and never get off.”  This is the kind of wonderful healthcare advice that I got when I was in my second rehab facility.  I wasn’t ready to quit using even, I just needed a place to sleep for 30 days. 

***The next part of this post goes into detail about me using and the descriptions that I use can be very triggering to someone in recovery.***

 I’m 11 weeks pregnant with my second child and still on methadone.  I know that methadone has absolutely saved my life and I know that I would not have the stability that I do now if it weren’t for this medication.  I might need to give a little bit of a backstory.  After two years of living in a car, homeless, living in rehab, getting kicked out of my ¾ house, homeless again, motel, I decided to get into a methadone clinic.  This was May of 2016.  I continued to use and live in motels until the boyfriend that I had at the time convinced his parents to let us live in their basement.  I still had my EMT license and was able to start working at a local ambulance company.  My using was at its worst when I first started at this company.  I was lucky enough to have a partner that didn’t really know what was going on.  One day I had left my drugs at home and I had my partner drive us to my house after we dropped off a patient. I ran inside, locked myself in the bathroom, and tried to hit a vein for almost 20 minutes before I had success.  I had been on a lower dose of methadone for a few months and when I finished my shot, I didn’t feel any kind of high.  Little did I know that the methadone had built up enough in my system that all of my opiate receptors were full.  I had a moment of lucidity and looked around at my life and how tired I was of always having to get high.  I was spending ALL of my money on heroin, I was sick, untrustworthy, and a miserable person.  I decided then that I was done.  Well, kinda….I would finish my dope once I got off of my shift and then I wouldn’t get anymore.  This life had to be better.  I needed to care about something. 

That night, I finished my drugs off, didn’t get high and took this as another sign that I was done.  I also wasn’t going to run myself ragged, risk everything (even though I didn’t have much) for drugs that didn’t even work.  The next morning, my boyfriend drove us to the clinic and I took my methadone.  I was even able to see the doctor and ask for an increase.  For those of you that don’t know, to get more methadone you have to see the doctor and then the nurse is authorized to dispense more.  I think at this point I had raised my dose to 80mgs.  That day, I went to work and had a good day.  I didn’t have to run to the bathroom to shoot up for every hospital that we went to.  I found the tiniest amount of pride in this.  It had been years since I was proud of myself for anything.  This was the start of my new life.  Hours, days, and before I knew it I hadn’t stuck a needle in my arm in 2 weeks.  My boyfriend at the time had no intention of quitting.  When we had met he hadn’t even shot himself up on his own.  He hadn’t been in the lifestyle long enough to be completely ragged and sick of it.  He didn’t have to live in a car because he had burnt every single bridge in his family like I had.

 This relationship had a very short expiration date.  He still continued to get high and I had been working every shift that was available to be away from him.  I was still in a very fragile place and I was riding the “pink cloud” of my new decision so I didn’t want to be around him at all.  I knew that I didn’t want to be in this relationship anymore but I had lost my car, my home, anything that gave me independence.  It was going to take time for me to get these things back before I could leave.  I knew that I was going to be back to where I was a month ago if I didn’t make it to the methadone clinic every day too.  I did use him and I’m not proud of it.  His parents wanted us out of the basement and we ended up signing a lease for a condo down the street from them.  It was not the greatest neighborhood in the least, but I finally had a place of my own to live.  I was barely there because I worked 12-24 hour shifts at a time.  That was really good for me at this time in my life because every night when I came home there was a syringe cap laying around or some other triggering piece of paraphernalia.

 I had been saving up money, visiting car dealerships, and getting myself independence little by little.  About three weeks into my sobriety and about two weeks into living in the condo, my regular partner called in sick and this really attractive man with a beautiful smile filled in for her that day.  This is where I am going to end this story.  The end of this story is also the beginning of my beautiful life with my husband now. 

Being on methadone and being pregnant is definitely not an ideal situation.  I have guilt and some sadness because the side effects have impacted my life quite a bit.  (I will be discussing these in an upcoming post)  I also used to have A LOT of shame.  I don’t anymore though.  I needed to forgive myself and the things that I’ve done in the past to be able to be a good mother and a loving wife.  I will say though, that I now have a lot of hobbies, things that make me happy, and even a few goals.  I don’t have to go to the clinic every day now either.  I go every two weeks to the clinic to pick up my bottles, take my medicine every morning, and go about my day.  I must be doing something right*