Becoming a Drug Addict Was the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me

So at seventeen years old, I had been accepted to college, along with an academic scholarship to go along with it. I went to a private high school and I was held to a high standard. If you were to take a look at me on a piece of paper, one would believe me to be a well-mannered, privileged white boy who was going somewhere in life. What people did not know was that I had a raging heroin addiction at seventeen years old.

My birth parents were both addicts, so in an effort to prevent me from walking in those footsteps, my maternal grandparents sent me to good schools and kept me very regimented and involved in both academics and sports. I was always a good kid, but I also always had this attraction to living life "on the edge." Opportunity and desire met when I was fifteen years old when a friend's older brother got his hands on some heroin. I tried some and loved it. At this time I, of course, was also messing around with marijuana, alcohol, hallucinogenics, MDMA, and various other prescription pills. I was in high school and life was good. I continued to excel in school, only getting my hands on heroin when my friend's older brother had some. I had friends, I was in a band, I played sports, and I did well in school. But I was looking to get fucked up ANY chance I got. That's typical of a sixteen-year-old though, right?

At this point in my short life, I thought everything was BULLSHIT; school is stupid, there is no such thing as God, the government is controlling us, and heroin isn't even bad. Everything I had been taught was a lie! I did heroin on a monthly/weekly basis and I was not some homeless dope fiend living under a bridge. This thinking propelled me into the next several years of my life in self-willed chaos. At sixteen I received my driver's license, and it was game over. I got my own heroin dealer in Chicago. I would visit him when I had the chance, which was three to four times a month. I thought that I was obviously different than other people because I could control my heroin intake. Mind you, I was a Junior in high school. I got a couple other buddies from school involved and we all started getting high together more, and more frequently. By seventeen years old, I was injecting heroin. This is where stuff started getting crazy.

My senior year: injecting heroin in school bathrooms every day, failing classes, stealing from peers to feed this monster, overdosing, losing all of my friends, tearing my family apart, and being suicidal six days out of the week.

Needless to say, I never ended up going to college. The summer after my senior year I was sent off to my first rehab. I got out, and within days I was right back to the ol' grind. When I realized that living with my caring family was inhibiting me from doing whatever I wanted (getting high), I left in the middle of the night on a trek to Chicago. I lived in Chicago for the next several months. I resided in abandoned houses and stole daily to feed my habit. I became familiar with jail and the "street life" and I was OK with it because I was living life "on the edge." Sure, I was bundled up in three coats in the basement of an abandoned house in the middle of winter with no food or money, but I was high. That was literally all that mattered. I spent Thanksgiving and Christmas standing outside Walgreens begging for change while everyone was home enjoying food and family, but I wasn't too interested in food or family. I only had one thing on my mind. Eventually I caught enough theft cases that I was incarcerated for several months. I got some time to sit down and think about what I was doing with my life at eighteen years old.

I was released from jail and I moved down to Indianapolis thinking that a change of scenery would get rid of this monkey on my back. I could start somewhere new. So I moved in with my best friend. It wasn't long before I found a heroin connection. I continued to get high and nothing changed. When I finally burned all my bridges in Indianapolis, I moved back up with my family. This cycle continued for years. Trying to start new once all bridges were burned. I lived in half a dozen cities and hurt dozens of people. I tried limiting my drug use, to no avail. I tried substituting drugs for alcohol, but sadly discovered that I can't even control my drinking!

At some point in this nightmare, my best friend overdosed and died. I was sent over the edge. I used drugs and drank to blackout every single day. I started getting abscesses all over my body from injecting heroin. I could not find a vein after several years of constant heroin use. At the peak, I had about a dozen abscesses on my arms and legs, some of which I could literally stick two fingers into and touch my bone. On May 3, 2017, I was homeless, jobless, covered in abscesses, and there was no fight left in me. I drove myself to rehab.

So now this is the part of the story that I like to talk about. I'm coming up on a year clean and sober and I couldn't be happier. Addiction has taught me about humility, perseverance, and gratitude. I became humble that day I sat in my car, emotionally broken, and realized I couldn't fix myself. I realized that I did not have all the answers and I had a lot to learn. I gained a sense of perseverance after all those days and nights living in the streets hopeless and suicidal. I always made something happen to keep going. Today I have the utmost gratitude for everything in my life. The simple pleasures of having a pillow, eating good food, and having a place to call my own are remarkable to me. My empathy for hurting people, particularly those with mental illness, is deep. I feel their pain. I truly believe if I had not experienced drug addiction, I would not have the depth of feeling that I have today. I may have been another Joe working in an office cubicle waiting for the day to get over so I can have a stiff drink. Today I do not drink or take any mood/mind altering substances, and I live an interesting existence. I am a productive member of society, but more importantly I have become a productive member of humanity. I care for other human beings that are in need of help without expecting anything in return. I have found out this is the most rewarding part of my life today, and without drug addiction, I do not think I would be where I'm at.