Posted: April 14, 2015, 6:34 AM
Im casey and Im a recovering addict. I was addicted to opanas, a high mg of pain pill, Stronger than oxycottin and right up there with heroin. I was an IV user. Im going to start out by saying that I had a pretty good child hood. My mom and dad were both hard workers. We always had what we needed and dam near anything we wanted. Neither of my parents were involved in drugs. Ill go as far to say I don’t either of them had ever even smoked pot. I cant specifically remember anything tragic in my childhood besides my parents divorce that didn’t happen until I was 16.. I was your average American girl. I make As and Bs in school.. I danced ballet for 9 years.. was well liked in school.. made friends pretty easy. When I was 15 I got my first job at a local restaurant and in a few months I was bumped up to a supervisor position. I was always super independent and determined. If I was going to do something I was going to do it right and be the best at whatever I did. Around the same time I began to experiment with pot and pain pills. My parents found out and sent me to a drug counselor. While going to this counselor she concluded that I had a disease called “the disease of addiction”. I thought she was full of s*** because I was a 15yr old female.. full of hormones and curious of these things that my peers tried and did. When I turned 17 my parents divorced and I moved with my dad to VA. I met a man by the name of Steven. He was 21 and was fresh out of jail. He had been a crack addict which led him to jail. We began to date and I ended up pregnant. We promised ourselves that we were going to put our little family before anything. Both of our parents had divorced and we were going to stride to do whatever we had to to make our family work. In January 2008 we gave birth to Nevaeh . We rented a three bedroom house with a big yard. We both had well paying jobs.. life was great, everything we had ever wanted.. everything we had dreamed of heart emoticonSteven drank about everynight.. he couldn’t do any type of drug because he was on probation and didn’t want to take the chance of getting caught. We couldn’t drink together because we couldn’t seem to get alone. So I decided I wouldn’t drink. I resorted to pain pills. But we ALWAYS put nevaeh and the bills first. If we didn’t have extra money.. well then we weren’t going to drink/get high.. In the summer of 2010 we decided to move to Ohio, this is where he was from and all his family lived there. We got there and settled. We got ourselves a 2bed room apartment. I was an assistant manager at a local gas station and he was an assistant manager at a local fast food restaurant. Life again.. was good. He still drank everyday, I was pretty much used to his drunken shenanigans. I would still get my pain pills.. more than before, but we still put the bills and our daughter first. We fought over beer and pills a lot but we both had the same goal in mind.. our family. The beginning of 2012 we decided to have another baby. We both wanted a pretty big family. He wanted 8 kids!? HA I didn’t know about all that.. but I definitely wanted more. In april of 2012 I got pregnant with baby number two. We found out a couple months later we were having another girl. Life couldn’t possibly get any better! December 14, 2012 My life was flipped upside down. We had been fighting and I had stayed at his moms. He came to pick me up at his moms that night. When I walked into the house I seen two empty cases of bush light on the floor, which at this point wasn’t unusual. He had also been to the bar as well. He got himself a bowl of cereal and began to nod out. Nothing I hadn’t seen before. A friend came over and I was talking to her in the kitchen, I asked her to take a look at him because he just didn’t look right to me this time.. I went into the living room and felt for a heart beat. Nothing. I scrambled to call 911. Steven died December 14, 2012. The cause of death: aspiration. Which means he basically inhaled his own vomit. Keep in mind that I was sitting next to him while he was what I thought was “sleeping”. He made NO sound. I heard a faint snoring, which later found out may have been him trying to seek air. They also found 22 nanograms of Opana in his system.So here I sit. 2 weeks before Christmas, 3 weeks before my 4 year old turned 5, and one month before our baby girl was born, and the love of my life, my rock, the only man I have ever loved.. ripped away from me.. just gone. No one could ever ever begin to tell you the pain.. the hurt.. even writing this now I don’t even know how to describe it to you.. and for my babies.. what do I say. What do I say when they ask what happened and why?Needless to say I was a wreck. I turned to the only thing that could take the pain away. Opanas. They numbed me.. My Maci was born in January 2013. I went from having one kid with an excellent caring father, to having two kids by myself. To say I was overwhelmed is an understatement. I snorted opanas everyday. Then in March 2013 I shot up for the first time. I fell completely in love. It took over my mind and body and gave me the feeling of being free. I thought of nothing .. no pain .. no stress. I began to realize that my habit was costing more money going out than coming in. I began to lie to my family about needing money. Always a different story, with promises to pay them back. I took my kids to there gmas a lot. First just a night or two a week, then weekends, then weeks, and what eventually became months. I would leave my kids with my neighbors for hours so I could go hustle some money to keep my high fed. From the time I woke up.. to the time my eyes closed I thought of nothing else. I was starting to neglect my kids. Not bathing them. My oldest had gotten a letter sent home from her kindergarden teacher stating that she was not to miss anymore school or the school was going to get involved to figure out why she was missing so much school. Either I had gotten so high before that I didn’t hear the alarm or I was so dope sick to get out of bed. During this time I had this male friend, who turned out to be one of the best and worst influences in my life. He was a recovering addict himself and would say to me “ I know how this goes Casey, first its your car, then your house, and if you don’t slow down it will be your kids.” I would nod my head and say “ye I know, but im not going to let it get that far. “ But I knew how these things went. Stevie had told me.. I had watched a few of my friends lives crumble before me, so I knew where I was headed. December of 2013 I take Nevaeh to walmart. (I had written a couple bad checks a few days before that and they had went thru so I decided to take my kids “shopping” .) I also was returning an item I had stolen a few days before to get some money. I take the item back and get $40. And off we went. I allowed her to wonder the store and pick out whatever she wanted.. for her and her sister. New clothes, toys, snacks, shoes.. whatever .. Cuz I wasn’t paying for it anyway so who cared. I get up to the counter and the total was a little more than $1000. I gave her the check.. and it didn’t go thru. As the cashiers are pushing away the two overflowing carts. My five year olds eyes fill with tears.. And not like a 5 year old fit because she wants toys, A heartbreaking.. trying to hide her face kind of tears. “Mommy,” she looks up with crocodile tears, “Does this mean no Yoohoo or lunchables?” Ill never ever for get that look.. as long as I live.. as I sit here tears fill my eyes. All the toys.. all the clothes, this baby wanted yoohoo and a dam lunchable. I couldn’t believe it. I had $40 in my pocket, but I had to put $5 in gas, which was going to leave me short for my pill for the night.. I was praying my dealer would let me slide $5. So I took my baby back and got a 12 pack of yoohoo and five lunchables and walked out the door without paying. I took a chance on going to jail because I couldn’t give up my drug for the evening. And it goes to show how neglected my baby was.. This is one of the stories that stay on my mine CONSTANTLY. At that moment I knew that I was no longer fit to take care of my two babies. It broke my heart but I couldn’t drag them around to drug house to drug house with me. So Stevies mom offered to “take” them for me. I mentally thank her every day. I could of put my kids in some seriously dangerous situations that I had found myself in at times. It wasn’t long after that that they repoed my car. Then I got evicted in Feb 2014. I basically couch hopped from there on out. Never knowing where I was going to end up. My family by this point knew I had a problem. I was always very open and honest with my family. They never “pushed” me to get clean, which I thank them for so much, because its in my nature to pull away when I feel like im being “made” to do something. Although my dad constantly reminded me that the door was always open. I put myself in some pretty ridiculous situations. I became a drug mule, which is basically I hid drugs on my person, for certain people .. for money or drugs. Which didn’t come with 6mths or a year in the county jail if caught.. it was more like 15 20 years in the penitentiary. I was made to carry a pistol for certain people for again money or drugs. And I look back now and I think.. what if I had to use that pistol because someone was trying to rob me, or I was high and misjudged a situation? Where would I be? Doing time for murder or man sloter? In March of 2014 I picked up a theft charge. I now have started my criminal record. My tolerance increased from one pill to two .. three.. four. Basically whatever I could afford that day. I began to sell drugs. I introduced a number of people to opanas for there first time, or shot them up for the first time, which resulted in their downfall as well. Not only did I hit rock bottom, I took a number of people with me. I was always trying to hustle some money up.. I could have been robbed or set up by the police and once again be in prison. My person hygiene was non-existent. I would wear the same clothes for three to four days at a time. I would walk around with smeared eyeliner all over my face, because who has time to wash your face when you have money to hustle or drugs to get. I showered once a week.. I you were lucky. Once again no one time for silly things like showers. I had money to get. And once I got my money, got my pill.. It wouldn’t even be gone, and the anxiety hit me. “omg I don’t have enough. I’m going to be dope sick when I wake up. What can I do to get more money.” An endless tiring cycle. I couldn’t even enjoy my high.. I didn’t even get high anymore.. I did it to feel normal. After I did get my “fix” this hard cold slab of reality would hit me. My kids would call me and ask when I was coming home. I would always say.. soon baby soon.. but sometimes it would be a month before they even heard from me. And when I did visit Nevaeh would cling to me and cry and say “No mommy please don’t go”. By then I was so cold hearted. I had no emotions. I couldn’t smile. I didn’t care about things I once did.. I would go to the gas station I managed and I remember when I worked there I would see these people, you know these people, the ones that buy drugs in the parking lot and come in and use their food stamp card. I had become what I used to judge. I would sell my food stamps for that extra 20$ cash or whatever it was. Every dollar I had went toward drugs. And I mean EVERY dollar. And the whole time I can feel Steven on my shoulder.. his disappointment and my shame. I always told myself that when I got clean it was going to be a one time thing. I wasn’t going to give my family and kids hope that I was back, I was the old me, I had been found again.. just to be let down again. I was going to run and not look back. So its Oct 19, 2014.. Im out of money.. I had used every hustle in the book. I was couch hopping with people I barely knew. I could go to where my kids stayed, but I could get high there.. so that was a no go.. and certain guys have always offered me money for my “time.” I was one text/call away from that.. I got high and texted my dad. “ Dad can I come stay with you and amber for a few months so I can get my s*** together.” Ill never forget his response. “Im in the car I can come now.” Needless to say he was in the car the next morning ready to get me. I made arrangements with Stevies mom to keep the kids, which is there home anyway so it wasn’t a big change for them. I moved to Cumberland Maryland on October 20, 2014. I go enrolled into a methadone program and have been clean ever since. I have heard some of u say that u don’t want to consider methadone because you don’t want to get addicted to another substance.. but I can honestly say that it changed/saved my life. I think your family/kids or whom ever it is would rather see you on methadone than shoving a needle in your arm. Its not something you have to do for the rest of your life. They do recommend you stay in the program for at least a year, but you can go to them at any time and ask them to wean you off. Even though you may be over being dope sick your brain has to clear the toxins out of it. That’s why they call it detox. It make take weeks or months. They also have a substance called suboxin. NA meetings. Drug counslers. Anything that may help you is definitely worth a try! I remember when I was using I felt.. so alone.. I didn’t know where to start to get clean. Everything seemed like it would be so hard to accomplish. And everything is very overwhelming when u look at the big picture.. but you have to break that big picture down and take it step by step. I began my sobriety with moving to a new place.. where I knew no one except my parents. I couldn’t get high if I didn’t want to because I didn’t know where to get anything at. I then enrolled myself into the methadone program. They also assign you a consular who works with you on your short term and long term goals. I then changed my number. The “guy” who I said was one of the best/worst influences on me I decided not to keep in contact with anymore. He himself is a good person. But were no good for each other it that makes sense. But there isn’t a day that I don’t think of how he’s doing. Sometimes you have to “leave” certain people alone. You may be no good for them or they may be no good for you. And like I said there’s not a day I don’t think of him, but it’s a huge stress off my shoulders. I don’t feel like I have to do anything I don’t want to. What opanas did for me was they made me there b****. They made me peoples b**** that had them. And I told myself.. and keep telling myself that I will never become anyones b**** ever again. People have to get on my level now. And if your not your dust in the wind. The decision to get clean was for me. It has to be for you.. and if u truly do it for yourself there will be bonuses that come with it.. my kids for example.. and family of course. You may learn a lot about yourself along the way. I know my kids will never forget what I have put them thru and I cant change the past, But I am hitting the reset button. Im only hitting it once. And I pray with the guidance of God and Stevie and some forgiveness and understanding that I will have back what is mine, what my heart truly desires, MY FAMILY
