My Win Against the Opioid Pandemic

 This afternoon I decided to touch base on a topic that's impacting most everyone in some way or another....drug addiction.  I started using pills in October of 2014. I was a waitress at Waffle House on 3rd shift and the only one working in the relationship. My husband literally just lost his mother and I was battling my own demons in life. To come home every morning and see the person that I love so much laying in the same spot on the bed that he was in when I left was heart wrenching. He would not eat, sleep, laugh, or have any fun in life. It was like he was just existing...not living.
 Meanwhile, I was introduced to "Roxys" at work by a "friend". I started snorting them off of the top of the hand dryer in the bathroom. It started with one pill throughout the night and gradually increased to 3-4 pills in a 10 hour period. After a while, the hype wore off and I was only getting a little energy from them here and there and still spending ALL of my tip money to buy 4 pills a night at $15.00 a pop. I was broke and things were worse than before. Something needed to change.
 A new cook started working with me at night in December of 2014. He would always go in the back room and shoot up into his arm and then would KILL it on the grill by himself on a Saturday night. I had to know what he was taking, a higher milligram something different? So I asked and he told me it was Opana (Oxymorphone) and asked me if I wanted to try it. I've ALWAYS been scared of needles but the need to get high one more time was too overwhelming...I gave in. He heated up a pill in a spoon and filled the syringe. I gave him my arm and closed my eyes. Immediately after a slight pinch, my whole body heated up and felt heavy. I was in Heaven and NOTHING mattered to me anymore. Husband sad? I was happy and he needed to be too. Customer upset? Go somewhere else. No money for bills? We'll figure it out later.
 So here I am, going to work at 8 PM every night, getting high all night, and then coming home and passing out until work again the next night. Joey NEVER knew anything about it. I was so good at keeping it hid. Since I didn't know where to get them personally, I had to rely on my "friends" at work to find them so if I was scheduled off that night, you better believe I would lie about being called in so I could go sit there and wait on someone to find me a pill. It's all I could think about and all I cared about.
  As time went on, we became more and more broke. The Opana were $60.00 per pill and if I had already spent all of my tip money on one, I would take money out of the register for more pills or give away free food to customers for a better tip or just write a fake ticket and pocket the money. I had to be high all the time or I was unhappy and hated everyone and everything. They took over my life in just 4 months.
 I was bored with life. I wanted something more...excitement and no responsibility. I met another new cook who quickly became my best friend. We would talk about anything and have fun together. I introduced him to my friend, "Opie, and he was in love. This worked out great for me. This guy was a cook who worked a lot of hours and didn't work on tips. We worked out a deal where most of the time, we would go in half. We could both get high for half the price.  When we were high, we didn't care and had so much, what I believed at the time, fun.
 One morning, as we're all going home, this cook says, "I just wanna go somewhere and never come back.". I was so excited that I took my husbands car home, left it in the driveway, and jumped in the car with this cook and left...never looking back. For the first few days, I was high from the time I woke up until I would eventually crash. I thought life was amazing. No problems, no worries, no responsibility...my whole life was dedicated to the little round white pill with a half moon on it.
  After a little while, I started noticing that even when I had literally just got high, I was sad all the time. I was listening to depressing music and reading books on how to deal with breakups. I was thinking about my husband all the time and wondering what he must be thinking. He didn't know where I was, why I left, who I was with, or what I was doing. It got to be too much so one morning, I had to go see him.
 I pulled up in the driveway and blow the horn. He comes out and the look on his face terrified me. I knew he was beyond angry so i stayed in the car. He came to the window and with tears in his eyes says " How can you do this to me?". To this day, when I think about that, it kills me. To know I hurt someone I love so much over drugs! I came inside and told him everything. He told me he had suspected, but wasn't sure what or to what extent. We talked and he said I could come back on the condition that I go to rehab. I agreed.
 Later that night, back at home, I started texting my dealer to come get me. I wanted away and wanted to get high. I was back to the same shit! My husband caught my MINUTES before I got in the car with the dealer. He ran them off and called the police. They never came back, called, or answered my calls again, but I had other options.
 The next day, I fought tooth and nail. I was NOT going to rehab. My husband gave in and decided to take me "away". He took me to a campground where I got NO cell service. I was out there with no one but my husband to beat an addiction cold turkey. We'd lost the trailer that we bought outright because I spent all of the lot rent on drugs, so now I was living at the campground and detoxing.
 Everyday was a new battle. If I wasn't sick, I was angry at the world. I wanted to leave so bad and go back to working at Waffle House and getting my drugs. I would start fights with my husband EVERY day hoping he would give up and take me back to town and leave me alone. Some nights, we would fight so bad, he would have to restrain me from hurting myself. When new people would come into the campground for the weekend, I would see an opportunity to get the things I wanted so bad, drugs. At this point, I was so desperate to get high, I would have taken anything to get high. A few times I would meet people that came out to the lake to get high and have a good time. I would luck out and they would share with me, but they would eventually leave and there I was, even angrier than before because I had just teased myself.
 As days went on, I had to find ways to deal with the hunger for my next high by myself. I found that getting up in the morning and jumping right into the lake for a swim helped a lot. My husband spent almost ALL of his time keeping occupied and making sure I was happy. We went into the campground in May and by November, I was ready to go back in civilization and live my life again.
 I disagree with addiction being a disease. Labeling addiction as a disease is not only enabling addicts, but it's giving us a way out and gives us an excuse to feel sorry for ourselves. I know some people say, you can't know unless you've been there. I was there. Before I put those pills into my body, I did not have an addiction. I am the one who created a habit that eventually became an addiction. To me, it feels so much better to be able to say I beat a problem I created and I choose to continue to beat that addiction every single day as to hide behind my addiction and call it a disease like I had no control over it. I am strong. I will not give up. I will continue to work hard everyday so that I can call this victory my own.