My dad sat down with me and said, you don’t belong here

Originally it started, I would say, because I was having massive stomach pains. They diagnosed me with Crohn’s at the time. But in order to work, I kind of had to have something. So they gave me something for a while. Then they couldn’t figure out what was going on, so getting something was very difficult. So I ended up getting stuff on my own so that I could work.

It just progressed more and more. It stops being about whatever the initial problem was and starts being about chasing a high.

Losing control

I was doing Percocet 80s. Probably five plus a day at least, at the end. I was chewing them up by that point, which also destroyed my teeth.

It got to the point where I started taking stuff from family members. I would take stuff and pawn it to get money, which is so far from who I am and my personality that it’s unreal, thinking back on it now.

A turning point

One Christmas, my mom’s favorite time of the year, they were struggling money-wise. I had no money. They gave us all like fifty-to-a-hundred-dollar gift cards, which is still fantastic, but for her, it broke her down. She handed them out, bawling her eyes out, because she couldn’t give everybody much. And mind you, I’m an adult at this point. But that is where my mind finally shifted.

Finding treatment

I went outside and bawled, and just went; I gotta fix my life.

I finally found a methadone clinic. I quit work and I went there. My dad actually took me the first time. He sat there with me. He goes, yeah, you’re gonna get this fixed. You don’t belong here.
I did that every morning, driving down there. Went to counseling weekly with it.

Switching to Suboxone

I was far enough along and never failed a drug test, so I’d get a week’s worth of take-home bottles. That’s what allowed us to go on our honeymoon cruise.

On our honeymoon, when they were packing bags, they smashed three of the bottles, because they’re in little plastic bottles. So I pretty much went into withdrawals the last day of the cruise and the entire flight home, to the point where I had to be wheeled off the airplane in a wheelchair.

That’s when I asked about other options, and that’s when Suboxone came up. I tapered down to the point where I switched to Suboxone with a doctor.

Suboxone has by far been the biggest help of anything, because it gets rid of all the stuff that you can’t handle. But it’s not like chasing the high that you would get from the other stuff.

A second addiction

I started tapering down, and I was getting close to getting off it completely. And I think as I was getting off that, and the paranoia of not having that anymore, my drinking increased. Not during the day, not at work. But I would drink heavily at night and weekends. I was an alcoholic, too, a hundred percent at this point.

My first wife and I had divorced by then, and I’d remarried.

A second crisis

This was the start of COVID, in 2020. I woke up one morning and looked like I was pregnant, about to give birth. Went to the emergency room and had pancreatitis and should be dead.

They rushed me from the small town we were in to a bigger hospital in a bigger city, because they couldn’t handle it. Almost died in the ambulance a couple times. They sent two respiratory therapists to keep me alive to get me there.

I was hooked to everything, I guess. I don’t remember any of this. But they told my wife, he is dying tonight, but you can’t stay here. We’ll call you when he is actively dying and you can come back then.

So my wife and my mom left and went to their house because it was closer, fully expecting a call sometime that night that I was dead.

And I guess I snapped out of it somehow. They still don’t know how. They’d given them a hundred percent guarantee that I was not making it through the night.

Two weeks in intensive care. Two weeks at home on a feeding tube after.

Through all of that, I got so much pain medication that I don’t think I really know what was real and what was not. So when I got out, that triggered everything possible. So I called my doctor and got back on Suboxone.

Got stable, got healthy again. Haven’t had a drink since that night.

Starting over

We ended up moving to Texas. It’s very different here with everything, doctor-wise. It’s just a lot more difficult. And then I saw you guys on Google.

This has allowed me to have a job, visit everywhere else. I was kind of limited on what I could do because I had to leave weekly, I had to do the doctor’s appointments, I had to do drug tests. It’s kind of hard to be in recovery when fixing your life is interfering with your life.

Living with stigma

Even with doing Suboxone, pharmacists, I feel like, are the most judgmental of all. Going into a pharmacy and getting Suboxone, you are treated like you are a criminal. It’s honestly what it feels like.

That’s what everybody going through this wants, to not feel like a pile of garbage. But so much of getting help is being made to feel like you’re a pile of garbage. So the home delivery has been so fantastic.

Life today

My life has been fantastic since the move. My wife is super supportive. My ex-wife is actually super supportive with it. My parents are fantastic with it. Really, probably saved my life, between my wife, number one, and Suboxone, number two.

I used to be very embarrassed about all that. I’m not anymore. I look at it as being proud. I really am. Because not many people do it.

I feel like I’m happy operating day to day as a normal person.

His message to others

The best thing I did was come clean to my parents and tell them everything that happened, and tell them I needed help.

Keeping it in and not talking to people is not helpful.

I think Suboxone is so great for people that aren’t a hundred percent committed in their head that they’re done. It’s the best way for them to still go through something and get off of it, because it’s going to allow them to feel normal again.