Addiction Was Never Part of My Plan
In an era of bad news every time we scroll through our social media feeds or turn on our television, it’s refreshing to get some good news for a change. While it may seem like doom, gloom, and chaos, there are some rays of hope that shine through the darkness. In the world of addiction, lives are lost daily, families are permanently altered for the worse, and new, dangerous drugs pop up all over the place leaving a string of overdoses in its path. None of us who work in the substance abuse field do it because its easy or do it for a paycheck. We do it for the wins, the success, and the things that inspire hope in us all.
The following is an amazing success from a Narconon Colorado graduate:
In June of 2019, I hit my breaking point. I woke up on a wooden floor, surrounded by concerned faces. An IV was sticking out of my arm, my shirt gone, and paramedics instructing me to lay my head back. It dawned on me that I had overdosed again, but how did it come to this?
Growing up, I was an athletic kid from a middle-class family. My academic abilities were strong. In 2014, I was a freshman in high school, and it all shifted. My idols had become drug dealers and drug users. I discovered prescription pills, thinking it was conducive to my own success and creativity. Mainstream music helped me feel comfortable using drugs.
Addiction was never a part of the plan. Social media showed my friends doing drugs, so I felt I could do them. On July 31st of 2018, I snorted fentanyl for the first time. I listened to music that flooded my mind with reassurance and security that it was okay. By June of 2019, I had lost everything. My long-time significant other, my family relationship, and myself. Never did my family or I picture this being how my 19th year of life would go.
“Addiction was never a part of the plan. Social media showed my friends doing drugs, so I felt I could do them.”
’I will never do that drug,’ I expressed to myself and others, but growing up, nobody thinks they will. Not until I hit my rock bottom did I realize how low I would go.
I had needed fentanyl to sleep, even if I woke up shaking with the feeling of self-resentment and desperation clouding my thoughts, until I got my fix.
Is it just me?
No.
Opioid use has spread across the young adult and teenage generation like a wildfire and I have seen it first-hand. I have watched my friends lose their lives and destroy their families while chasing a high that will never satisfy the need. I have been near death and each time it happened, I never thought it would be me who died next. The truth is, it’s a cyclical game of Russian Roulette, and everyone eventually pulls the trigger with a bullet in the chamber.
Luckily, I found my way out of this dangerous cycle that would have most certainly killed me. Had it not been for Narconon Colorado, I could have been spending my 20th birthday buried six feet underneath the ground and my family mourning my loss.
Now that I’ve found my own sobriety, I’ve decided to inspire other people to end their own cycles of addiction, get clean, and make something of themselves.
I took from society for so long, it’s nice to finally be able to give back.
Josh D., Narconon Colorado Graduate
(To preserve privacy, the above photos do not show a Narconon student or graduate.)
