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I am a 22-year-old former heroin addict. I went to
high school in a suburb… J.R.
I am a 22-year-old former
heroin addict. I went to high school in a suburb just outside of Detroit and
began using random drugs starting at the age of 11. At first it was drinking,
then weed, then acid and coke, this eventually moved on up to heroin when I was
the ripe old age of 15. It started out as something to help forget what was
really going on with my life; I had just gotten out of a relationship with a
physically abusive boyfriend. I went to a friend that was a known heroin user
and just plainly asked her to hook me up with some, she did this. From the
first time to the last time I used it was always intravenously.
I
thought it all started out ok, I thought that I would be able to afford this
habit and live like a normal teenage girl, this did not last for very long.
Very soon I had sold all of my belongings that were worth anything, and I began
selling all of my family’s belongings. I stole any and everything that I
thought I could possibly get some money for I did not care whose it was, I had
to get my fix. My parents eventually caught on, my grades had dropped from a
3.8 GPA to a 1.5 and they were continually getting calls saying that I had
skipped school. I barely graduated high school and at the commencements
ceremony I was so high that the person next to me had to wake me up when my
name was called.
When my parents found a bag of syringes, they did the
only thing that they could, this was kick me out. I then moved into a
friend’s house in Del Ray, this is a horribly disgusting part of Detroit.
I lived there for about a month and made money as a stripper at a dive on the
city’s border. When these people that I was living with found out that I
was using, they kicked me out also. So I moved to Hamtramck, with a fellow
junkie. Hamtramck is extremely close to the spot where I got my drugs from, so
this was very convenient for me. I continued degrading myself by stripping in
the ghetto bar I was working at for some time. Eventually I had become so
strung out that they would not even have me there anymore because I looked so
bad.
I then decided that I should get cleaned up a bit, I was unable to
afford my habit anymore, and my tolerance had gotten too high. So, I checked
myself into a hospital, I stayed there for a couple of days, did the 12 step
thing and cleaned up. When I got out I immediately started up using again and
ended up in the same vicious cycle that I was stuck in before. I tried a couple
of more times going to different rehabs, but each time I would use almost
immediately after I walked out of the door. The last rehab I was in I met a man
and became involved with him. We lived together in various motels in the city,
doing whatever necessary to get the money to pay for our constantly growing
heroin habits. I came home from work one day and found him dead on the floor,
he had overdosed.
Now I was completely alone, my family wanted nothing
to do with me, all of my “friends” were either dead from drugs or on
the way to death. I called my family and told them what had happened, hoping
for some kind of help. I was definitely at the absolute end, I knew that if I
did not get any help that I would be dead myself, extremely soon. My mother,
the angel, found a place on the internet in Oklahoma called Narconon. She told
me about this place and asked me if I would go, I told her that I would do
anything to get me out of this hell that I was in because of the drugs.
So, I came all of the way out to Oklahoma and started the Narconon
program. As I progressed on, I began noticing things about myself that I had
never seen before; I was actually finding my true self. I was out of this
junkie haze that I had thought for so many years was reality, I was finally
able to see everything for what it actually is. I began taking responsibility
for my actions in the past and the present; this helped me feel like I was
actually a part of the human race. This program has helped me to realize that I
do have the ability to make choices in my life and that I am not powerless or a
victim and I am in control of my life. I have purified my body and my mind, I
am now the person that I should have been all along. Now whenever someone asks
my mother how her daughter is doing, she starts crying and says, “I got my
Jenny back.” I now have almost 2 years clean and I know that I would not
have been able to accomplish this without what I have learned and realized in
the Narconon program.
J.R. - Narconon Graduate |
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