“I came from a good home. I didn’t suffer physical or sexual abuse. I didn’t feel ‘less than.’ I was a 3-sport athlete, excellent student. But I found a new love: drinking and getting high. My friend’s parents let us get wasted in their houses. I’d wake up, teeth chattering from withdrawals. I remember thinking, ‘I’m a college graduate! How did this happen?!’ Addiction had me whipped, and bad.”
‘We were 2 hopeless drug addicts society had written off. We were felons, dealers, thieves. Then, we found each other.’: Couple find hope, sobriety after years of addiction, ‘we are finally free!’
‘This is addiction. This is ‘just one more time.’ ‘Just a little hit.’ It’s a 3 a.m. phone call we knew was coming, but prayed never would.’: Family mourns loved one lost to addiction, ‘drugs don’t love you, your friends and family do’
“Addiction is a room (and whole hospital waiting room) full of brothers, sisters, nieces, uncles and friends beating themselves up because they didn’t save you. It’s a doctor saying the words ‘legally brain dead.’ An empty chair at every family event. It’s a daughter, a son who have to figure this world out without their dad. This is a man who loved with everything he had. Drugs don’t love you. Your family and friends do.”
‘After that baby was inside me, it was over. Heroin was no longer an option. I had no choice.’: Woman beats childhood addiction, now ‘8 years sober’
“I was addicted to heroin at 15. It was no longer enjoyable. No longer an escape, but a hell I was creating for myself. Maybe a few seconds of serenity, then reality always slapped me in the face. I’d feel so guilty about the damage I was causing to people that loved me, the pain I was inflicting on myself, the hatred and anger I felt from all the things I had no control over. I thought this was the only way to feel this good. That little heartbeat was the sound of a chapter of my life closing.”
‘At 19, I got pregnant and relapsed. My son wasn’t enough to stop me. I continued to use behind his back. I went back to hiding it, and was caught by my son’s father.’
“My friend introduced me to a better way to get high: injecting. He left when I got pregnant. I looked at myself in the mirror. ‘What are you doing? You are worth so much more.’ I wanted my kids to have love, but first, I had to find it myself.”
‘She is our daughter. What she is NOT is a junkie’: Dad’s desperate plea ‘to do a better job’ after daughter’s overdose death
“We need to send a message to drug dealers that we will no longer allow you to peddle poison in our neighborhoods.”
‘I feel so free’: Man loses jaw-dropping 234 pounds while overcoming opioid and food addiction, depression, anxiety
“For about 5 months I did not set foot outside. I never thought I’d live to see this day.”
From heroin addict to PTA treasurer mom: ‘I used to stick needles in my neck’
“In the process of dying, I learned that I wanted to live.”
‘She messaged me, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be home in the morning.’ I told my husband something was wrong. I finally laid down, only to be woken by my doorbell minutes later.’: Mom tragically loses ‘beautiful’ daughter to heroin overdose
“It was 3:44 a.m. I remember walking to the door and seeing a woman standing through the window. I thought it was Ashlyn. As I got closer, I realized it was a woman and a man, both in suits with badges. They were there to tell me my baby had died.”
