Substance Addiction Stories

Substance addiction stories are Important

In meeting and working with addiction recovery patients over the years I have found that one of the most important aspects of their recovery is having the opportunity to share their story, their life experience.

Substance addiction stories don’t often have a happy ending but what ever the ending sharing them is helpful.

A former teacher of mine is a psychotherapist, who always talked to us about getting to the “essence of self” when helping people tell those all important substance addiction stories. It is the essence of self that drives the person’s perceptions and creates meaning in life. Your substance addiction stories are important. You are not alone and maybe there is someone who will benefit from you sharing your experience. We encourage you to gather your thoughts and share them with us.

A few substance addiction stories

Here are a couple of substance addiction stories that describe the process of recovery. We’re hoping that you will share your stories with us as well so that others can learn from your experiences.

Many people tell us that it helps them to read others drug addiction stories because they understand what they’ve gone through a little better. Many times therapy sessions are simply a place where people come and share their substance addiction stories.

You may find that sharing your substance addiction stories anonymously is the first step toward dealing with addiction.

Life With Addictions

I have been an addict for three quarters of my visit on this planet. I’m not saying that I am proud of it!

No
one in my family has addiction traits. My problems, I believe, begin
from my childhood. I have done things that I am not proud of. But at
least I can say I did no harm to anyone except myself, and I thank
everything for that.

My partner and myself adopted her
granddaughter who is Autistic and had many medical problems. That young
child has taught me so much and still is!

This is my first
submission to this website and it will not be my last. All this is so
new to me. But I feel this a good start and direction. Peace to all and
happy trails! smitty183

Moving Forward

by: Ned Wicker

Dear Smitty183,

It sounds like your life is turned
around and you’re heading in the right direction. Your special needs
granddaughter is a blessing and I am sure she fulfills a wonderful
purpose in your life.

All the best.

                                                        ###

My Roommate’s Psychedelic Problem!

by Nick
(Seattle, WA)

Running downstairs I was greeted with a stammering lunatic. His
wide eyes craved disruption. There was a look of guilt mixed with pure
hatred painted across his sunken face. He was looking for trouble and it
was up to me to calm him down.

Ever since he moved into my
house he has been on a slippery slope into the depths of psychedelic
hell. Most people who like to dip into acid or mushrooms do it as an
experiment, a recreation, a way to alter the mind and see the world from
a different perspective. Aldous wasn’t practicing responsible drug use.
The rabbit hole was calling for him and he was determined to go as deep
as possible, a quest to find something on the other side.

Psychedelic
drug use can turn the most responsible people into spaced out citizens.
With a standard dose of acid, mushrooms or 2C-I the walls will start to
bend.

People call it kaleidoscope vision because the designs in the
carpet or the walls will start to morph together and real life will turn
into an art project. A person high on psychedelics could spend all day
looking at the wall because the distorted worldview is unique and like
nothing else presented in the world. Because of this a person high on
psychedelics can be prone to distraction because a morphing design will
catch and demand attention. Because Aldous was tripping everyday his
entire existence was inside of a kaleidoscope.

A horrifying sight!

One day I woke to
a loud THUMP. It sounded like someone dropped a bowling ball in the
living room. I heard the sound again, THUD-UMP. I went downstairs to
find Aldous lying on the floor in between the couch and the coffee
table, moving slowly and trying to get to his feet. I helped him up as
he grabbed onto my shoulder for support. He didn’t say anything but when
he let go of me and tried to walk on his own he only made it a few
steps before face planting again, narrowly missing his head against the
wall.

Watching him walk, rather stumble, around the house was a
horrifying sight. It was like he didn’t realize he had slits attached to
his legs. His walk was comparable to someone who just drank a fifth of
vodka and forgot how to stand. Sweat poured from his forehead and his
black hair was wet and greasy. The center of gravity in his body was
reduced to nothing; his limbs were sloppy and dangled off of his body
like serpents.

There was no looking him in the eyes, they looked like
they were in the back of his head. The holes where his eyes should be
were black like marbles sulking into his skull. The scariest part was
that one of his eyelids wasn’t open all the way, it was crusted shut
like a child with pink eye.

There was no focus on his face or any
noticeable activity in his brain. His lips were chapped and dry with
dried with saliva pasted around his face like glue. His mouth hung open,
unable to make out any words, chewing his own tongue as if it was a
foreign object next to his teeth. He looked like a zombie, the walking
dead.

We no longer could trust him.

This was the day of the worst of it, this was the day
where his problems became too much for us to ignore anymore. Aldous was
liable to burn the house down because it wasn’t unusual for him to
forget to turn the stove off. He was harmful because he would fall and
split open his arm, bleeding profusely, and not have the capabilities to
bandage himself. He was dangerous because he harassed his roommates
with sharp objects in the middle of the night.

“Aldous what are
you doing?” I asked, trying to remain calm. He wasn’t the same blank
eyed person from earlier that day, the drugs must be wearing off.
Instead his eyes are sharp and distinct, there was a soul behind the
black pupils, but it wasn’t the same Aldous who would be gracious for
your presence. He stood by A-Real’s door with a credit card and a
screwdriver in his hand, picking away at the crack, obviously trying to
get inside. He looked at me like he was caught doing something.

“I’m just trying to talk to A-Real” his words were clear, I hadn’t heard him talk this way all week.

“A-Real doesn’t want to talk to you right now, its the middle of the night, he is probably trying to sleep.”

“I know he is awake, I can hear him listening to music. He is hiding the internet from me.”

“What
are you talking about? I told you the guys from Comcast are coming on
Friday to fix the Internet.” Something about this didn’t register with
him. He blinked, looked at me blankly and then snapped. His eyes came
alive with the devil’s glare.

“You’re
in on this too! You’re just like the rest of them! You have the
Internet and are holding out on me!” his anger was quick like light
speed. He had successfully made it to phase three transitioning from
friendly worldly traveler to drug addled fool to borderline psychopath.
“And you stole money from my room,” he accused as he started to walk
toward me menacingly.

I backed up and scanned the room,
glancing a knife lying on the hardwood floor by his feet. I bent down
with the quickness of a ninja and snagged the blade. “What’s this man?
What are you planning on doing with it?”

“It’s for my protection.
I always carry around a knife.” He responded with no sign of remorse,
almost more angry for accusing him of any wrong doing.

At that
moment, A-Real opened up his door and poked his head out, unwilling to
fully join the conversation. Behind his tired eyes was fear. He was
bothered and scared. He didn’t want to face his madman but he did want
to express his uneasiness. “Aldous you’re nuts, I need you to leave me
alone.”

“A-Real, why are you hiding the internet from me?” he was determined to get reconnected online.

“A-Real,
why don’t you go back in your room. I’ll stay here until Aldous calms
down.” With that he went back into his room. Turning to the madman I
said, “Aldous your drug use has become a problem.”

“I can do whatever I want in the privacy of my own room!” he declared, “I pay rent here, I can do what I want.”

“That’s
not how things work. You can’t do whatever you want when you’re liable
to hurt yourself or someone else in the house,” I said to him sternly.
“You can’t treat people this way. You are harassing your roommates. It
is the middle of the night. If you can’t handle yourself I’m going to
call the police.”

In that moment a brief shriek of fury shot
across his face and then he took a step back and looked around as if he
was suddenly aware of where he was. The hallway seemed to shrink in
front of both of us. He looked me in the eyes and blinked slowly, as if
he was trying to communicate from the other side. I could almost see the
normal Aldous trying to apologize but unable to really communicate with
all of the emotions and drugs weighing him down like gravity. He
frowned and turned around, retreating into his room.

No choice but to leave.

The next
day I gave Aldous his twenty-day notice. He wasn’t sure exactly what it
was. He looked at it like he forgot how to read English. The landlord
communicated with his dad and both of them showed up a few days later to
get him out of the house and into rehab.

Jerry, the landlord, executed
his plan to perfection, which was to give Aldous no reason to stay.
Jerry said at the very least he would be homeless in eighteen days, his
dad was here to take him back to Texas, and if he chooses to not go with
his dad, he will get a court order to get his vacated from the premises
as soon as possible. After about an hour and half of discussion,
Aldous got in the car with his dad and drove straight to Texas.

He was gone!

Just
like that, Aldous and his dangerous drug use was out of my house and
out of my life. After he left Jerry and I emptied his room. We boxed up
all of his clothes, threw away all the empty organic juice bottles,
swept up the garbage and put his dying plants outside. We scrubbed the
walls and sanitized the floor.

Somewhere in the middle I found a
suicide note. He wrote, “I am going to kill myself because I am not me.
I am the anti-Christ. The hardest people for me to tell this to is my
family who had done so much for me. Thanks mom and dad and grandma. You
are an awesome family.”

What if Aldous had killed himself while
living in my house? It is chilling for me to even think about. He had
loved ones, people who cared about him. He would have been missed. Its
scary to think about how easily someone can lose themselves. I’m glad we
were able to help him and put him in the right direction.

I
haven’t heard from him since he left. I don’t know if he got help in
Texas. I still think about him and hope that he is doing okay.

Thanks for sharing your story!

by: Debbie Wicker

Thanks for sharing your story. It’s VERY helpful for people to
read and realize what drug abuse and addiction are REALLY like. So many
people think drugs are fun, and they want to “party” all of the time.

Many
people also think that acid is NOT addictive so they can play around
with it and be fine. Your story certainly proves the fallacy in that
thinking!