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I battled with heroin and crack addictions for fifteen years. I became a slave to my addiction and could not see a way out. My life revolved around drugs – nothing else held any value for me.
In 2005, I ended up in hospital for eight months with life-threatening septicaemia. My organs were days away from shutting down. During my time in hospital, something changed inside me.
After leaving hospital, I entered a Christian rehab where I grasped recovery with both hands. I set myself a reduction plan to come off methadone (with no support from my prescriber) and after six months I was drug-free for the first time in over fifteen years.
My life has changed dramatically, although it has been far from easy. I am still learning about myself on a daily basis, but the important thing is that I am moving forward.
After gaining experience as a Substance Misuse Worker at a rehab in Cardiff, I began working for Wired In in April 2008. My role as Community Development Coordinator has allowed me to work closely with people affected by addiction, helping to spread the message that recovery is possible.
I have recently helped set up a Recovery Support Group in Cardiff, to provide people in recovery with long-term support, guidance and friendship. We will be producing work which will be showcased on this website!
Kev, just read this blog for the first time, yup you have really put everything in a nut shell about “RECOVERY!” it is possible and change can and will take place with dreams coming true, I really understand your comment when you where in Hospital where you say “Something changed inside me!” I really can relate to that, I know many this end who say the same thing, be it in same words or similar, yet Kev for myself I only feel comfortable sharing my own experiences within my own recovery and to this day I honestly from my heart can not work out what changed within me, something did, I can not work it out and all the Professionals this end say the say thing, what stopped me take my drug,? what turned it into minutes to hours to days, weeks, months and years? Who knows? yet something happened, and yes it has been _ucking and -hitty hard -loody work, yet we have done it Kev, and no one in this mad world is going to put at risk what life I have managed to claim back. Well done Kev from the heart, in mant ways we are miracles, yet i couldn’t have done it without support and it is great to be able to put it on your Blog to allow others to know “RECOVERY IS POSSIBLE!” Keep it up Kev and most importantly look after you, a dear friend always reminds me “Your fragile delicate and precious!” Well in truth I know this is so true.
Kev, I read your story. It is very admirable that you have overcome your addiction, and the fact that your faith assisted you in this is great. Faith helps many people cope in their struggle with various illnesses.
However, I must take issue with your remark about how any addicts can have an abstinent, happy and productive life by following this path. Studies show this just is not the case for some addicts. Due to long term damage to the brain chemistry—specifically, endorphin production—(and many doctors feel that many opiate addicts may even have an inborn deficiency that contributed to their addiction)—many patients experience severe depression, inability to feel pleasure or happiness (anhedonia), anxiety, extreme irritability, exhaustion, and constant cravings. I speak not of temporary symptoms that will go away in time, but of permanent, ongoing symptoms that do not respond to talk therapy, 12 step meetings, or antidepressants. For this segment of the opioid addicted population, medication assisted treatment with Suboxone or Methadone stabilizes the brain chemistry and replaces NOT the drug of abuse, but the missing endorphins in the brain. We have opiate receptors precisely because we NEED natural opiates (endorphins) to function normally. When we do not have them, life is a miserable experience, and this is not a problem that can be solved by meeting attendance or stepwork alone.
I guess what bothers me is the insistence that many people in the 12 step community have that theirs is the only way, and especially that ANYONE can do what they did and have the exact same outcome. This is tantamount to telling everyone with, say, major depression that because you got well with talk therapy alone, anyone can do so and no one needs medication. Or telling an insulin dependent diabetic that because you and some other diabetics were able to control YOUR diabetes with just exercise and diet, so can anyone else who just wants to badly enough.
Why can we not live and let live, and not insist that ours is the only right way or true path? You say that your keyworker was reluctant to let you decrease your dose and you seem to speculate that her motives in this were less than ethical. But considering that 90% of those coming off methadone relapse within one year (and that is here in the USA where we do offer 12 step based treatment and support at literally alomst every single rehab facility in the country), what she said to you was entirely ethical. Restraining you from tapering against your wishes, however, would not be—but she would owe it to you as a patient to tell you of your risks in doing so. Encouraging you to taper off, when such a high relapse rate exists and such extreme consequences for relapse exist (jail, fatal illnesses, loss of children or job, death), would be unethical.
In addition, though again it is admirable that your faith sustains you, it is NOT imperative in recovering from alcohol and drug abuse to “find God”, any more than it is in recovering from any other mental or physical illness.
Hi zenith15,
Thank you for your comment although I do think that you’ve taken some of the things I’ve said the wrong way!
After a few years of working in this field, one thing I’ve learnt is that there are many ways to recover, and that everyone’s journey is unique. There is no right or wrong way to recover. When I said that –
“A key thing I’d like to say to other addicts is that no matter what anybody says, it is possible to come out the other side of long-term drug abuse and addiction and to live an abstinent, happy and fulfilling life, and be a valuable member of society”
I meant exactly what I said, it is possible to do exactly that because I have done it, as have many others. Nowhere do I say that abstinence is the only way to recover. My comments were meant to give hope that RECOVERY IS POSSIBLE, rather than to say – ‘this is the way for everyone to recover’.
Whilst I would like everyone to experience what I have experienced with my faith in God, I have never said it is imperative in recovery to “find God”, although I do believe that God’s support is the best support that anyone can get, in recovery or for anything else for that matter!
I hope this clears up the misunderstanding,
Kev :)
Kevin I do admire you and what you have achieved in your new life. I am a very hopeful, partner to a heroin/crack addict (of over 15 years). “a concerned other” as they put it. It will be 2 years in June that we first met ,as we both walked down a sunny street and I have stuck by him ever since (countless people have told me to throw him out, when he has relapsed, but i just couldnt, his family done enough of that over the years and what did it acheive) I knew nothing about drugs before we met, drug addicts totally disgusted me. I have, watched him in his ups and downs. He tore my heart out with what he was doing. We love each other so much it hurts, i have finally found my soal partner, and not prepare to let heroin come between us. Its far worse than having another woman between us, at least I could deal with her, heroin is far to powerful for the both of us. I have had to wait, until he has finally made up his mind that rehab is his last chance to change his life . The moment he told me he was desperate to get into rehab was like nothing i have ever felt in my life. Happy was not the word, I know its only early but I am so proud of him. You cannot even begin to understand how his dad has felt about him finally going into rehab, something he has never done before, in all the years on drugs. He has never wanted to, he has never had the reason. He has never realised how much his dad has been worried sick about him. Its lovely for me to ring him and tell him that his son has spent over two weeks in rehab and is still there. Reading your report and how you got through this, from start to the end sounds very familar to me, then having to actually deal with life, the real world is a credit to you. Its hard enough for those not on drugs to deal with life beleive me, so i just cannot imagine how you feel, finally being clear headed and having to deal with stuff you have never had to think about before. I am so hopefull my partner can do it aswell. It has really helped me reading what you have said, becasue I really want him to do it……His family who have put up with all his lies and theiving and time in prison all through heroin/crack. They are finally coming round. He just does not see the love they have for him, and I dont think they will let it show until he comes out clean. They have been disappointed so many times. finally they talk to me like they never have in the past two years, becasue like me we can see that light at the end of the tunnel comming closer. So Kevin, I hope you do stick to your guns and stay in the real world and off drugs, for women like me, who have fought as hard as I have to keep the man and family they love. Now its his turn to fight for me and get off the heroin. We are totaly different people, Im finanically very stable in life, and he has nothing. But love over rules all this, but I stand fast in the fact that HEROIN is not going to be part of our lives. I have worked to hard to get what I have, and Im not sharing it 3 ways to heroin. This site must be such an inspiration to adicts, your stories that I read I could cry when I read them. They are brilliant, and the determination is so possative. Is a life long illness, I know, its something that never goes away. Im so proud of you, I know its early days , but may it continue for you and all the people you dont realise love you as much as they do!!!! put me on your possative list, becasue I will beleive in you…….xx
I would never patronise you, I have lived with heroin/crack I know how hard it is to get off it, I have seen it with my own eyes, I have cried so much I have made the lakes where I live. good luck
