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Why it's easier than ever to get addicted to gambling : Nominated Post
Originally posted on 07/12/2022:
Jibby…I know you have absolutely no idea who I am but for at least a year or more now on this forum, I see your posts/commentary and often look to it for advice. (Especially with the MMA write ups.) Anyhow, I felt obligated to respond to this particular post for one simple reason brother, and let me first preface this by saying I come with no ill intent and I’m responding from a place of complete respect brother. That being said, this particular topic/subject hits EXTREMELY CLOSE to home for me personally and I want to share my story with you and whoever else may come across this post:Originally Posted by JIBBBY
Although I do understand where you’re coming from about the heroin and using needles, as someone who was scared of needles for the first 20 or so years of my life and as a person who never in a million years thought I’d EVER inject ANY sort of drugs into my vein(s,) I can assure you that although it may seem easy to speculate about how only an idiot would ever get to such a low and dangerous point in life that they’re shooting dope into their arm(s,) it’s not that simple.
There’s almost always a long process that leads up to the first time one uses heroin via injection/needles. MOST people will say that they’d never EVER even try using a needle to shoot dope into their body; I was one of those people. I, like many others got addicted to legal opiates/pain pills for legitimate reasons (prescribed by licensed physicians here in the US,) and never knew that the potential existed for me to get severely addicted to them. (This was back during the early stages of the opiate epidemic.) One thing lead to another and eventually the pills became nearly impossible to get a prescription for from the doctors. After taking them for years, just stopping cold turkey wasn’t even a realistic possibility at the time. The next step was to buy the pills on the street for increasingly higher and higher prices until they basically became outright unaffordable.
Being as though I was 10+ years into an active opiate addiction at that point, I was willing to do WHATEVER I COULD to make sure I didn’t have to go through the hellacious torture of opiate withdrawals and so, the next thing that was available and also affordable was heroin. It was significantly cheaper and also was plenty good enough for satisfying my body’s physical need for opiates. Although it started out as just a powder that I’d sniff up with a straw, before I even realized what danger I was in, I found myself doing the exact thing I once was terrified of and thought I’d NEVER end up doing…getting my needed daily “fix” of opiates by using a needle to inject it straight into my bloodstream.
At that point, (early 2010) I was so lost and my life was in such ruin that I had lost all will to keep on living and therefore I was indifferent using a needle. I won’t elaborate any further about why the needle/injecting the drug ends up being the majority of heroin users preferred method of administration (just in case someone should come across this comment and get the idea that they too should try it.,) but that being said..:there are countless reasons why the needle route ends up being the method most heroin addicts settle on.
Like I said, I personally began using the needle in early in 2010 and from then until nearly 3 or so years later, I watched countless friends of mine die and watched their families/loved ones have to live with the loss of that person and it was the saddest thing I’ve ever experienced. For me, the final straw/breaking point wasn’t when I overdosed multiple times and had to be brought back to life on several occasions. Instead, for me, my moment of clarity came in the summer of 2013 when my best friend in the whole world overdosed right in front of me and he passed away close to his 30th birthday. It absolutely devastated his family and the pain and trauma they had to endure was just unfair on a level I couldn’t even comprehend beforehand. That was my best friend and that was his parent’s first born child.
Still that alone didn’t stop me. It took one more major wake up call, which came only 2 months later, when that same best friend of mine that passed…his younger sister who was close to her 25th birthday…she wound up overdosing and was alone at the time with nobody around to help try and save her life, so she also took one final dose and it was simply too much/too potent and she stopped breathing and her life came to an end just like her older brother’s did JUST 2 months prior. That was it for me. My best friend’s mother & father lost BOTH of their children to heroin (overdoses) within a little less than 2 months of one another.
That was a blessing in disguise for myself because I simply refused to have to allow my parents to go through what I witnessed the parents of those 2 friends of mine go through. It (obviously) ruined their entire family. They were forever broken beyond repair, and seeing that hurt and anguish overcome them made me decide enough was enough and (not for myself) but for my mom & dad and the respect/love I had for them…I decided to spend that evening that Jennifer (my best friend’s sister) died…getting high for the very last time. I swore I was finished. I knew it’d be hell and it’d be the hardest thing I’d ever have to do in my life (surely up to that point but probably ever,) but I was finished. I went to sleep that night and I woke up the next day with the determination to never touch that poison EVER again.
I LITERALLY quit heroin and a (1 pack/day) cigarette habit COLD TURKEY; both on the very same day. As of typing this, (summer of 2022) that was 9 YEARS AGO. I didn’t need AA/NA meetings or anymore inpatient or outpatient rehabs, or anything else. I made the decision that I wanted to live and that I was someone worthy of a fighting chance to see how good life could be if I loved MYSELF and treated myself as though I deserved the best life had to offer. I never touched that evil substance again and I also haven’t smoked a cigarette since that day during the summer of 2013 either.
Life is strange/crazy/weird (whatever word you choose to call it.) I say that because about a month or two after I stopped doing dope, that’s about the time that Fentanyl started showing up in people’s drugs and people started dropping like flies. During these last 9 years, (no exaggeration whatsoever) I’ve had somewhere between 20-30 if not more people that were friends of mine at some point, that many people die from overdosing, and I’m not alone as I’m sure everyone knows. This has happened at a rapidly accelerating pace all across this country and continues to happen every single day even as I’m typing this.
I come from a very loving and tight knit family. My parents both came from childhoods in which their parents struggled to get by and put food on the table. Both of my parents grew up and made incredibly successful lives for themselves and were as good of parents to myself and my younger brother as ANY parent could EVER possibly be to their children.
I ended up in that darkest of places back in 2010, not because I come from a broken home or have degenerate parents. I wound up in that dire, horrific situation because I (over the course of the first 25 or so years of my life,) continually made a series of poor and wrong choices/decisions that almost led me to an early grave. Today I’m not sure if I am just lucky, if I’m blessed, or if it’s some combination of the two. To me that part is irrelevant. What matters is I AM STILL HERE, STILL ALIVE AND BREATHING, AND SO I STILL HAVE THE CHANCE TO CONTINUE MAKING A LIFE FOR MYSELF; one that I try to make at least a tiny bit better in some way, EVERY SINGLE DAY! Thousands (if not millions) of Americans will NEVER get that opportunity EVER again, because their battle with addiction took their very lives away. Knowing that, I now feel a serious sense of obligation to live my life not ever taking a single day for granted; if for nothing else, for all those who never again will get to wake up tomorrow and live life or ever again be able to see their families/loved ones.
I know this reply is insanely long and I do apologize for that in advance, but this subject is that important to me, and I think it’s best if I try to explain myself to a degree in which maybe, JUST MAYBE, even one person might read this and realize they too can ultimately make a choice that might just end up saving their lives and in turn, preventing their families/friends/loved ones from having to go through the tragic experience of having somebody they love pass away far too early and thus be left to pick up the pieces with broken hearts that from then on will PERMANENTLY be shattered and unable to be repaired.
Thank you for allowing me to share my story with you Jibby (and everyone else in this thread for that matter.) I hope my story can help even just one person in some way; in any way.
Love and respect to each and every one of you who may read this post. If you’re struggling and feel like life is meaningless and find yourself feeling hopeless for one reason or another…just whatever you do…NEVER…EVER…NEVER GIVE UP! Tomorrow might just be the day your life/lives turn around and might be the beginning of a future that ends up being better than anything you ever even could’ve imagined!!!
Love others, but most importantly, LOVE YOURSELF. Once you learn to do that, the rest will eventually fall into place.
Thanks again for allowing me to share,
WR
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