Jessica's Book Thoughts

Since mentioning my past struggles with addiction in a review, I have had many private messages both here and on Goodreads. I won't mention any names in this post. Some people are just congratulating me on my sobriety, a couple wanted to know how I did it because their past attempts at giving up narcotics have failed. So here's a compacted version of my story and at the end a list of websites that either helped me or I think would have helped.

I was 21 when I first started using. I was given a prescription of hydrocodone from the doctor. At the time, my life was hectic. My mother was battling cancer, I had an 11 month old baby, I had 3 year old little sister living with me, I was working 50 hours a week as a nurses aid, I was going to school, and the doctor had just diagnosed me with fibromyalgia. The pills made it to where I could keep up with everything. Opiates hit you body like a mega release of dopamine. They make you feel on top of the world, at first.

A year later, the doctor had increased my meds to 20 mg of extended release oxycodone twice a day with 5 mg instant release hydromorphone for breakthrough pain. He was over prescribing narcotics for a lot of his patients and lost his license to write Rx narcotics. This is when I realized I was addicted. If I would have known then what I know now, I would have fought through the withdrawal symptoms. I didn't and started buying them on the streets. It got to the point that I was needing more and more narcotics to feel the way I wanted to. I was using over 200 mg of oxycodone a day. When I couldn't find that, it heroine. I had ran through a $500,000 of trust fund money, my husband was facing jail time for distributing narcotics, and I couldn't get off the bed in the morning without some sort of opiate in my system. Then I found out I was pregnant. That was it for me.

I contacted a high risk OB/GYN. They put me on a medication called buprenorphine. By the time he was born I had tapered myself down to a very small dose. After I delivered my son, who was born with no signs of dependency, I was moved to suboxone (Buprenorphine and naloxone combined) and kept on it while I went through 2 years of outpatient therapy. They tapered me off the meds and I felt very mild withdrawal sypmtoms when I stopped taking the medication. I still go to monthly meetings 6 years later.

You have to want to quit. A lot of successfully recovered addicts seek out a healthy relationship with God and the support of a church. I was lucky enough to have found a wonderful center near my home that acts as my support group. Yes, it is faith based and I do attend their church services every now and then. They know I have a had bad experiences with church (I will discuss that at another time). They accept me for who I am. Without them there is no way I could have done it.

Suboxone Website:

http://www.suboxone.com/treatment-plan/find-a-doctor?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Search%20|%20SBX%20|%20Branded&utm_term=+suboxone%20+website

Find a Treatment Center U.S.:

http://www.treatment-centers.net/directory.html

I will post a list of books I have read that I have found to be helpful.