I am 24 years old. ?I thought my whole life would be so different at this age. I'm working on it. I started using marijuana when i was 14/15. I should say my dad died when i was 10, and i think from an early age it's safe to say i was disappointed in the outcome of a life, of life. I was blindsided by the death of this wonderful man, i tried my best to let it go, and tried not to think about it.

The marijuana immediately got me in trouble and i was put on probation. This is when i started drinking and taking robotussin. I think my drug abuse was still relatively innocent. I didn't LOVE getting high, i just really liked it; it wasn't ALL i thought about, it was just a temporary escape from the ill fitting reality i lived in. By the time i was 20 i was a raging alcoholic, but i started taking painkillers and xanax and muscle relaxers. My first time abusing prescription pills was at the hands of one of my best friend's parents. I had already lost friends to heroin, and i don't mean they died, i mean they completely changed. I had vowed never to do oxycontin, but i was now taking weaker precription pills. I remember the first time her dad crushed up an oxy in front of me and was offering me half, i thought this very generous, and he promised me it was exactly the same as the vicodin i was taking. I obliged. I subsequently fell in love- when i was high it was like walking with a constant embrace- the warmth. Eventually i met a guy who shared my love and we spent a year taking about 100mg of Roxy, blues. I always thought it ironic they were nicknamed "blues" because of their color: when i wasn't high and i wanted blues, i had the blues. I tried to quit once, i depended heavily on the suboxone, and ended up taking nearly a full bar of xanax a day, the only way i could get through the resulting depression of not having the opiate. I relapsed, fell straight back into my old ways, except I had lost the love that inspired me to quit to begin with, so my relapse was violent and foolish. Ingesting everything i could get my hands on as soon as i got it. My theory: "drugs are meant to be done". I got arrested, my first time as an adult, my first time in cuffs. I "quit" the drugs again - i needed to be clean. My mom was disappointed, and i felt for her, i know she didn't deserve this. Dependent on the suboxone, started drinking, took some uppers, convinced myself as long as i wasn't taking an opiate it wasn't really a relapse. I was seeing a doctor, things were going pretty well on paper, to the visible eye. I relapsed taking vicodin. Within the next 6 months, I was doing heroin. Now, I'm a heroin addict, some of my closest friends don't like me using the term, but it's the truth. I am a drug addict. It's upsetting, and I'm trying to make changes - I'm just not sure where to start.