"So now that i have 1 year clean i want to help save as many lives as i can."

Dear readers,

Hello my name is ashley and im? a 29yr old recovering addict. My story begins in the summer of 2008. I had to get surgery and i was prescribed vicodin for the pain. I was on vicodin for about 2 months. Then the dr. felt it was time to take me off of the painkillers. I started relizing that maybe 8 hours after my last dose that i wasn't feeling so good at all. I was hot then cold, very sweaty, vomiting, had the runs, my whole body hurt i was in bad shape. At this point i had no Idea what was happening to me and why i was feeling this way so i went to the hospital. Where again i was prescribed vicodin for my pain and i noticed that as soon as i took the vicodin i felt much better. I mean it was as if it magically went away. At this point I relized that i was physically addicted to this medicine.

All i knew was that i NEVER wanted to feel the sickness i had felt before again. So i began buying pills on the street. I went from vicodin to percocet to oxycontin, to opanas, to HEROIN. I couldnt believe that I was using heroin. Never in my whole life did i imagine that i would be using heroin. But i always said i would NEVER EVER use a needlem nope not me. Well before long i was shooting up. I lost everything! I alienated my family and felt so alone. I ended up homeless living in a basement. I lost all selfworth. The sad part is i didnt even care, as long as i got my next fix that was all that matterd to me. I began getting into trouble legally still didnt care. This is how much power this drug had over me. I remeber nights my mom crying and praying that she didnt get a phone call saying i had died from a overdose.

At this point my mom knew i was addicted to pills but not heroin. She always asked me if i was using heroin but i always denied it. Now its about 2009 and my mom ends up getting knee replacement surgery. So of course i offer to take care of her because i know shes gots of pain pills. Unfortunetly, my mom too became addicted to opiates. She began experiencing the withdrawl that she once used to cradle me through. We began using pills together. My mom was a church going missionary that had it all until pain killers came into her life.

It was early morning Dec 2, 2010 my phone rang. It was the hospital calling to say my mom had been brought there and i needed to come up. The sick part is that knowing something was horribly wrong with my mom i couldnt go to the hospital until i got my fix. So i finally got there they explained she had passed away. All i could do is scream and didnt believe them. I will never forget seeing her lifeless body laying on that table. I began shaking her screamining for her to wake up. Eventually the nurses pulled me away and said im sorry shes gone. My world came to an end at that very moment. I used more after she died than ever, I had lost my mother to the very same drug im chasing after. I wanted to hate opiates so bad but couldnt. I was in a comitted relationship with the same thing that killed my mother. I often sat and cried wondering how is it that this little bag has so much control over my life.

I made many, many trips in and out of rehab, but its wasnt until my last trip that i got it. If i hadent had a praying family and the will to get clean i would be dead today. So now that i have 1 year clean i want to help save as many lives as i can. Heroin is a death sentence!!! Please take heed to these stories and know that OPIATES? will kill 'n destroy you!!