The pride I had once held on to in my early-mid twenties is now gone. Vanished over the last year. I watched my brother become slave to it and end up in jail for 26 months. I always said that it would never, ever be me. I'm too happy with my life. I have a good head on my shoulders. Why would I ever turn to drugs to forget the good life I was living?

Then the unthinkable happened. I never saw it coming. It ripped me from end to end for over a year and I still am dealing with the torment of finding another woman in bed with the man I loved. The man I changed my entire life for. A man I begged to understand so that I could be 110% supportive of all of his choices. He was the center of my world at a time when I should have been the center of my world. He sucked the life right out of me and when I had nothing left, he moved on to easier prey. A younger, more naive woman who would sympathize with his situation. She enveloped herself with him and his life/transformation. It was like it was almost an obsession for her.

I fought her. Not physically, although, I wished I could have thrown a few left hooks her way. No, we fought over HIM. Someone who dangled love and promises of life-long affection and happiness to us BOTH. She won. I began using opiates almost everyday to forget it all.





I'm a nurse. I'm a good nurse. I don't just take care of my patient's physiological needs, I am always pulling up a chair to listen to their woes or give advice whether it be medical or not. I look at my patients as a whole being. Not just as a disease that must be cured by numbly following doctors orders. I care for them all individually. It can be thankless at times but I keep going back for that small percentage of people who genuinely are grateful for your care, love, and support. I am a nurse.

I am a nurse that has access to an array of drugs, at any given time. This has supported and prolonged my addiction. I can't get into the gory details yet, but the career I am so in love with is also the career that is slowly killing me. Ever so slowly.





My usage is small. I don't have a high tolerance by any means. I don't go through physical withdrawal. My withdrawal mainly consists of my brain screaming "MORE, MORE, MORE!!" I have tried heroin and immediately knew it would be the most incredible thing I have ever put into my body. The next morning after trying this magical drug, I flushed the 5 other stamp bags down the toilet. I was still in school, my habit wasn't that high and I was so terrified of this amazing drug that I knew I could never pick it up again. And I haven't. Instead, I have myself wrapped up in a world of prescription opiates and benzos. I took one too many tramadol and had a grand mal seizure at work one day. I took them knowing full well that I could seize - having had two prior seizures that week in my sleep. That's when I knew I was in the grips of something so much bigger than me. I stopped for awhile but soon, I was back to it. Using to forget my own insanity.

The truth is, I have SO much to live for. An amazing career that I want to advance, a man who loves the hell out of me, a dog that is a large part of my world, family, friends. I have it pretty good. So, why do I keep using? I ask you this, because I just don't know. The sensation is one thing, but I don't have anything to cover up anymore. Or do I? Is it something I can't see or maybe don't want to see? One day without them and I'm scheming and plotting and nine times out of ten, I win. I know that prolonged use of some drugs will change the brain. It's like I am now hard wired to use and if I can't, my brain goes bat shit crazy on me and I start to fiend.





I never thought I would be here NEVER. My mother commited suicide when I was young. She couldn't get away from the dark horse. She ended her life knowing that she had struggled too long and too hard and would never regain what she had lost.





My father was a 15 bag a day heroin addict who finally kicked on the streets after being homeless and eating raw bags of potatoes for months and selling his plasma for a fix. I know my brain is wired differently because of my parents. I'm genetically predisposed. I almost got through my twenties without picking up. Will I get through my thirties without picking up? I know I need to seek help. I'm just terrified to do so. I'm stuck. I'm stuck in a box where I can see everyone else walk through life without knowing where I truly stand with myself. It's exhausting hiding my addiction. Track marks aren't easy to hide in the summer time. I'm getting weaker at hiding myself, year-round. I need a push. A hard shove, really. A shove back into reality of what damaging effects this will have on the rest of my life.





