Meeting Mondays at 6:30

Nick's Story

This went on for another couple of years, until one day I realized that I had taken my entire prescription well before the refill date, and I really didn’t want to go without them, because of the “pain” of course. So I started finding other ways to get them. Ask a family member or friend here or there, no big deal. 

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Recovery changed my life, like it has so many other lives. I went from a successful twenty-something with a job I loved and a bright future, to a dead broke 32 year old who could only focus on how I could get another pain pill. I had become a totally different person over the course of those few years, and I didn’t even realize it. 

 

When I was 16, I seriously injured my back lifting weights. A few visits with a chiropractor, a little physical therapy and I was good as new. Of course I was, being 16, I healed pretty quickly. Fast forward about 10 years, and I’m 26 with a physically demanding job. My back injury hasn’t reared its ugly head once in those 10 years, but I was in for a serious struggle and I didn’t even know it. Within a couple years my back was debilitating, so I started going to doctor after doctor, specialist after specialist to find out how to make it better. At this point I was prescribed pain medication to help me get by while we made a plan to deal with it. 
That slowly snowballed for a while, and then the doctors quit writing me a prescription. Oh boy! It was at this point that I meticulously searched to find a way to buy a few here and there, which of course, led to me spending every dime I had “here and there”. In my stubbornness, it wasn’t until this point that I realized I had a serious problem on my hands. Instead of asking for help right then and there, I thought I could tackle it alone. Why tell everyone I’m hooked on pain pills when I can just get myself off of them, right? WRONG! I took the hard way, as usual, and it cost me another year of sneaking around, finding ways to get, buy, or steal pills. 

My saving grace was that it finally came out. My family and friends finally knew the truth. My uncle drove down that day, and extended me an offer to come live with him and start getting my life back together. I took the offer and it was the best choice I’ve ever made. Within days of moving in, I was in a detox program with a sponsor already lined up, and I dove into recovery with all I had. It wasn’t easy, and I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way, but I’m clean and sober today, and today is all we have to make ourselves and our lives better. I’m living proof that it’s possible, along with so many others. It’s difficult, but it’s possible. There is a light at the end of whatever tunnel we find ourselves in.