Recovering Drug Addicts Share Their Experiences

The Dynamite Youth Center gives recovering drug addicts a place to rehabilitate themselves. Photo Credit: Dynamite Youth Center

By EVELYN YAO and SARAH CHESSER

Recovering drug addicts from the Dynamite Youth Center visited Midwood’s health classes in Room 155 on December 16 to discuss their personal experiences and help students understand drug use and addiction. The Dynamite Youth Center is a long term residential facility that works with adolescents and young adults ages 16-25 who suffer from severe drug abuse problems. 

Regina, 24, said her drug addiction started in high school. “I was very depressed and I had a lot of anxiety,’’ she said. “I didn’t really talk about it with anyone. I didn’t really tell my friends.” 

She wants to warn others not to make the same mistakes she did. “If you’re going through something and you feel like you need drugs to get away from it, you should tell someone and you should learn how to deal with it better because it will ruin your life,” she said. “I messed up a good portion of my life doing this, and I just don’t want you guys to go through the same thing.” 

Dan, 20, and Jayden, 22, started experimenting with alcohol and marijuana at 12-13 years old, which later progressed into heavier and more addictive drugs.

Dan, who was an active user of meth and heroin, said, “I put myself through a lot of pain in my addiction where I hid myself from the world. The person that I was wasn’t me. It was a big guard I put up from everyone because I was scared, I was insecure, I was small, and I ran to drugs for everything.” 

“My parents were never around much,” Jayden said. The lack of parenting led him down the rabbit hole of partying, drugs, and alcohol. Soon enough, he joined a street gang as a way to get support.

Regina was a “good kid,” she said. “But I was hiding a lot of insecurities.” She tried to leave home as much as possible.

“My mom and stepdad always fought,” Regina said, “and I kept all these emotions bottled up.”  She believed that the easiest way out of her angst was to forget about everything. She got hooked on pills.

Dan described himself as the “weird kid” in school. “I seemed happy,” he said, “but inside, I was very sad and guarded.” Failing to recognize his emotions, he took up marjuana and alcohol at age 13. He eventually transitioned to meth.

When a user gets high on a drug like meth, they may be under the impression that they are more powerful and productive than they actually are. The user may feel smarter or more confident, and many abusers get into arguments or often interrupt others when they are high, the speakers said. Some meth abusers may even experience intensely focused attention and exhibit obsessive and hyperactive behavior.

“I used to think that getting high would give me clarity and that it put things into a different or better perspective,” said Dan. “But realistically, all I was doing was suppressing my emotions and making myself feel what I thought was better. In reality I was numb.” 

Some meth users may also experience “emotional blunting.” They may find that their feelings and emotions seem dulled or blunted and they become less aware of them. As a result, many people may use the drug to escape from deep trauma or painful memories. Being able to “not care” anymore can provide temporary relief for someone who is overcome by great emotional stress and anxieties. However, this emotional blunting can be harmful by interfering with work or school and relationships between family and friends.

“Things just didn’t bother me because I didn’t care,” Dan said. “But that clarity I thought I had was just an empty shell, just sad and broken, masked by the good feeling of getting high.”

Meanwhile, opiates like heroin are considered some of the most addictive substances in the world, sometimes even more addictive than meth. The more a person uses opiates, the more their body builds a tolerance to them, causing them to need more of the drug in order to feel its effects. Eventually, they become physically dependent on them and need them just to function and feel normal, instead of using it to simply get high. Once they suddenly stop using opiates, withdrawal symptoms kick in and can last for weeks. These symptoms include muscle pain, excessive sweating, nausea, vomiting, shaking, insomnia, and depression.

“It feels like the flu times a thousand, so you’re not going to die from it, but you wish you were dead from it,” said Regina. Symptoms can become so painful that many users revert back to using the drug just for withdrawal relief, which is what makes addiction and recovery so challenging.

Dan said, “To get high, I did anything. I tore bridges with my family, with my friends, I ran, I fought. I’ve been arrested, I’ve sold everything I’ve ever owned down to myself, in the name of getting high.” 

Jayden saw many of his friends die from drugs or gang activities in a short period of time.  When he turned 20, he got caught up in a court case.  

“I realized that I was wasting my life,” he said. He found that he did not have to rely on drugs to have fun. He is now two years clean, and although he is “a little behind,” he is still working on pursuing a career. 

For Regina, the constant throwing up and disconnect from her family pushed her to seek help. “My body was damaged,” Regina said. “My sister would not talk to me.” 

She is now two and a half years clean and has reconnected with her sister.

Dan said that he didn’t think that he had a problem when he was submitted into the program by his parents at 16. But now he is now two years clean and has reconnected with his family. Looking back, he said, “I was losing my mind, I was tired of living the way I was, and I needed help.

Going into the program takes a lot of bravery.  Dan recalls his “quivers and shakes” going into his first day. “It really was hard for me, especially when there was no withdrawal medication,” he said.

“Recovery is not something you can force upon someone,” Dan said as Jayden and Regina nodded in agreement. “The road that you take is going to be the one that you have to go down.”  

For Jayden, the worst consequence of addiction was losing people he was very close with to overdoses and also nearly losing his own life to drugs. He credits these experiences for helping him realize where his life was headed and for motivating him to get clean.

After recovery, it is not unusual to have thoughts about going back to drugs. However, if these thoughts won’t go away and become too intense, you should talk to someone and find out why it is you still want to get high. 

“Typically, people don’t just get high because it feels good, it’s because they’re trying to escape something and they want to feel better than they do,” said Dan. 

As for the future, both Regina and Dan are planning on going back to school for now, and Jayden wants to go to a culinary school or trade school. He hopes to someday have a steady career in one of those fields.

Dan said he will never forget the advice he once heard. It is what has kept him going.

“Just give it another day,” he said.