Summary: My Addiction To Prescription Pain Killers

Final Essay Gabrielle Tucker COM/155 11/27/2013 Brooke Cole During and after my addiction to prescription pain killers I have experienced many things, good and bad. I’ve experienced my personal rock bottom and also some of the best moments of my life. My experiences before and after quitting prescription pain killers have shaped my life, and myself into what it is and what I am today. I would like to compare and contrast my experiences before and after getting sober.
Before getting clean and sober my addiction took away my ability to take care of myself and my loved ones emotionally and financially. My addiction to prescription pain killers made it physically and mentally impossible to be able to work a job, go grocery
Because of my addiction I lost their trust. I also lost custody of my children because I simply was not fit to be a parent at that point in time. Over the course of my addiction my family and loved ones began to realize that they couldn’t even trust me enough to leave me alone in their house. I was not allowed to spend the night at anyone’s house, let alone live with them. This trust issue got so bad over time that when I was around my family they constantly hid or watched their purses or personal belongings because they were scared that I was going to steal something. My addiction made me do horrible things to the people I loved the most. I obviously felt horrible about these things but the drugs had a very strong hold on me. Because of these things my family and loved ones eventually wrote me off completely. I was not even welcome for Thanksgiving or Christmas. These years of my life were horrible ones, and I still to do this day do not know how I got through them. The biggest problem that my addiction caused between myself and my family was losing custody of my children. I knew that they should not be with me and I ended up leaving them in the care of my mother until social services got involved in the situation. Eventually I ended up losing my legal rights to them. This situation caused me so much sadness, grief, anger, shame, and guilt. Lots of guilt. These feelings seemed to fuel my addiction even more.
After I managed to get sober for real I slowly started gaining back the trust of my family and loved ones. Many wonderful things started happening for me, best of all being getting my children back. Gaining the trust of my family back didn’t happen overnight, but over time they started to see that I was really a changed person and that I wasn’t going back to my old life. I moved back in with my parents and started taking the necessary steps to custody of my children back. I finally got to attend Christmas with my entire family and it was the best Christmas I’ve ever had. It was so amazing to spend this holiday with my family and not have to worry about when I was going to get my next fix. Living with my parents gave me the stable environment that I needed to get my life back in order. I got back into school and got a job. I also completed a plan that family court assigned to me which included things like counseling, NA meetings, and drug testing. This allowed me to be free from any further court actions or involvement. I cannot describe to anyone the amazing feeling that I got from knowing that I finally had my children and family back in my life. Gaining my children’s trust back was a lengthy and difficult process.. It involved many counseling sessions, long talks, prayers, determination, and hard work, but I did