WESTFIELD – After reading numerous stories in The Westfield News about drug arrests and convictions, a reader felt the media isn’t telling the “whole” story, so she came forward to share the “other side” of addiction–the personal side.
This year Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker began the “State Without StigMA” campaign.
“We are in the midst of an epidemic. . . . Over the past decade, more than 6,600 members of our community have died because of opioids, and behind those deaths are thousands of hospital stays, emergency department visits, and unquantifiable human suffering inflicted upon individuals, families and our communities,” according to www.mass.gov/eohhs/gov/departments/dph/stop-addiction/state-without-stigma/
One of the campaign’s goals is to create public awareness by “reframing addiction as a medical disease.”
Our reader, who wants to remain anonymous (so is referred to as Jane), wholeheartedly agrees with the governor and wants to help educate the public about addiction.
Reporter: When did you begin using drugs?
Jane: “I have not ever used drugs, so addiction to me has been an entirely new thing.”
Reporter: When did your husband begin using?
Jane: “My husband had been sober for approximately nine years when he began abusing pain pills (Percocet) in 2012.”
Reporter: How did he get involved with drugs?
Jane: “He had hurt his back at work and was given them for the pain (never did he have a prescription. By “given” I mean people he knew who had prescriptions would sell them). But after his back had stopped hurting he was still taking the pills. If he stopped taking them he would become sick and to feel better he’d have to start taking the pills again.”
Reporter: How did he keep getting the pills?
Jane: “(My husband was) helping out with a friend’s son’s quarter midget race car. I knew a few of the people he was hanging around with while helping with the quarter midget were pretty deep into pills (Percocet, as well).”
Half of the people asked who had misused opioid medications said they got them from friends or family, according to State Without StigMA.
Reporter: Did you know he was using?
Jane: “I knew something was going on back then but I chalked it up to the hours he was working at his job (a physically demanding job) but he promised he wasn’t popping (pills) like others were. He was tired frequently, and when he wasn’t tired he was super-talkative (something he is not typically known for). Those were new things for me to see on my husband (by 2012 we had been together for 10 years).”
Reporter: How long did this go on?
Jane: “The pill use lasted for a few years, off and on. He had been able to wean himself off of them and would have months of being clean before slipping.”
Reporter: How did he get involved with heroin?
Jane: “Eventually, buying pills became too expensive and he found himself introduced to heroin. He is unsure of when exactly he started snorting heroin, but he told me he had been using for a year or so (I’m guessing some time in the beginning of 2014) . . . Heroin is sickeningly cheaper than pills; what he was paying for pills he was able to buy at least double that in heroin.”
The State Without StigMA website states: “The Centers for Disease Control reports that according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (2011-13), individuals who are addicted to prescription opioid painkillers such as Oxycontin, Percocet and Vicodin are 40 times more likely to be addicted to heroin.”
Reporter: How did he get the heroin?
Jane: “One of his coworkers had easy access to heroin.”
Reporter: What happened to him when he started using heroin?
Jane: “His entire being changed on heroin. He shrank in size. He was never a large guy, but on heroin he was a stick. He wouldn’t eat. I’d cook him meals and he’d eat a small portion and tell me he was stuffed. He’d nod out while eating and blame it on his job. He’d nod out smoking a cigarette. He’d repeat himself multiple times in a short amount of time. Or he would nod out and begin talking about things that weren’t even visible in the room he and I were in.”
Reporter: How did you find out he was using heroin?
Jane: “By the beginning of this year I was so suspicious of his actions (that) I began snooping through his wallet, through his car, through his phone to see who he was in contact with that I didn’t know about. I began finding cut straws in his car or in his jeans, and when I’d confront him he’d tell me the straws were a coworker’s or he’d tell me one of his friends used it and he picked it up off a sink so someone else wouldn’t use it.”
Reporter: What happened next?
Jane: “I was finding empty packets of heroin all over. I would find small bundles in cigarette packs here and there. I didn’t know what they were but I took pictures of them and did Google image searches. All images showed heroin.”
Reporter: How did you feel when you discovered this?
Jane: “It was horrifying. I wanted it to be something else, anything else. I associated heroin with dirty people, with needles, with low-life unemployed urchins (this is how uneducated I was). My husband was gainfully employed, had a house, was married, had a car, so there was no way he could be on heroin. He was/is a true functioning addict.”
Reporter: Did you confront him?
Jane: “I confronted him one time before (he was arrested) and asked if he was on heroin. He adamantly denied it. But my gut was suggesting otherwise. By then my gut was in constant knots because I knew something was going on. I was trying every angle in an attempt to get him to admit the truth. Nothing worked.”
In tomorrow’s paper Part 2 of Jane’s story will be presented, which includes her husband’s arrest and treatment.
Staff Writer Christine Charnosky can be reached at [email protected]
