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Monica explains how hard it was for her to beat heroin addiction.
Monica:
When I look back on how difficult it was to clean up and to beat this addiction, it was a struggle every day. It was a real painful struggle because you’ve got so much shame. This is so shame-based, and we can talk about the guilt, too. The guilt of hurting our families, of always having to lie and hide, you know, just all that type of, all that guilt it brings and all the shame that it brings around about the lifestyle.
And I think the shame is what really chips away at the soul and your self-esteem, and that’s what’s really hard to get back. You can get off drugs. You can be drug-free from heroin in 72 hours. That’s what’s kind of interesting. It’s out of your system in 72 hours, but it’s what goes on in the thought process after that, and it’s a lifetime process. And it never stops, and you are never recovered.
You are always in recovery, and it’s really easy to switch addictions. You can go into gambling. You can go into food. You can go into sex, you know, shopping. I mean, I have done them all, and I still battle things every day. And it’s about making the choices, and it’s knowing then finally that certain choices you are going to make you are going to have certain consequences or you are going to have a good experience in making the right choice.
I feel so fortunate and grateful that I am alive today because really only one percent of heroin addicts make it. I was lucky enough to survive, and my husband didn’t make it. He actually died in 2001, had a heart attack but that was induced by heroin use, and he also had contracted hepatitis C from his intravenous drug use.
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