DeKalb County Stories

Claire

My addiction started when I was 18 years old. I had, for the most part, a happy home life. My father died from suicide when I was only eight years old, but I was lucky to have a mother who helped me to cope with that the best I could. As soon as I first used prescription pain pills, I was hooked. I fell in love with that opiate high. I lost custody of my children due to my addiction, estranged myself from my wonderful family and lost everything good in my life. At 22 years old I started going to a pain clinic. Within approximately six months, I was receiving the maximum amount of narcotic pain medications a pain clinic could prescribe me, and this went continued for the next few years. Additionally, I found myself also selling prescription drugs to make ends meet. Ultimately, I was indicted for sale & delivery, pled to a felony and was put on probation. I violated my probation which led to several incarcerations. During time in between being incarcerated, the DEA closed my pain clinic for being a “pill mill.” Since prescription opiates were so hard to get, I decided to try methamphetamine (heroin hadn’t made a huge appearance in our rural area yet). So now I was a meth addict, but I soon after found a source with Fentanyl patches. I was an IV drug user and would abuse the patches that way. The ambulance had to be called twice to my apartment for people overdosing on Fentanyl but never me somehow.

I am proud to say I now have two years in recovery. My sobriety date is 1-15-2018. Since getting sober, I have reunited with my family, live with my parents and oldest daughter, am employed and and am a volunteer on the DeKalb County Recovery Court team! My goal now in life is to share my story and my experiences with the hope of helping others and my community.