The Cost of Addiction

I’ve died three times now, but the last time killed me. I woke up covered in vomit on the kitchen floor. The EMT’s said I’d been gone for five minutes, thank God for them. I looked at my daughter’s face, it reminded me that the only thing I hate more than fentanyl is myself.

They took her away from me not long after that. Social services explained why, I know they hate me too. I don’t care because they love my daughter. They had given me steps, thought there was a light at the end of the tunnel...before my appointment.

Not a minute after I started talking the doc asks, “Do you smoke crack too?”

“What?”

He scratched something onto his clipboard, “That usually means yes.”

I left, did what I should’ve done in the first place and called my family doc. I think he’d known for a while, but I only saw him when my baby got sick. He at least knew I love my daughter, maybe he wouldn’t look at me the same way I look at a mirror.

“Ah, lord, John I’m so sorry but you can’t get help from me.”

It was painful to hear, but, at first, I smiled; he kept looking at me like a person. Still, “I don’t understand?" Everyone new…they don’t get it. After I say that to em, they get it even less.

Don’t really know why my eyes started welling up there. I kept being honest as I could. “Look, I got some suboxone on the street. I’ve been off heroin for a week. Please, I don’t want more nightmares man, I don’t want a bigger web of people who hate me.”

He looked off to the side gripping his clenched jaw, angry as I’d ever seen him. He threw the same hand up in the air and then stared through the floor. He put a hand on my shoulder, “I’ll give you the name of a someone who won’t make you feel like that, but they’re a ways out.”

I started crying. First time I ever had in front of another man. I sold my truck to pay for for my last fix. I never did that on heroin. But fentanyl gets in your bones. I don’t know what to do. I do know I hate fentanyl and I hate myself. One of them has to go, and I’m scared. I know which one is easier to get rid of now.