Hooked on Heroin and Alcohol
Levi’s dad struggled with the disease of alcoholism and he grew up in a very dysfunctional home, which eventually led him down a path to Heroin and Alcohol addiction. He spent his time growing up with a lot of ups and downs, never knowing what the mood was going to be on a daily basis. His home life thrived on the chaos and drama that surrounds addiction.
Levi played sports, did well in school, and got to the peer pressure stage. With a desire to fit in and feel accepted, he started to smoke cigarettes at the age of 12.
Levi gave up sports out of a lack of interest once he started to socialize more at school. Wanting to hang with the “cool crowd,” he started spending most of this time with the skater kids. With his new friends and lack of healthy hobbies, Levi began drinking Alcohol. He tells us that he continued drinking and using harder drugs after transitioning to high school.
Cocaine Addiction in Highschool
Alcohol wasn’t the only substance that Levi used in high school; at the age of 16, Levi started experimenting with hard drugs like Cocaine. It didn’t take long before Levi found himself seriously addicted to Cocaine.
At this time, the trouble he got into led him to get kicked out of his dad’s house and he ended up with his mom. While living with his mom, Levi didn’t have any rules to follow and was free to go down the path of self-destruction.
Addiction takes everything—still a 16-year-old boy, Levi’s addiction took over his life and he started losing the things he valued, like his truck. Soon, he dropped out of high school the last semester of his senior year.
Originally, Levi had plans of going to college and becoming a successful business person. He also talks about how he wanted to be a psychiatrist; however, at this time in his life, Alcohol and drugs were his number one priority.
How to Stop Using Meth
When he was 17 years old, Levi’s addiction to Cocaine transpired into Crystal Meth abuse. He tells us how fortunate he feels that he stopped doing Methamphetamine after about a year of using the drug.
Unfortunately, with the disease of addiction, if it isn’t one drug it’s another. For this reason, Levi’s efforts to stop using Meth only led him back to Alcohol abuse and addiction. Struggling with full-blown alcoholism, Levi drank Alcohol every day. He talks about how he just knew he had to have some mind-altering substance in his body; that he had to be “messed up” no matter what. ‘
Before he turned 19, Levi was living with Alcohol addiction but managed to go back to school and get his diploma. During his 20s, his drinking got progressively worse and spun out of control. Levi explains that he got to a point where you never knew what kind of mood he would be in, whether psychotic or abusive and controlling.
Prescription pill abuse then came into the picture, however, his “pill phase” didn’t stop his heavy drinking. He soon moved on to using a more fatal mixture of substances, Heroin and Alcohol.
Heroin and DUI Arrest
Levi decided to move to different parts of the United States. First, he moved to Tennessee and then he went on to live in Oregon. In Oregon, Levi met a girl who was using and addicted to Heroin. After a year of smoking Heroin with his girlfriend, they began using needles.
The physical dependence on Heroin kept Levi in a psychological state of survival. He would try to get just enough to feel okay and function properly, stating that you become “just a shell of a human being.” Levi made a handful of attempts to get clean by going to detox facilities but would always end up back on Heroin.
He shares that by using Heroin and Alcohol he ended up getting three DUI’s in two months. At the third DUI, Levi went to jail, got clean and was released to a rehab facility. Regretfully, he was kicked out of the rehab center for fraternizing with females and not taking the program seriously.
With a newfound desire to get clean, Levi left Oregon and moved back to Virginia, where his mother lived. However, he states that he was afraid of being back home and that he would die.
Rehab to Narcotics Anonymous
Levi’s fears immediately led him to the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous. As a regular meeting goer, he fell into a pattern of relapse. Levi would get 90 days clean then relapse, repeating this cycle several times.
One of the times he relapsed and overdosed on Heroin. When he overdosed, the people he thought were his friends, robbed him and left him in a puddle of mud next to a dumpster. He says that at this moment, he realized that “this is what my life has been reduced to, I’m worth more than this…”
After the overdose, Levi checked into a psychiatric facility for about a week and went on to work a 12-step program. With a year clean, he started dating a girl and ended up making her his higher power. He stopped going to NA meetings and fell into a state of complacency, which ultimately resulted in another relapse.
With many ups and downs, Levi expressed gratitude about how he made it back to the program alive. Now Levi has 10 months clean and gets to spend his time helping others.
Unlike before, today he is able to make a choice: to stay clean or get high. Smiling, Levi tells us that he knows what drug and Alcohol addiction means for him, “…death, so it’s not really a hard choice.”
If you someone you know is suffering from drug or Alcohol addiction and want to talk to someone who understands, call (866)578-7471. There is a way out of addiction and a better life waiting for you.
