This is the story of a Utah County resident. I left her name out for privacy reasons.
16451. This is not a monetary amount. This is not the number of any particular group of people, or any people who have died. It is not a statistical number of any kind. It is however, a number that will follow me to my grave. It is the number they gave me in 1984 when I became an inmate at the Utah State Prison, and it is assigned to me, and only me, for life.
I was sent to prison for Obtaining Prescriptions by Fraud. I was charged with 3 felonies. I could have been charged with over 100. That’s how many doctors and dentists I convinced to write me prescription pain pills. I felt I could not live with out them and I felt perfectly justified in fabricating any number of ailments to get what I needed.
Although I had experimented with some drugs and alcohol while in high school, I had never had an addiction to anything. My addiction to prescription pain pills began in 1976 at the age of 17 after a serious car accident. I had legitimate pain for a legitimate back and leg injury. My parents and I were never counseled on the addictive nature of the Percoset I was given by my pediatrician. I was prescribed enough to take over 5 a day for 90 days. By the time the prescription ran out, I was 18, I was seriously addicted, and I had found another doctor to write the prescriptions. And another and another and another….
By the time I was caught 8 years later in March of 1984, I had been charged with 3 drug related DUI’s, several theft charges, had absconded from 2 inpatient drug rehabs in Salt Lake, been kicked out of the State Hospital Drug offender unit, been on and off methadone, and in and out of jail numerous times for possession charges. In the early 80’s Utah County only had two substance abuse treatment programs, both of which I had been in and failed to complete. Along the way, I also had acquired a huge heroin habit to offset the pain pills. I had 3 failed marriages and had lost custody of my young son to my parents. The District Court Judge here in Utah County said he had never dealt with someone like me before that just seemed so determined to die from drugs.
The cost of my addiction was huge. In my 3 failed marriages, I involved over 65 people counting in-laws in the wreckage I created. I deliberately married men with addictions and then I used each one of them to help me get prescriptions. At the time, I didn’t really care that they all ended up with more extensive addictions and criminal histories as a result.
I lost an ex-husband to a prescription drug overdose in 2007 just after I started working for the County. Sitting at his funeral, surrounded by people I had helped damage, and knowing that while his addiction was his choice, I had a part in getting him there, and knowing everyone else knew this as well, was a very humbling experience.
I damaged relationships with my son, parents, and sister. I was using so much I barely remember my father’s funeral to this day. I lied, manipulated, harassed, hurt and scared everyone around me. I put my sister at risk having her drive me up to Salt Lake any number of times for drug deals. I stole anything that wasn’t nailed down and I did not care from whom. I lost over 20 close friends from either overdoses or AIDS from sharing needles in the early 80’s, and I knew of dozens more who had died the same ways.
I spent the next 8 years in an out of the correctional system, going to prison two more times on parole violations for using heroin or pain pills and for simply disappearing when I was released.
I had an epiphany the last time I was in prison as I watched a friend get ready to parole. In prison, everyone leaving will always say “this is the last time”, and that they “will never be back”. Those remaining behind always took bets on how long the person would make it before being returned on a parole violation. I remember I was complaining about the rules and the officers and other inmates and this person turned to me and said something so simple. She told me: “You don’t have to keep doing this”. I was confused and blew it off at the time. It had actually never occurred to me that I had a choice in the matter. My addiction was so a part of my life…. it was my only life. It seemed a foreign concept that I could live life free from addiction.
The comment stuck with me and when I left prison for the last time April 9, 1996, I did everything in my power to never return to addiction and I have kept my word to myself and my family that I would not return. My motto was borrowed from a 12 step program: Never again no matter what.
It has been a long, hard road. It took a lot of therapy, a lot of support, a lot of apologizing and a lot of earning trust back. I have spent three years, countless hours and more than $2,000 dollars clearing my criminal record.
I thank God my family did not have to sit through my funeral, that I am alive and that I am sober today.
Thank you.
