TDS Family found out about my heroin use

[class-a-team]

It's been two days since the results of the drugs test I didn't consent to doing came back and I tested positive for morphine, so I finally cracked and admitted my heroin use. I'm 19 and I've been chipping for almost two years, I buy a bag a week and my habit has been stable. I only smoke it, but this didnt go down too well with my family who think that 1. I'll eventually move on to needles and that 2. I can still overdose by this method.

So all personal liberties have been taking from me as a result. I have to move back into the family home and commute to college instead. I can't go out or go to friends houses. I have to see an addictions counsellor to help, you know, my crippling heroin addiction. Sarcasm of course, I excelled in school, have passed all uni exams and have not once had to ask for extra money or a loan of money. Granted, my diabetes has been out of control but I blame that on the college lifestyle more than anything else. Furthermore, I'm being forced into rehab. Life can't get any worse.

Not that it was great to begin with. I have found settling into college to be very difficult and I'm on antidepressants for the last seven months. But my heroin use was never problematic and yet my family make it out to be like I've killed a baby or something. I'm still the same person but all they see us 'junkie'. I wonder is it the fact that they never reslly knew me or my life the last few years that bothers them the most, the reason my sisters won't talk to me. But I've always been alone, I'm not close to either parents and being the youngest in the family by a long shôt means I've felt like an only child for a long time. I was never good at keeping friends either.

So I'm left with nothing now, no personal freedom and not even the respect of my family. Can't stay doing drugs because I'll be subjected to drug tests from now on. At the same time, I feel like I don't have a problem and that they're all acting irrationally because they know nothing about heroin. Either way. I've ruined my life now (they even tell me my life will change drastically) and the only thing I've learned is to be more careful disposing of paraphernalia. Any advice? Thanks for reading all this by the way.

 

[Swimmingdancer]

Well I know that for me when my family found it it was actually kind of a relief not to have to lie about it anymore. Not that I didn't still lie to them about things pertaining to my drug use, but just having that one huge weight of them not knowing I used heroin at all off my shoulders was kind of nice in a way. Like your family, mine didn't understand. That's pretty common. Maybe you can help them to understand?

The other thing is that if you are so convinced your heroin use is not a problem at all, then why are you so upset about being forced to quit? I can understand being upset about the way they are treating you/the assumptions they are making or being forced to go to rehab, but - please correct me if I am wrong - you sound convinced that using heroin on a regular basis is risk-free and like you are upset about not being able to continue doing that?

Back when I was a teenager and had just been "chipping" for a significant length of time with a "stabile" habit and no serious physical dependency I thought like you, that it was not a problem, that people were only over-reacting because heroin use is way over-stigmatized, but now looking back I see I was just lying to myself and that using heroin leads nowhere good and is not worth it. Addiction and its consequences build slowly, just because you don't see any major consequences right now doesn't mean that you can just go on this way forever.

I agree with your family's assumptions that smoking heroin can eventually lead to injecting it and that smoking it is still not safe. I personally had 2 friends end up in comas and with lasting serious brain damage from smoking heroin. You can still overdose from smoking and you also never know what is in street heroin, how pure it is, what it may be contaminated with, if it may have other drugs in it, etc.

I would try to examine if you are being honest with yourself about the very real risks you are taking. I ended up with a serious heroin addiction because I thought I had it all under control and that because I'd been able to use for a while without getting physically dependent that I'd always be able to do that. I REALLY wish I had quit when I was your age (I have since quit but that took a very long time and was extremely difficult). It has been a rough lesson.

As for how to deal with your family, maybe you can reason with them about going to rehab if you really feel it would be of no value with you and slowly regain their trust? Otherwise you can do what I did and support yourself financially so you don't have to live with them or do what they say, but I don't recommend that, or learning to get better at hiding your drug use, that led me down a bad path. Just because you don't agree with how your family is responding to this doesn't mean you should discredit everything they have to say or fear that they have, or shouldn't consider whether maybe you should actually quit. If you think it's no problem and you can take or leave it then why not see if you can actually stop using it at least until you move out?

 

[cj]

Just tell them what they want to hear. You got depressed tryed it a few times and will never do it again blah blah. The addiction cpunselor just wants money and he legally cant disclose what you tell him under most all circumstances. The rehab might be fun i met alot of using friends when i went. I know this seems like the end of the world but it will pass i promise.

 

[Pagey]

Sorry to hear that OP...not a fun situation to be in. Actually it's basically my worst nightmare
Thing is...are you sure this is really a bad thing? I mean obviously it feels like this and it does sound like your parents have gone pretty overboard with the whole thing, but smoking a bag of heroin a week for two years...it rarely ends well. I know a few people who 'chipped' for years thinking they didn't have a problem with it at all and ended up with the daily needle habit eventually. It's unfortunately pretty inevitable.

Regarding your personal liberties etc. You're 19, how come you're being forced to live with your parents again? I'm assuming this has to do with financial constraints? Honestly I'd recommend you try to get a decent job and make enough money to move out again asap and not need them to sustain you - not that that would be easy but it's probably preferrable to your current situation.

The problem with heroin is that it's that one drug that if you mention it, people will freak the fuck out. Idk if that's necessarily rational or not but that's definitely a fact. Have you tried calmly explaining to your parents the ins and outs of the whole thing, that it's not because it's heroin, such a stigmatised drug, that you're gonna end up homeless with HIV or something? Might help them ease up a little bit?

 

[bagochina]

it does sound like your parents have gone pretty overboard with the whole thing

I don't know if I would say they are going overboard because they are trying to get their 19 yr old son help for heroin use. To me it sounds like your parents are acting rationally and it sounds like your parents are doing the best that they can for you. You should be thankful.

My advice stop using.

 

[Pagey]

I agree they're reacting normally when it comes to making absolute sure he doesn't use again, but not being allowed to go out and see friends anymore etc. for an already depressed teenager? Idk...

 

[Captain.Heroin]

Just try to get clean if you can. Best advice anyone can give you.

 

[bagochina]

I'm sure heroin use is not contributing to the depression or anything. Obviously they are trying to make class-a see the seriousness of the issue but it seems to be escaping him, correct me if I am wrong. You do the crime you do the time. What else should they do, let him go out and continue doing what he is doing? He says his heroin use is under control (totally under control now eh?) and he can handle it but until he realizes ANY heroin use is out of control nothing will change except for maybe a visit to the local county jail or morgue.

Live and learn.

 

[neversickanymore]

Hey classAteam, sorry you are stressed out. Hey, I think you should look on the bright side. Well there is so much on that side I don't know where to start. well lets start with the fact that since you can no longer use drugs you are not looking at a huge opiate detox. You have a family that loves you. I they didn't care then they wouldn't have done anything. If you don't come from a family that is familiar with hard drug use or addiction then they probably just have no idea how to react. Since you are the youngest they all probably think they are doing the right thing buy giving you the silent treatment. It also seems like your addiction or use is really pretty low so you may have a pretty easy time at controlling your addiction. You are still in school and have no apparent health concerns. The reason so many people switch to using needles when they only planned on smoking is because of the nasty fact of tolerance and addiction. Addiction is the process of a drug having less and less effect thus needing higher and higher doses, while the desire or compulsion to use becomes greater and greater. So along with needing to take more and more of the drug comes with the higher and higher price ticket associated with purchasing the drug. So in my opinion the use of the needle provides the dose people find they need at a more economical price. But unfortunately with those advantages come the overwelming negatives of a faster progressing addiction, a real chance of OD and with that possible death, health problems. If you are a type 1 diabetic then it would be no big jump for you to switch to a needle as you would use them everyday. I have witnessed so many people that swore they would never use a needle end up tracked up like the rest in no time at all. Also if you are not able to be responsible enough to manage you diabetes what makes you so sure you would continue to do so well at managing your use. In all reality with the use of addicting drugs is that the pattern is remarkably similar. Period of use without problems, sometimes can last for many years, unfortunate slip into addiction and physical dependency, gradual increase of use to accommodate tolerance which spirals quickly, gradually decreasing quality of life, the compulsion to use more and more of the drug and the effect of the drug its withdraws and all the time spent doing all the garbage associated with staying high makes it very hard to maintain a life that would be similar to where you would end up if you stayed clean, finally ending in and OD, arrest, getn hep, getn shot, or one of the other extremely clever ways we junkies find to kill ourselves.

About rehab.. First if there is still a large rift between you and your family most facilities will work to repair that rift.. they have things like family sessions that are designed to educate the family and repair the relationship between "junkies" and their families. Also the experience of rehab affords you the opportunity to learn a great deal of really amazing things. I f you take it seriously you would be amazed at how much you can get out of treatment. If I were you I would take the plunge and go clean.. your young SISTA and from personal experience being a full time junkie is not a goal you ever want to aspire to. You will learn about and work on many things about yourself that are intended to make your life easier and more enjoyable. You will most likely learn why you have trouble keeping friends and a million other things that will help you for the rest of your life weather you decide to make the smart safe choice and clean up for good or plan on taking the big chance and play around with more addicting drugs. something to think about is that there are a few drugs out there that are not addicting as well as one that is addicting but not deadly. I still suggest that you embrace the rehab for everything its worth, you have a good chance of coming out of there happier than you have ever been. This would be perfect if you are not addicted, remember that addiction doesn't have much to do with physical dependence.. cocaine one of the most addicting substances on the planet has really no acute withdraw but is able to compel people to come back and back spending the whole of their fortunes. Allot of the wisdom of rehab facilities are stolen from the great Sages and wisdom of all time. Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. Buddha, is a theme you will almost certanly come across. The people you are generally in rehab with are likely to be some really good people, If you like BL then im pretty sur you will like the people at rehab. I dont know what the percentage of BLers that have been or end up in rehab but it probably pretty high.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way but I figure since you are big enough to smoke H then you can handle the truth with no sugar on it... If you think you have ruined your life because your parents found some drugs and are helping you to try and get clean then you have no idea what ruining your life is. If you continue down the junkie life spiral you might be able to experiences what having really ruined your life.. this story is absolutely true and if of a friend of mine. The guy was really smart, made it through a pre med program, passed the mcats and was admitted to med school, came from a good family, like you he played around with opiates for years around 7 i believe, but the inevitable finally happened.. year two at med school he became addicted for the first time and his use spiraled quickly and he was not able to pull off both being a junkie and a doctor. he was kicked out after nodding out in a lab and failing a resulting drug test. Addiction wrapped him up and he embraced the junkie life style. this life style ended up alienating his family greatly and they had no choice but to let him go and cut all ties and prayed for his safe return. That return has not happened because he was using with a friend and the friend OD and he did the rite thing and called the cops because neither one of them had any suboxone or narcon. He administered cpr the entire time the rescue squad was on the way but his friend died anyway. because he had been busy trying to save his friend he had not gotten rid of the contraband he had on him.. it was enough to send him to prison. So when his life was ruined he went from almost a doctor to loosing one of his best friend to od and checked into a pretty long stay in prison where he had to kick cold turkey and non of his family members came to visit or call and to his great surprise he tested positive for hepatitis. He is still in there at this moment but I will write him and tell him not to worry, he could have had his parents find a little dope and out of love send him to rehab where he has the opportunity to learn a whole bunch and possible live a good life without the need for any drugs

No but A-team you really have your whole life ahead of you. Your life is far from ruined.. You should be looking at this as a great opportunity to have the opportunity to live a life free of addiction. If it was easy to use heroin with out falling in love with it and becoming addicted then why have so many of us intelligent, capable, strong BLiters become addicted. yeah it really easy to get and really hard to avoid with certain drugs and heroin is one of those. I would take this opportunity and get everything you can out of it, you have to do it anyway. I wish you the very best of luck with this as well as in life.

 

[Pagey]

I'm not disagreeing with you, at all. I mean I'm sure if my kid were using heroin I'd've reacted exactly the same buuut regardless I'm not sure taking away all his liberties is the best way to go about it. It's a really delicate situation obviously.
But yes

ANY heroin use is out of control

unfortunately OP that's the important bit

Show your parents that you're motivated to clean up (and you really should...if heroin didn't matter to you that much why would being forced to quit be such a big deal?) and hopefully things'll get a bit easier at home.

 

[bagochina]

I'm not disagreeing with you, at all

Yeah I know page

 

[Stillwaters]

Hey OP, how often have you heard an older person say "I WISH I would have listed to my parents/elders..." This is ones of those cases. I know heroin is fun for you right now, but you need to trust people who are older than you in this case. No heroin addict ever thought he had a problem in the beginning. No IV heroin addict ever thought he'd use a needle. No heroin addict ever thought he'd get to the point where he couldn't stop. Every single hardcore heroin addict begins exactly the way you just described yourself and situation. Understand? You parents are NOT overreacting. You really do have a serious problem on your hands, and that is the simple fact that you've tasted heroin. Its simply not possible to comprehend how serious it is at the age you are, its impossible for you to see that you're exactly how every hardcore heroin addiction begins. Please listen to me... I lost some good years of my life to that stuff, I really did... Just please take what I'm telling you to heart...

 

[class-a-team]

Thanks for all your responses, I really appreciate your advice.

Why I have a problem with quitting? Well I don't have a major problem with it. I'd give heroin up in a heartbeat if it meant I could have my personal freedom back. But no matter what I say/do my mother distrusts me so I have to live by her rules 24/7 here on in. I have a problem accepting that my heroin use is problematic because I know that lots of people can chip and it's not even my favourite drug, it just happens to be readily available. Also, I don't believe it's dangerous because I know that overdosing through smoking is virtually impossible. And I see no reason for why I'd graduate to injecting. As I said before, I have a steady, occasional habit with no tolerance. Smoking now feels the same as it did when I started two years ago, I use the same amount. But my mother doesn't believe me, she insists that I'm an addict and that the cold I have is withdrawals when it is evidently not. It doesn't matter anyway, the threat of regular drug tests is enough of a deterrent.

That's another thing that's pissing me off. Apparently I'm an addict. Many people drink several times a week and their behaviour is deemed to be normal, while I use once a week and get called an addict. It's so unfair. Alcohol causes a lot more complications for my mental health and diabetes than heroin. I know I don't have a problem, and if they just asked me to stop then I would, I just wish everyone else would see it!

What's also bothering me is how exposed I feel right now. A lot of people outside my family were aware I used drugs and now my parents are asking everyone they meet what they know. It feels horrible and I want to kill myself. I feel totally alienated amongst my family and totally alone. I have nothing left to hide and nothing left to save. Maybe I should be thankful this has happened - it could give me a final push to kill myself, something I've been considering for quite some time now.

One last thing, I'm a girl! People on here always assume I'm a guy

 

[Pagey]

Unfortunately the alcohol/illegal drugs seperation is gonna happen no matter what. I've seen so many people get drunk to the point of covering themselves in vomit, passing out on the floor and having to be taken to the ER and that's fine - but if I told people that I like to use heroin alone in my room in the evenings half of them probably wouldn't speak to me again. It sucks but you just have to accept it sadly

The problem is that although you might feel like you've got your use under control now, you're playing with fire no matter how careful you feel you are. Like imagine one day i dunno, something bad's happened, you're in a really bad place and you just say fuck it, I'm gonna use heroin to feel better. Honestly it only takes that one time to start going downhill.
But anyway I guess that isn't really the issue here anyway since you're not going to be able to use in any case...just trying to explain why this might not be such a bad thing.

I think it's pretty awful of your parents to ask your acquaintances about it. Have you told your parents how you feel about all this, though? It's so easy to overlook that part but if you just told them how alienated and depressed this whole thing is making you they couldn't just ignore that.

 

[dopesickk]

I can relate to you quite a bit. I was arrested about 3 weeks ago for herion use and i had no choice but to tell my parents. of course they told the rest of my family, some friends found out that had no idea. I havent really left the house since but to go to work. its depressing. it sucks. but be glad you dont have a problem. because i was in your shoes. except i was using a half g a day for a year and quitting was not fun. even though i wanted to stop. its hard for me not to get in my car and go score. im on lock down like you and am getting random drug tests from parents as well.

quit while your ahead. it only gets worse my friend.

 

[deldone]

I think it's pretty awful of your parents to ask your acquaintances about it. Have you told your parents how you feel about all this, though? It's so easy to overlook that part but if you just told them how alienated and depressed this whole thing is making you they couldn't just ignore that.

What if they denied talking/ asking your friends/ relatives about it when you know they actually did? How is it possible for you to have a honest conversation about it after?

 

[Timber]

As a parent, and with a wife who is a drug counselor - and a person with personal experience of addiction to opiates - let me tell you how this would play for me:

Do I think they are overreacting? Mildly, but not in any way that isn't understandable. Lets examine something a little bit. I had a friend that thought exactly as you do. I use the past tense because I had to help bury him last year. He was always a little brighter than me, and a bit more arrogant. He chipped in his 20's, and kept it secret from most everybody. By his 30's he was deep into the game, and even though he had gotten through school obtaining a masters degree -- his addiction took over enough that he started stealing from his work. He was arrogant, and desperate enough to think he could get away with it. He was busted not only for stealing from work, but a subsequent warrant served on his place also turned up heroin, and paraphernalia. He got 3 years, served 1 year 11 months with good behavior. Despite his degree, extensive experience in the graphic design and IT fields -- he could never get a security clearance, he could never get hired by a financial firm, or pretty much any place that put any trust on the value of their data. He ended up having to work for $10/hr at a warehouse job. The kind of crappy job I did when I was 18. He pressed on for a few years, but in the end, he had nothing he was looking forward to. He took an intentional overdose in September of 2012, and it shocked a great many people to know that he was into heroin at all again.

As of right now, even if your "habit" is under control -- you are one car stop, one phone call, one dealer or runner turned informant, one person walking in on you from suffering a trip to jail, and then prison. Courts in the USA have no sense of humor about this stuff. It could be as simple as a headlight burns out, a license plate light fails, you don't signal for a lane change.

Can you work in your field with a conviction for heroin on your record?

-- Take this as a wake up call. No matter how you try to hide the truth, eventually the truth will come out. Take the chance, get yourself clean, stay off, and enjoy life. Its far easier that way. Your parents are trying to do you a favor. They may have irrational faith in rehab, and I would try to do it outpatient if you can at all -- just know their heart is in the right place.

 

[Brobi-Wan Kenobi]

class-a-team,

A lot of us have been where you're at now with respect to your family finding out about your drug habits. It's not an easy situation because of course everyone wants to keep their family happy. But when I was your age, I had just started trying drugs, everything was so new, exciting and fun. The rituals of obtaining and preparing drugs were almost as fun as actually doing them to me. I came from a broken home. Parents divorced when I was five. Felt like mom never listened to anything I had to say and tried to make me a living doll in my youth... I'm an only child so I get it, but that doesn't make it any less creepy. Only saw dad during visitation so he prioritized having a bad ass time with me any time he got to see me over actually being a father. I missed out on some things, particularly gaining confidence and I felt like most drugs gave that to me and if they didn't, well at least I felt good. But aside from all that, I was raised in church, made it out of high school without ever being intoxicated on anything, yadda yadda yadda.

My mom found out about me smoking marijuana after I went away to school. She herself smoked weed and did coke in college, but she is very Republican and her main thing is that drugs are illegal. One time I was staying at her house for the weekend, ended up going out and acquiring 5 ecstasy tabs. Took all of them and ended up at home around 6am. I grabbed their leashes and took her two dogs for a walk out by the pond in her neighborhood. Long story short, during the ordeal I unleashed both dogs and went swimming in the pond (which had god knows what in it). Came home at 1pm. That's how mom found out about everything else. She thought I had been doing meth, but she pried enough to get an honest answer. We talked about it and I admitted to doing coke and acid as well.

Over time I think she came to accept me and the choices I was making. It probably helps that I never got arrested for drugs (although did get out of a pullover for running a stop sign with a pack of syringes, eighth of weed, vial of acid and two pipes that had plenty of resin and had just been smoked out of in my vehicle one time, lol). What you don't realize while you're in the game is that everything catches up to you at some point. When I was 19 I maxed out the cash advance on two credit cards to buy cocaine. My credit score is probably under 550 right now and boy do I wish it wasn't. You seem to have your habit under control, but nobody goes from being abstinent of drugs to full-blown addict status. It's a journey and there are many steps along the way. I can clearly remember the day I told myself everything was gonna be okay, there was no way I'd turn into a drug addict. Now, I didn't get faced with being sent to rehab but I have a friend that I've known since about the same time my folks got divorced. He's actually in rehab right now, but it's his third or fourth time going. It doesn't work for some people.

It's also good that your family already knows. Guilt is a real hard thing to live with. It weighs on your mind a lot and makes it really hard to stay focused. I have also done heroin, but I injected it. Had been donating plasma consistently before ever injecting anything so the tiny needle on the syringe was nothing. It's really something you never go back from. Remember my friend that's in rehab right now? I stuck him the first time and now that's the only way he'll take any drugs (including several that are not at all meant to be IV'd). Don't do it. But one of the times I injected heroin, I was with my stepbrother and prior to that me and him had not exposed any of our drug habits to the family. At one point he got into it with his father and got kicked out of the house and on his way out the door dropped the bomb on my H use. Got a call from mom in the middle of the night and just owned up to it and got off the phone. She really shouldn't have been all that surprised but it is what it is. As for your family, things will ease up over time. But it's like I always say, if you're caught up in worried about what others are thinking of you, it's probably because you're doing something wrong.

 

[cj]

Any update on how your doing class a?

 

[neversickanymore]

up two^ Damn, well said, I know for a fact that brobi is telling it like it is and only has your best interest in mind. Read it again.