The Story of a Heroin Dealer

As I said in my last blog, I got a message from a person who wrote to apologize for selling my daughter heroin. She has served time in prison, has paid her legal price to society but the guilt and hell that she still holds is sad to me. I realize very well that my daughter has hurt a lot of people in the midst of her own addiction. I realize this person could be my daughter. As we have talked back and forth in the last 24 hours, I have asked her questions and she has been painfully honest. I knew the timing they had met fit the same time my daughter had told me that she had first tried heroin. Her boyfriend was using and she had walked in on him. This is the girl who sold them that heroin. She also told me she could see the innocence in her. She said my daughter was scared to try it. She said my daughter was asking many questions. It made my heart hurt because as I was reading her message, I was thinking back to the days where I still maybe could have seen the signs and stopped the train wreck. It's so hard knowing that you can't go back. Neither can my daughter and neither can the girl who reached out to me. I believe that God has put me in this position right now, right here, right in the forefront to help others. I completely forgive this girl for hooking my daughter to this demon. I completely forgive her. I do. I told her that I think she could be a great teacher to others. I feel her story could show the power this drug has over people and she can also begin to forgive herself as she may save some lives by being brutally honest about how she got hooked, how she hooked others and how she finally got clean...the hard way.

I will keep her anonymous. She is 5 years clean. She can help educate us on the mind of a addict, the mindset of a dealer and the kind of people they prey upon. Her story is mind-blowing. It takes a lot of courage to message the mom of a girl currently battling for her life due to heroin, knowing you were the one who pushed her off the cliff. It takes a lot of courage to answer my questions and share her story. I thank her for reaching out to me. Although our conversations have made me cry some tonight, wishing I could change things...I feel she can. For everyone who has stepped up and been brave enough to share their photo of themselves or their loved ones--it is all of you who are making the difference in lives. I applaud all of you. This is what we need to do, to change lives.

Here is her story:

"I was what appeared to be a typical teenager, 15 years old, straight A student, athlete with tons of friends! I would sneak beer into sleepovers and always wanted to attend the party. Things my parents would never condone me doing, but certainly just thought it was part of raising a teenager and eventually I'd grow up, go to college, get married and be just fine. After all that made sense, I was a natural leader and never had problems succeeding in whatever I wanted to accomplish. 

I was 16 and had smoked pot numerous times and decided it was for me! I wanted pot every day, but I had a minimum wage job in which I bought a sack every pay check. One day everything changed for me, I went to buy my sack with my little paycheck as I always had. That day I was told "Hey if you buy 3 sacks I'll give you the 4th for free". That seemed simple enough to me, I had tons of friends and most of which smoked. That day I was given 4 bags of weed as a "gift" and told to bring back the money for 3. I was convinced this was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me, I instantly trusted this man and I didn't even realize it! The power I felt was frightening. Little did I know that I had been picked, groomed, reeled in and watched by this dealer... What I believed to be kindness towards me  was actually the worst thing ever done to me. I was just a pawn in this game, I thought I was getting the benefit but really I was just a piece used to play. I very quickly learned that I wanted to play the game, not be the pawn. The moment I learned how to "get my pot" for free...it changed me. I learned I could apply that concept to every area of my life. Before I knew it, I was the one playing, not the pawn. Fast forward ten years and that young girl who learned to flip a dime bag, went from dime bag to ounces, ounces to pounds...Pot to whatever drug I was using in that period. Then to prescription pain pills. Once you start selling prescription drugs....everything else starts fading off, there's just no time...Opiate addicts take your full attention in the game. They are different than any other addicts you sell. I found vulnerable newly addicted opiate users, convinced them I was a help to them, gained their trust and used them to feed my very expensive addiction to Oxycontin, as they fed theirs. I had not one shred of compassion or honesty left in me. Somewhere along the road of addiction my heart had slowly frozen over. 

Oxycontin got sued for billions for claiming they were "non addictive" Big pharma got exposed and then became required to have additives in the Oxys......and the opiate game changed forever.  Prices doubled and soon tripled, near the end if you had them, you had all the power. I was so addicted, and I was losing control and the hustle was getting harder to do with price up and my habit. I was so desperate, but not to get clean, but to figure out my next move...how could I use to my advantage. In one day that plan landed in my lap by the devil himself. I was so arrogant, so selfish, so manipulative and I loved, I thrived from it! I thought I had everything it took to sale heroin and get every desperate opiate addict I knew to buy it, no one could afford the pills any longer. For me there was no money to be made at this point, everything went straight to my arm.  The truth was I didn't have what it takes to sell heroin. Years of hustling, controlling, manipulating, and losing completely who I was couldn't have prepared me for what that demon brought to the table. I intentionally got others on it, used it as leverage over them and told myself I had the control....and the whole time the heroin had control over me. I watched every person I got addicted lose themselves, their families, their souls, their children, their homes, their jobs, their cars and some even their lives....just because I simply needed heroin and Molly running through my veins at all times. You don't get anymore selfish than that, and that is the heart of every heroin addict out there. Heroin steals any conscience you may have once had. I told myself I was caring by "teaching my buyers how to not overdose" and not selling to them when they had taken other drugs, cutting their heroin down so they didn't overdo it, not letting them mix it...but I never truly cared, I just needed to tell myself I did or I couldn't go on. When your thought process is consumed by darkness you will convince yourself of whatever you need to be true in order to justify your actions. After the 2nd overdose on my conscience (that I knew of) as well as seeing every single person I sold to, their lives quickly destroyed...I finally gave up. I desperately wanted to be clean. I ran to medical detox...which didn't work and hid from every single person I had ever sold heroin. I didn't know what else to do so I went to the methadone clinic and hid from the world and all the calls from sick heroin addicted monsters I had created. Which the result of that, my dear friend was taking Xanax to deal with being sick from withdrawals...as I ignored him for days. Then on day 4 when he finally found something that was 3x stronger than what I gave him (because I always cut it fearing someone would od) mixed with the Xanax he had been taking because I wouldn't get him heroin.  He overdosed and died. That was the end of the end for me, I was at the methadone clinic (Which is a total joke by the way and the government's way of making $$$ off suffering addicts by just giving them a legal high!!!!) I still was shooting grams of Molly, using heroin on off days and robbing homes to try to figure out my next "plan" as I hid from all the monsters I had created. 

In that week...someone told on me for home invasions (WHOEVER YOU ARE....thank you for telling on me....you saved my life) I was arrested for traffic tickets and questioned on robbery. It was the best thing that ever happened to me and I knew it. I wanted to be clean, I was done trying to control everyone and everything. I wanted my son, family and healthy marriage back. All in which I had given up for heroin. I happily confessed to all my robberies and said I need locked up, save me from myself. I spent the next 45 days coming off 10 years of drug abuse in a cold, hard concrete room and next to being actively addicted to heroin....it's the most miserable thing I've ever been through!! And thank GOD it was miserable,it needed to be so I remembered that I NEVER want to endure that ever again. This idea that we need to "make the come down easy for people " or "use legal drugs to come off illegal drugs"...it's a joke. It needs to be the worst hell you've ever experienced....because you will carry that with you...and you won't ever want to endure it again. I needed to be locked up, I couldn't have the choice to use I needed saved from my self. It wasn't until I had sat in jail for 6 months finally clean, one day from getting out that I was then charged for my crimes with heroin. At the time it seemed like the end of the world being charged with more felonies, for past crimes when I was finally clean and starting over... but looking back, it was just another step in ultimately saving my life.

All this to say....heroin is no longer your homeless, older, poor man on the street. It's your stay at home moms, your straight A student, your beauty queen, your shining child who has always been a leader, your shy kid who wants to fit in, your star athlete who got Vicodin from a sports injury, it's your grandmother who has had back pain. I had a great family growing up, supportive parents who knew I could do whatever I set my mind to. They did the best they knew to do. They never dreamed their daughter would take those talents of leadership and use them for evil. That is why We MUST teach our children about the dangers of drugs, and how to use the gifts they carry  to help OTHERS, not just how to help themselves. If we don't teach them....this world will teach them, hate will teach them...or someone like I was-- the once popular, nice, gifted daughter..."THE HEROIN DEALER" will teach them.

This poem is something that describes the power heroin has over a person.

"Hello, my name is heroin, I know you've heard my name. You'll love me if you try me, don't worry there's no shame. Come on just try me once, to see what I'm about. You'll love the feeling that I give, trust me there's no doubt. Your pain will leave, your eyes will drift into the fantasy you feel. Then suddenly you'll want, but that's good it's no big deal. I'll turn that want into a need, so I can see you everyday. Now that I have you where I want, it's with your soul I get to play!  I'll introduce you to the needle, so there's no doubt of my control. I'll take from you all you love, so now your trapped inside my hole. You'll lose your family and yourself, I'll drive you crazy in your head. Without me, you won't survive the day, you'll wish that you were dead. Your eyes fall dark, you'll have no hope, your skin will turn deathly pale. You will steal, kill and lie for me, as I drag you straight through hell. You will not care, who you are, as long as I'm inside your vein. See, I told you that you'd love me, now I control your very name. So try me once, that's all I ask, I promise to come through. I'll turn you numb, you'll live for me....as I steal your soul from you."