I've never spoken a word about my past until now. I was watching a young girl on MTV's substance abuse show. For some reason I just felt compelled to write this. Maybe, if your reading this, your just browsing. Maybe, your like I was, and you've become desperate for help and you feel like all hope is lost. I promise you, hope, though it may not seem so, is always there. Hope is the last bastion for a drug addict. When we feel our own humanity slipping out of our bodies, it seems that hope follows. I began using drugs at a later age than most. I was 15, 16 years old when I started smoking pot and drinking with friends. I experimented with that same group of friends from pot, coke, lsd, shrooms, crack, pills of all kinds; you name it, I did it. Those "friends" were always around until the heroin became the high to have. Heroin took hold of me and it never let go. See, my story almost ended when I graduated college at the top of my class, Vice President, and with honors. I wanted to be a Physician, but I knew at the time I could breeze through nursing school and still party. I was clean from hard drugs, but I was still drinking and smoking a lil weed here and there. Eventually the weed had to go because it started making me too paranoid. Nothing a handfull of Vicodin or a few oxy couldnt take care of now and then. I had been dating the love of my life since my Junior year in high school. When I graduated with my Nursing degree, I thought I was going to go see the world. I left her for a girl a class below me. To make a long story shot, I left the love of my life for a scandless, kaniving, nut and I only got to see parts of the world an hour away from home, which is where she lived. To make another long story short, and when I say long, I mean looooong. I caught her not taking her birth control and a baby was on the way. When she broke the news to me, I was in the middle of packing to go back to the wonderful girl I left in the first place. I was devastated. Completly and uterly devistated. To make another long story short, the baby turned out not to be mine. I left her and that wonderful girl I left took me back. However, the damage to me had been done. During the length of time for me to find out the baby wasnt mine, I had turned to stealing drugs from the hospital. I worked ICU CCU and ER, so the drugs were ready and abundant. Demerol, Dilaudid, and Morphine. I was doing them Intra Muscular, but I would make a coctail of those 3 to numb the pain, shame, embarassment, and hopelesness to name a few of the feelings I was trying to numb. My girl stuck beside me through all of this. I was eventually caught, but I was an RN. I manipulated the system, my family, my friends, and everyone who loved me. The heroin was next. I OD'd 3 times. Twice my girl found me. She heard me gasping for air throgh the window. I had locked all the doors to shoot up, so she had to break the door down. The third time, I was in a crash house. I knew that I had OD'd as soon as this dope hit me. I had enough time to make it out to my truck because I knew if I went down in that house, the people would let me die. I passed out and hit a telephone pole at the end of the block. Next came the suboxone. It really helps if you can afford it. Alot more happened to me before all this mess, during it, and after, but im alive. My love of my life recently left me because all of this nightmare scared her. Probably for life. I dont blame her. Im ok now. Im in my junior year at a local University getting my BA in Business Admin Mgmt. I guess what I want to say is, I know how it feels when all the lights go out around you. I know how it feels to be in complete and utter darkness, and the humanity and hope inside of you is gone. Completly gone. You must, must, reach out to anyone, anywhere, and fight for your life. You have got to fight for you life and fight to keep the hope alive. I hope I've encouraged at least one person to continue to fight. There is always hope. Sometimes it just has to be shoved back inside of you. God Bless