My Life as a Heroin Addict

My name is Tyler Hedberg. I am 17 years old and I live in Everett WA. I am a Heroine addict. I have been clean for 109 days now and I have never felt better about my life. I have so many things going for me that, if I was out using still, I would not be able to do today. I want to share my story with others to show how much heroine destroys lives of yourself and others around you. Here is my story.

I was born in Bellevue WA on June 25, 1992. My parents are Brian and Latisha. Growing up, I did not have a rough child hood at all. My father was really into extreme sports. I grew up on Motorcycles, Quads and Snowmobiles. I raced Quads and dirt bikes for 8 years and I also raced Snowmobiles for 3 years. During those times, I took home 6 state championships. My parents were very proud of me and I was doing so good that I actually had a chance to make a racing career for myself. I was sponsored by Factory Honda for racing Dirt bikes and I was sponsored by Factory Arctic cat for racing Snowmobiles. When I was about 12 years old, my parents got a divorce. My dad moved out and my mom began to drink very heavily. She went to the bars a lot so that left me with babysitters all of the time. When my little sister was born, I assumed that she would stop drinking because she knew she could not take care of a newborn drunk. Things only got worse. My mom, who I lived with, had an extremely good job. She was a Multi Millionaire at one point. Because of her job, I was able to get a lot of money from her. She gave me around 200 dollars a week. I always had the nicest things and I took a lot for granted.

I did not have much respect for any of my things and I began to become a real snotty kid. When my dad moved away, he was homeless so I did not get to see him much. So, I had to stop racing because my mom would not take me riding and my dad couldn’t either because he was living in his truck and could not afford to pay for the gas to get to my races all over the Northwest. When I stopped racing, I had nothing to keep me busy. I hated going to school everyday and I hated not having my dad in my life. One day I got suspended from school for getting into a fight with a kid who called my father a no good piece of shit. My mom had to come and pick me up from school and she was extremely drunk. Even the staff at my school knew it. Once my mom brought me home she started yelling and screaming at me and calling me all types of names. I was tired of how she was treating me. She never treated me like her own child. All she did was yell and bitch at me for everything. I decided to call my friend and ask if I could stay the night because I did not feel save at my own home. That night I went over to his house and I met his older brother. I explained to him what had happened and he said that he had a way to help me. I was twelve years old at this time and I did not fully understand a lot in life. I had missed out on so much because of me not going to school that I didn’t understand at all the effects that drugs do to you. When my friend was in the shower that night, I asked his brother how he could help me. He told me to sit down and he would be right back. He returned moments later with tinfoil and a pen with no ink in it. He asked if I had ever smoked heroine before. I didn’t even know what heroine was at the time and he was cool so I said ya, just so I could seem cooler to him. I had never done it before but I just wanted to make it seem like I was badass or something. We started smoking and I instantly began to feel the effects. My whole body went numb, I couldn’t move, talk, or even walk. All my problems had seemed to go away and from then on, I thought I had found my cure for my problems.

For the next 2 years, I smoked heroine about three times a week. When I turned 14, I got kicked out of my moms’ house for throwing a party on new years. The Christmas tree at the house was thrown through a window and the house was completely trashed. My mom sent me to live with my dad and that is when my using and behaviors became really heavy. I didn’t have all of the money for my drugs coming from my mom anymore since I did not live with her and my dad couldn’t afford anything, especially to give me money. I became very argumentative and an angry person because I was not able to do drugs as much as my body was used to. I needed to find a way to make money. I began to sell weed and pills to get my money for heroin. I was never really into smoking weed because it didn’t do much for me. I was smoking heroin before I even tried weed and that is what I wanted to stick to. I was selling about 5 ounces a week and a lot of pills. Where I moved to where my dad lived, there was a lot of people who used so it was pretty easy for me to gain customers quickly. I was able to afford more heroin than I had ever been able to before and I still had money on the side for things that I wanted to buy. One day, I came home from school and I thought no one was at my house. By this time, I was smoking heroin at least 5 times a day. My parents had started wondered what was going on with me because my grades were dropping; I was starting to be more isolated. When I was home I never left my room because I was so scared that my parents would yell at me for something that I don’t even remember doing. When I got home from school that day, I was really made because I had found out that I failed 4 of my six classes’ sophomore year. I went straight to my room, grabbed my stash and started to smoke some heroin, rail some pills and smoke some weed. My father was not supposed to be home until 5 but he showed up at about 3 and walked in my door when I was in the middle of taking a hit of some heroin. He was shocked at what he saw. He took all of my drugs and flushed them down the toilet and then called the police and told them what was going on. The police showed up but they could not take me to jail because I did not have any drugs on me since my dad had flushed them down the toilet. I got grounded and told my dad I would never do it again. I was just telling him what he wanted to hear so I could get off grounding sooner.

The next day, I still had all of the money I had made from selling drugs and when my dad went to work, I hopped on my bike and rode 15 miles to my dealer’s house and bought heroine, weed and pills. I was right back where I was. I was selling weed and pills once again and smoking heroin. At the end of my day, I went home before my dad usually got home so I wouldn’t get into trouble. My dad was already there. He knew I was high when I came in the door and he told me that I was going to go to treatment whether I liked it or not. I went to treatment just to make him happy and I had planned on getting high again right away when I came home. Something happened in treatment though. I suddenly felt the urge to stay clean, after my heroin withdrawals for a week of shitting, pissing and vomiting all over myself had ended. I began to work the program in treatment to the best of my abilities. After 28 days I thought I was ready to go home and that I could stay clean and so did my parents and my counselor. I had not told them everything that I was doing because I knew I would have to stay there longer and I just wanted to leave. Within 2 days of me being home, I was smoking weed again with some friends. Smoking weed went on for about 3 months and when I started outpatient, my dad found out I was smoking weed again. He was not happy at all. I thought since I was only smoking weed and that it was not addicting that I would be okay. Well I learned something. Weed is really a gateway drug like they say and weed is addicting. One day, in outpatient group, a kid walked into group that I recognized. Turns out, he was someone I used to get high with on occasions. We ended up hanging out together a lot and have fun times. We both managed to get sober and we were really having a good time. One day, he called me and asked me if I had ever smoked an oxy. I told him know and he said he would be over in a little bit. When he showed up, he showed me the pill and I thought since I have been clean I will not go back to using regularly.

It was the first time that I had ever smoked an oxycontin before and I noticed it made me feel like I was smoking heroin again so I instantly fell in love. Oxy was really expensive though. I began to smoke oxy a couple times a week and when I didn’t have them in my system, I felt like complete shit. I became dependent on this drug and I would do anything to get it. I was beginning to rob people’s house, breaking into cars, stealing money from friends and there possessions and eventually, I got to the point where I stole tools, a ps3, a ps2 and all sorts of other things from my dad for drugs. I was getting tired of spending so much money on oxy so I went right back to heroin. There was a problem though. My tolerance had gone up so much that it took way to much heroin to get me as high as I liked to be. I always said I would never use a needle and in order for me to get high, I had to shoot up. I was shooting up heroin for about 6 months every day, selling drugs and as long as drugs were involved in something, I would be there. I became reliant on drugs. I quit going to school, outpatient, became very unhealthy and very sick. My parents knew what was going on with me yet again and they wanted me to get help. But I refused. For some reason I just wanted to be dead. I tried killing myself by taking 20 serequels, and also by smoking a lot of heroin and doing a lot of other drugs. No matter how hard I tried, I could just not do it. One night, I was at a friends house shooting up, smoking and snorting drugs and I overdosed. It turns out that night I smoked 2 beans (oxy), shot up 5 grams of heroine and snorted about 1 grams of cocaine. I do not why I did not die that night. I woke up at my friend’s house 2 days latter covered in shit, vomit and piss. The addict in me told me that I needed to get high right away so that is what I did. I shoved another needle in my arm and got high.

When I had overdosed, all of my money and my drugs had gotten taken from me. I had already been kicked out of my house because my parents could not trust me and they were scared of me when I was using and they knew I was using. I broke into the house and stole over 1200 dollars worth of things. I went and pawned them and got drugs. When I was pawning the stuff that I stolen, I was thinking to myself, why do I keep living life like this? Why can’t I just die already? I realized that I need some help and I had a disease. I was a drug addict. That night, I was walking around town with some friends in November of 2009 and my parents saw me and stopped and got out of the car and began yelling and screaming at me. There just happened to be a cop in the parking lot so they went up to him and told them that I had broken into the house and stolen many things once again. The cop said he was taking me to jail and read me my rights and put me in the car. All I remember after that is waking up and the cop saying were at your house. I thought that going to jail so I did not argue and I got out of the car. That night when I went o bed I decided that enough was enough and I was tired of living in this lifestyle and I wanted out. Three days later I went up to Mount Vernon Washington and was checked into a detox center there. I stayed there for 10 days and then I got accepted into treatment in Spokane at a place called daybreak youth services. I was at this treatment for 60 days and within my first week there, I relapsed on cocaine that a client had somehow snuck in. after me relapsing, I really knew that I was in treatment to get help and I promised my self, that I was going to do this. I was actually going to make an attempt to stay clean. That’s what I did. I graduated from impatient and came to this sober recovery house where I am staying at now to further out my treatment. Today, I can say im sober and it feels good. I love my life now today. I found a group called Narcotics Anonymous and this program is saving my life. There has been a couple of times where I have almost went back out using and I went to a meeting instead and felt so much better. I have the honor today to attend school on my own will and I can actually graduate this year on time as long as I keep working hard. I attend 2 12 step meetings daily and they save my life. Drugs really destroy your life. I am only 17 years old and 5 years of addiction destroyed me. I lost the people I loved, friends, family and everything and anything I loved. Today I am grateful to be sober. I have learned to take one day at a time because if I saw that I will never use again, then I am being cocky with my addiction and it will once again take over my life.

I hope that you have enjoyed what I had to write. This is the first time I have ever written this stuff down before. I am doi9ng this because I want to share my story with the rest of the world and possibly help them with there sobriety. Today, my higher power and I get through life. I do not have to worry where am I going to get money for drugs because I do not need them. I am truly grateful today to be able to sit here and say that I am an recovering heroin addict. I have met some very amazing people in the program that I am working now and I would not change my life for anyone or anything. So, if you have an addiction problem, go to treatment. Being clean is so much better than being loaded. I am happy I am alive and today I am proud to say at meetings “Hi, I am Tyler, And I am a Recovering Heroin addict”

Thank you for reading this. I really honestly appreciate it. God Bless Tyler Hedberg