Recovering Heroin Addict Discusses the Challenges She Faced in Inpatient Treatment

I’m Jen. I’m from Massachusetts and I’m a recovering heroin addict and I’m currently at Lakeview. In about May, 2011, I broke into my brother’s house and I realized that was my bottom and I needed help. I grabbed a phone book, started calling places in the phone book, and came across Lakeview. They asked if I was willing to go anywhere. I said yes, I just needed the help, and I ended up here. I got here, and, oh my God, I hated the place. I hated the people, I hated the staff, I hated everybody.

I started my therapy and realized that it wasn’t really the place I hated so much, the people that I hated so much, it was myself that I hated so much. 6 weeks of therapy is a lot. You learn a lot about yourself, stuff that I never even knew was a problem. It took a while for me to actually get involved in the program. When I first got here, I assumed I was just going to skate through the program, break as many rules as possible, and get the hell out. After a couple weeks of not following the rules, I realized that this is serious, I’m not going to be able to just skate through this unless I want to go home and relapse, and I know that that’s just not going to work for me anymore. I’ve done this for too long.

I’ve been getting high since I was about 18 years old. Started off smoking weed, started doing OxyContin, and then progressed to heroin, and if I continue on this road, I know I’m going to end up dead.

The therapists here definitely taught me a lot about myself. I didn’t like them at all when I first got here and it’s just crazy how much you learn. You learn about yourself, you learn about your addictive behaviors, and you learn things that you thought, “oh, that’s just the way I am.” You realize that it’s actually your disease, and Lakeview is an awesome place to be. The people are amazing. The staff is amazing, they have helped me out so many times when I wanted to leave, I couldn’t take it anymore, I just wanted to go home, I’m so far away from home, I just wanted to be with my family. They encouraged me to stay and made me realize that I was making the right decision for myself and it doesn’t matter what I want, it’s what I need. And I realize that I did need to be here and it’s such an amazing experience to have made it through the program and completed the program and I’m leaving here a completely different, different person. And that’s my story.