I Was a Drug Addict Long Before They Locked Me Up

 

People think prison made me an addict. I hear that all the time.Let me set the record straight: I was a drug addict long before they ever slapped cuffs on me.

You want to know the real story? I was thirteen years old when I got my first hit. And it wasn’t some back-alley deal or some shady friend that put me on. It was my own father.

He shot me up himself. First time. Meth. Said it would make me feel better. Said it would help me forget. And it did—for a while. Until forgetting was the only thing I knew how to do.

From that moment on, I wasn’t living—I was running. Running from myself, my past, the pain I didn’t even have the words for yet. Drugs weren’t a party for me. They weren’t about fun or getting high. They were about surviving the only way I’d ever been taught.

By the time I hit seventeen, I’d been in and out of juvie. I’d already seen things most grown men wouldn’t believe. And I was strung out—bad. The kind of strung out where you forget to eat. Where you don’t care if you wake up. Where you steal from people who love you because all you can hear is that voice in your head saying one more hit, just one more.

When they finally locked me up, I wasn’t surprised. Truth is, a part of me was relieved. You get tired of running. You get tired of hurting everybody around you. But here’s what they don’t tell you about prison:

It doesn’t fix addiction. It buries it.

You detox behind concrete walls and steel bars. You shake. You sweat. You scream inside your head. And no one cares. There’s no treatment unless you fight for it—and most don’t. They just trade one poison for another. K2. Pruno. Pills they buy off the yard. Anything to fill that hole.

I’ve seen grown men cry like babies in their bunks because they can’t get right. I’ve seen kids—just like I was—coming in dope-sick and leaving worse than they came in.

That’s the cycle nobody wants to talk about.That’s the reality they don’t show on TV.

I didn’t start getting clean because of prison. I started getting clean because I finally got tired of burying myself while I was still breathing. And it ain’t been perfect. I’ve relapsed. I’ve lost myself a thousand times. But every time I get back up—that’s the fight.

If you’re out there thinking prison’s the answer for addiction, hear me clear:Locking someone in a cage doesn’t heal them. It just hides the wound until it festers.

If you really want to help somebody like me, don’t ask what we did.Ask why we needed to escape in the first place.

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