This medication-assisted treatment success Story of Hope follows Dustin, now an Ideal Option patient in recovery, who fell into addiction when he began using opioids in high school.
Dustin began using opioids in high school gym class, when a friend would distribute pills he’d stolen from his father. By age 19, Dustin was so addicted that he was stealing to stay afloat.
“I’d pawn any items I could,” remembers Dustin, now 31 and an Ideal Option patient. “I sold a gold necklace my grandmother gave me and shotguns for hunting.”
Arrested for stealing electronics from a friend, he spent two weeks in jail and was sentenced to community service and 18 months’ probation. He had plenty of incentive to stay off drugs: A failed urinalysis would send him to prison for 10 years.
Dustin remained drug free for those 18 months — and not one day longer.
“The day I got off probation, I hung out with my old crowd of friends,” Dustin remembers. “I was planning to celebrate with a couple of beers, but it turned into a party, and I did Percoset and Xanax.”
The next day, an acquaintance introduced him to heroin.
“The rush I got was unbelievable, like going to Disneyland for the first time,” Dustin says.
Snorting heroin gave Dustin confidence and lifted feelings of sadness and depression. “Once I did heroin,” he says, “I wasn’t shy anymore.”
For a while, he juggled his heroin addiction with his job working for his dad’s plumbing company. But when money ran low, he turned to selling drugs and stealing. His parents noticed items missing from the house and kicked him out.
Dustin, then 22, stayed drug-free briefly but then learned, via a paternity test, that the boy he considered his son was not actually his biological child. He became depressed and suicidal.
For the next two years, Dustin bounced around the streets, stealing to buy drugs and stave off the misery of withdrawal.
One night, he watched two women overdose at a motel. One of them nearly died. “Her lips were blue and her skin was pale, and she had to be put in a tub with ice water,” Dustin remembers. “That was one of my wake-up calls.”
Dustin told his parents, “I’m in a bad place,” and asked for their support. They let him come home but watched him like a hawk.
“I could not leave my room until I had been completely clean for two weeks,” he says.
Having quit opioids cold turkey rather than with the help of medication, he suffered severe withdrawal, including diarrhea and vomiting. “I felt like I’d been stabbed in the stomach,” he says.
Without medication like Suboxone to suppress his cravings, Dustin struggled to avoid drugs.
“It was really hard to transfer back over to a normal life,” he says. “You’re looking at Facebook, seeing all your friends partying. I didn’t feel like myself. It was very hard to cope with life.”
Dustin missed seeing the boy he still considered his son. He’d been the boy’s only father figure and wanted to fulfill that role, but the boy’s mom wouldn’t let him until he proved he could remain drug-free.
Before long, Dustin was back snorting heroin. To pay for his drugs, he sold his motorcycle and car. His parents kicked him out again, telling him: “If you don’t go to rehab, we don’t want anything to do with you.’”
At first, Dustin didn’t care. He roamed the streets again and sold drugs, earning just enough to avoid withdrawal and periodically sleep in a motel.
Then one day, he received a phone call from the mother of the boy he considered his son. She put the boy on the phone.
“That flipped a switch in my head,” Dustin recalls. “I broke down. I didn’t want to drugs anymore. I didn’t want to do anything but be that kid’s father.”
A week later, he called the county health department. He told them he’d used opioids for 13 years, was estranged from his family, and wanted to change.
“Making that call was hard,” Dustin says. “I didn’t want to seem like I was a bad person.”
He began taking Suboxone to suppress withdrawal and cravings and enrolled in intensive outpatient treatment, attending classes three times a week and, slowly, opening up to others.
After three months, he says, he felt “mentally OK” and landed a job in retail. With financial help from his grandmother, he rented a place of his own.
Early on, life seemed boring. “I was like, Man, is this really how life is?”
But this time, Dustin was determined to avoid getting sucked back into drug use. He created a new Facebook account, got a new phone number, and deleted his old contacts. “I got everybody from before out of my life,” he says.
He remembers realizing he only had 8 contacts in his phone, all family members. “Before, I had well over 200,” he says. “But I didn’t want to go back.”
Dustin says it took him a couple years to regain the trust of his parents and his son’s mother.
“You can’t take back what you did, but you can show them who you’re becoming and prove that you’re going to be different. At first, they didn’t believe it. They think you’re a druggie and you’re just going to go back.”
Dustin proved he was serious by helping out his family in small ways. He mowed the grass. He helped his sister move. He gave his parents $200 from each paycheck.
“I had to rebuild my whole life,” he says. “My family means everything to me.”
At first, Dustin was only allowed supervised visitation with his son, who by then was 5 years old. Eventually, the boy’s mom trusted Dustin enough to take the boy on solo outings and, later, sleepovers.
“He was just going into kindergarten and getting into T-ball,” Dustin remembers. “I taught him how to swim and ride a bike and play baseball. We went fishing a lot. It was amazing.”
Dustin regained his fitness and energy. He left his retail job and rejoined his dad’s plumbing company, where he still works. He bought a house next door to his parents and now has 50% custody of his son, who is 10.
“When I pick him up at the school, I make sure he does his school work and chores, and then he has free time. We ride dirt bikes and play Fortnite and chess. He’s really good at chess.”
Dustin attends 12-step meetings twice a week and serves as a sponsor.
“Listening to other people’s stories and seeing how people react when you tell your story — it makes you feel really good,” Dustin says.
Dustin is amazed at how he has transformed his life and says, “I don’t feel done yet.” He’s taking online classes at night, with the goal of becoming an addiction counselor.
“The best part of being sober is waking up and being able to go about your day and not feel sick,” he says. “It’s like the cuffs are off, like I’m not in jail anymore. And seeing your son smile when you take him to school – that’s the best.”
Specializing in addiction medicine since 2012, Ideal Option has helped tens of thousands of people just like Dustin get started in recovery. Click here to make an appointment at Ideal Option today!
Next up: “Right then and there, I said I’d never use another opiate” — Jennifer’s Story of Hope