This Story of Hope follows Michael, now an Ideal Option patient with 12 years in recovery, who fell into the grip of addiction to hydrocodone after tearing his ACL.
Normally a laid-back person, Michael was suddenly slamming doors and staying out all night, avoiding his wife and five kids. Addicted to “any drug I could get my hands on,” he was draining his bank account to the tune of $500 to $1,000 a month.
“I was raised with morals, and my morals left me,” recalls Michael, age 60, now an Ideal Option patient with 12 years in recovery. “Nobody wanted to be around me.”
Michael’s mom warned him: “I don’t usually get in your business, but you are going down a bad road.”
Then Michael’s wife left and took the kids.
“She told me, ‘You’re going to have to find a way to get better, or I’m not coming home,’” recalls Michael. “I was mad. I didn’t want to stop.”
Michael’s first go-around with addiction began at age 28, after he tore his ACL playing basketball and was prescribed hydrocodone following surgery.
Though he’d never abused drugs or alcohol before, looking back, he believes his addictive personality made him vulnerable to opioid use disorder. “I couldn’t just run 7 miles — I had to run 28,” says Michael, who was training for a marathon when he got injured.
Six months after surgery, Michael’s doctor cut off his pill prescription. Michael felt achy and nauseous but didn’t recognize his symptoms as withdrawal.
“I just thought I had the flu,” he says. “I was so naïve. I wasn’t ready to admit my addiction back then.”
Michael managed to stay off drugs for 6 years, but a second knee surgery and another hydrocodone prescription sent him back into full-blown addiction.
His new doctor pulled the plug on his opioid prescription right away, and Michael began buying pills from a neighbor. A new job managing a nightclub’s VIP section made it easy to maintain his supply.
That’s when his family and friends began noticing disturbing changes in Michael’s personality and behavior.
“Everyone has a rock bottom,” Michael says. “My family leaving was my rock bottom.”
Michael’s turnaround began when, out of the blue, he received a call from a long, lost high school friend. “He told me had alcohol addiction and invited me to join his men’s group,” Michael says.
Heartened that his wife had left the door open to reconciliation, Michael accepted his friend’s invitation.
“That guy changed my life,” Michael says. “He told me: ‘You can stop. You will see light again. You’ll have fun again.’ I didn’t think I’d ever have fun again if I stopped doing drugs.”
Feeling supported by the group, Michael made himself vulnerable and embarked on serious introspection.
“I wore my heart on my sleeve,” Michael remembers. “My friend went through a divorce, and I didn’t want to do that. My wife still held out an olive branch for me.”
At first, Michael found it difficult to admit his addiction. He had a brother who fell into alcoholism and died in a car accident, and Michael had always associated addiction with alcohol abuse.
“I thought I was a recreational drug user,” he says.
Michael stopped using drugs cold turkey and suffered miserable withdrawal. “It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever gone through — I was slamming my legs on the ground,” he remembers.
Then he learned about Suboxone and enrolled in a clinic to get a prescription. His insurance wouldn’t cover the cost, so his parents helped him out.
Later, he heard about Ideal Option and was able to get Suboxone covered.
Six months into his recovery, Michael’s wife and kids came home. “I told them, ‘I’m going to fix this,’” Michael remembers. “They said they loved me despite it all.”
Michael says Suboxone not only made his drug cravings disappear but also relieved his depression.
“Depression was one reason I took drugs in the first place,” he says. “Now, I want to live life to the fullest.”
Today, Michael owns a successful IT business, and his relationship with his wife is better than ever. He still takes Suboxone and attends a weekly men’s group.
He long ago cut ties with people who supplied him drugs or used with him. “You have to change your environment,” he says. “Now I hang out with people who are going places I want to go. I get outdoors and do positive things.”
He hikes with his wife and takes his grandchildren to the lake. He loves feeling liberated from “constantly having to find drugs — fighting the battle to not feel crappy.”
In recovery for over a decade, Michael says his family has long since forgiven him.
Every once in a while, his addiction will come up in conversation, and Michael and his wife will say, “Can you believe it? Who was that guy?”
Specializing in addiction medicine since 2012, Ideal Option has helped tens of thousands of people just like Michael get started in recovery. Click here to make an appointment at Ideal Option today!
Next up: “Suboxone gave me the chance to build a new life.” — Kari’s Story of Hope