This Story of Hope follows Rex, a former Ideal Option patient with 5 years in recovery, who fell victim to pain pill addiction in his early teens.
Every summer, Rex’s extended family rents a big house on a lake and spends a week swimming, playing cards, throwing around the football — “old-school family days,” as Rex describes it.
For years, Rex skipped the trip, telling his family he needed to work. In truth, he was addicted to opioids. He couldn’t exactly smoke heroin around his family, and a drug-free week would have thrown him into unbearable withdrawal.
“People wouldn’t have wanted to be around me,” says Rex, 36, who overcame his addiction 5 years ago, with the help of Ideal Option.
When his parents would return from the trip, they’d share pictures of all the fun. “We missed you,” they’d say. “We wish you could have been there.”
Rex’s addiction began in his late teens, when friends would hand out pain pills at parties. Rex thought: Sure, why not?
But his recreational use quickly snowballed into addiction. “I’d be hurting the next day and had to get more,” he remembers.
The focus of Rex’s life became staving off withdrawal symptoms: cold sweats, debilitating backache, and intense stomach pains.
Rex worked hard to hide his addiction from his family and various employers, drumming up excuses for arriving late or taking long lunches.
“You get creative when in you’re in that headspace,” Rex says. “I’d tell my boss, ‘Hey, my mom needs me to help her move something’ or ‘I need to get an oil change.’”
When he couldn’t afford pills, he’d pool his money with friends or pawn his possessions. “I’d think: I’d rather feel good than have this TV or these tools.”
Chasing drugs became exhausting and demoralizing.
“I could barely pay rent,” Rex remembers. “If anyone ever wanted to hang out with me, they had to pay. I was a bum.”
Rex avoided his family, and when his parents would ask why he was so moody and broke, his strategy was “deny, deny, deny.”
“I was embarrassed,” Rex says.
Eventually, Rex switched from pills to heroin. The friend who taught him to smoke off foil warned him, “You’re going to get in deeper. This is a bad route.”
But Rex saw it differently: “I was getting higher and spending half the money.”
He convinced himself he needed the heroin to perform at his job delivering materials for a flooring company.
“I thought: My back doesn’t hurt, so now I can lift more and go faster. On heroin, I thought I was Superman. You feel no pain or fear. You’re in the mindset of: Let’s go!”
Rex lost the job after a co-worker found drug residue in a work vehicle and turned Rex in.
Then he and his roommate lost their apartment.
That’s when Rex came clean about his addiction, though he wasn’t in the mindset to seek treatment.
“My parents asked if I needed a counselor, but I didn’t want help,” Rex says. “I told them I would handle it. I was locked in. In my mind, I needed to keep getting high.”
Rex worked side jobs for his dad’s construction company and pawned his few remaining possessions — his Xbox, Pokemon cards, autographed baseballs from his childhood.
Having lost his twenties to addiction, he says, “I felt like a loser.”
Eventually, that feeling propelled Rex into a month of self-reflection. “Something flipped in my mind, and I didn’t want to live that way anymore. It’s a stressful life, lying all the time. I was ready to change. It was time.”
Rex knew Suboxone would suppress withdrawal and cravings. In the past he’d bought the medication off the street to tide him over while he pursued heroin.
But now, at age 31, he thought, Why not Suboxone a real chance?
Rex called Ideal Option, enrolled as a patient, and resolved to take his medication exactly as directed. He also cut ties with most of his friends. “I just kept the good ones around,” he says.
A couple of his friends also were taking Suboxone, and they would support one another. “If any of us felt like using one day, we would use each other as counseling.”
Rex quickly felt like himself again. He was no longer irritable, and everyone around him noticed. “My parents gave me compliments, and my life was tenfold better. It was awesome.”
Rex became a full-time employee at his dad’s construction company and told his boss he was in recovery.
“He was rooting me on,” Rex says. “He would let me leave early so I could go to my Ideal Option appointments.”
Rex moved into an apartment with a friend in recovery and was excited to save money for the first time.
“I could actually hang out with friends and pay for my dinner and afford gas,” he says. “It was such a relief.”
Over time, Rex bought himself a new Xbox, a computer, and a better car. “You start feeling better about yourself and get back into life,” he says.
Best of all, he became an honest, forthright person.
“I spent my whole twenties hiding,” he says. “Not being a liar anymore felt amazing. Finally, people knew where I was — physically, mentally, stability-wise.”
After four years on Suboxone, Rex gradually tapered off the medication. He feels secure in his recovery.
Occasionally, he’ll drive by a location where he used to meet his dealer, but he quickly shuts down any thoughts of using again.
“I’ll check myself, like: Just keep driving and you’ll be fine. The further away I get from it all, the more I feel I don’t want to go back. I know it would only end up one way: with me dead.”
These days, Rex is very much alive and relishes those annual family trips to the lake.
He remembers his first year back. “Halfway through the trip, I thought, This is what I was missing out on every year. I had this realization that I was wasting my time doing drugs when I could have been with everyone. It was amazing to be part of the family again.”
Specializing in addiction medicine since 2012, Ideal Option has helped tens of thousands of people just like Rex get started in recovery. Click here to make an appointment at Ideal Option today!
Next up: “Now, I want to live life to the fullest.” — Michael’s Story of Hope