Hi, I figured this was worth a shot. Anyway I go by Jay. I’m 32 years young. I have a few months sober, clean from crack and fentanyl. I was an intravenous user and have used on and off for the past 12 years. I had been sober before, actually up until about 18 months ago. I had had almost 3 years sober. I had made a good life for myself. gotten a nice apartment, fixed my license and bought a car. I even started a very lucrative business detailing boats, buying all my tools and even hiring a few people. I usually had 5 grand on me at any given time. I focused all my time and energy on this business. As a result I became complacent with my recovery and stopped doing the things that were helping me stay sober like going to meetings, going to my doctors or mental health programs.
It started with a little bit of drinking. I would show up to meet customers with a buzz to help with the anxiety and fear that came along with meeting new people and maintaining those customer relationships. I’m sure some of them even noticed. It wasn’t long before I met a girl and I was into her. But she was into drugs. It was just a matter of time before I was right there with her using. My work ethic and business slowly became less of a priority to me. before long I spent all my savings that I had acquired from the business. It wasn’t long before I began to sell my belongings and it wasn’t long before I lost the apartment that I had worked so hard for. Suffice to say boat owners don’t take too kindly to the fact that they have a junkie working on their boat and it was a matter of time before all the surrounding marinas knew about it
. It was just my girl, myself and the car. my girlfriend had panhandled before and offered to do it to help. It helped but it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. Now, I had never done anything like panhandle before but as you can guess I was right there with her doing the same. I was quite scarred at first but eventually it didn’t matter how I felt as it became necessary for me to not be dope sick every morning. Many moments of desperation had brought me to a point to sell the car to one of our drug dealers. I remember he gave me 500 dollars, 200 in crack, 100 in fentanyl/heroin. It was that day that we REALLY became homeless. With those drugs I ended up overdosing and almost dying that night. It was terrifying to say the least. I remember the paramedics in the ambulance asking me when my birthday was and who my family was to so that they could identify me. I was struggling to think of the answers to those questions while in a daze and became terrified that I had brain damage asking the paramedics over and over if that was the case without realizing I was doing so. I eventually recovered and went right back to where my girlfriend was. It wouldn’t be the last overdose.
after that it was a series of unfortunate events whilst hopping from abandoned house/building to the next. We had people almost shoot us. We seen a friend of ours overdose. He had died two weeks later to being brain dead and his mother had to pull the plug. He was 34. His name was chucky. I’m the one that found him unresponsive. A lot of shit had happened. They aren’t uncommon occurrences in the street either. Its traumatizing. Without writing a book on this website Ill just say…what brought me to get sober again was another overdose that almost killed me again, I got into rehab. I never did have any closure with my girlfriend. the last time I seen her was about 4 months ago when she got dropped off at rehab herself. I miss her but I know I need to work on myself. She has persistently tried to reach out to me but I haven’t returned her calls. I hope she gets help. I know she wants to stay together, I just cant right now if want any shot at this thing. I also don’t blame her for the choices I have made.
I live in a halfway house now and am doing great. I’ve gotten back to my meetings and am currently doing everything I was before but more. when I sold my car to the dealer, he never changed the title over and the car racked up parking tickets until the city towed it. So I know ive got some fines there. I also wanted to buy my tools back for the boat detailing business to try and get that going. that isnt as important as winter is coming sooner than we think. I’m also an incredibly talented atrist. I draw realistic portraits in color pencil and soft pastel. You can see examples of my work on instagram. the profile name is jakeapop and the profile pic is a drawn side view self portrait with a black hat on. like one of those goofy artist hats. as if now its got 115 followers if you find it. anyway I am passionate about art and hope to get professional art supplies once again. all in all, Im glad I could share a sliver of my story with you and would be incredibly grateful for any help I recieve. thank you and may god bless you.
Feel free to send to this https://paypal.me/Jaykapop?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US