When I finally decided to get help for my meth addiction, I knew I needed to get away. There was zero chance of my staying clean while being surrounded by my current “friends”. I got a job in New York right out of college and moved there the day after graduation. It sounds clichéd to say it, but the city ate me alive. I was up all night, worrying about work, if I was performing well, how I was going to pay my rent if I got fired, and a million other things that seem so much worse at 2:30 in the morning. My anxiety consumed me and soon I started experimenting with pills and meth. I thought if I could just have a little something extra, I could conquer all I needed to get done at work and be tired enough to sleep through the night when I got home.

I’d first tried meth with my roommate, who knew what I was going through, as he slept twenty feet away from me. For the first few weeks, I thought this was the best I’d ever had and kept telling myself I would stop when I got adjusted to my new lifestyle. After three months, meth just refused to let me go. I craved it all the time, and whenever I wasn’t able to get it, my body paid the price. After a while, no amount of meth was enough to satisfy me, and I went broke trying to feel “normal” again. I’d call my parents begging them to send me large sums of money, claiming that living in the city was a lot more expensive than I thought.

The night that things started to change was when a cousin who had always been close to my immediate family came by for a surprise visit, and saw how meth had physically transformed me. During our visit, I was evasive, preoccupied and nervous. He hadn’t seen me in about a year, but he could tell something was definitely up. The longer he stayed, the more he reminded me of home, and I eventually just completely unraveled. I told him how hard things had been, and how I’d been abusing meth to make things “easier”. He packed a bag for me, took me back to his hotel room and stayed up with me until I fell asleep.

While I was asleep, he called my parents and told them what was going on. They immediately booked a flight home for me. My cousin told me that it wasn’t an option and my life here no longer existed. I told him I needed a week to sort everything out. He gave me three days and watched me like a hawk the entire time. I returned to Florida and immediately enrolled in an amazing and supportive treatment program. I was treated with kindness, sensitivity and compassion. I was more relaxed and comfortable than I’d been for a long time and give all the credit of my recovery to the staff that treated me. I’m doing much better now that I’m back home, and haven’t touched drugs since I left New York eighteen months ago. You never know how much you miss home, until you have to learn the hard way.

Kyle H.
St. Augustine, FL