Down and Out — and Loved

My journey from employed and stable to addicted and homeless

My name is Michael, I'm 36 years old. I live in South Carolina.

I became homeless a couple of years ago through poor choices and taking my many blessings for granted.

I fell in love with a girl I'm still with today, four years ago. She's perfect in every way to me, and I cherish her as she is the most beautiful woman in my eyes. I hope to live my life with her until the end. Shortly after we met, we both got jobs in a great work environment that paid well. Blue-collar work but it paid well. We both made close to a thousand dollars a week and soon moved into our first home. We were both happy and hard-working people, living life in peace and enjoying our relationship.

I began having back pain with the hard labor my job, so I started taking Suboxone and sometimes opioids to maintain my work ability. This went on for some time.

One day I went to work without taking anything and realized I wasn't feeling like myself. I felt hot and yet had the chills. I felt nauseous. I thought I had the flu. I soon understood that I was addicted to opiates, physically. So I began taking opiates to function without pain every day, whether I worked or not.

I spiraled into the addiction. Then I lost my job.

My girlfriend never touched a drug before and still hasn't to this day. She lost her job as well due to call-out points adding up.

We soon moved in with family. They gave us a timeframe to get things together or we would have to leave, regardless. I was only focused on getting my drug. My addiction dragged my girlfriend down with me in many ways. To this day, I know she truly loves me because I've literally watched her stand by my side and go through every bit of horror my addiction caused through the years, without even coming close to turning her back and leaving me alone in my self-made hell.

We eventually left the family home and began living in a car. We drove many places, saw many faces, and encountered a lot of challenges. Drug runs. Odd jobs. Ups and downs. We lived in every motel in two cities back and forth. Lived many different lives. None of which were promising due to my instability from addiction. We froze in that car in winter and sweated our body weight in summer. We always fell asleep cuddled together. Many nights, I would look at her as she fell asleep first or if I woke up in the middle of the night from withdrawals. I would stare at her beautiful face and not understand why I was putting this drug before the love of my own life.

One day before donating plasma, I took more of my drug than I intended and I died. I flatlined in front of her in the car in a parking lot. I woke up to the sight of EMS and cops surrounding me. They seemed to be angels in a weird way. Blood was pouring from my nose. I heard my real angel screaming and crying behind the car I was still in. I had overdosed in front of her. But she acted fast and called 911 and I was saved with Narcan. The EMS team had told her I was "hanging out with Jesus" and to be calm. It’s true, I actually died.

What did I do after that? I went to the hospital for more Narcan. That way I could stay addicted and have an escape plan every time I overdosed. When my girlfriend arrived at the hospital to pick me up, I immediately went looking for my drug. I couldn't understand why even death was not enough to sober me up. How could I keep throwing life away with a girl I met not two years ago and was so sure of, and dying itself in front of her couldn't keep me from this drug?

I held several odd jobs around town and lost them all. She has a job to this day and still hasn't ever touched a drug. I've been beaten up on the streets, robbed and stabbed. I've seen about everything. But what hurt the most was seeing the girl I love refuse to leave and endure this with me, knowing she deserved so much more and seeing in my mind the life I could have and was throwing away.

I got sober a couple of months ago. But it wasn't easy, and it wasn't done through a rehabilitation facility with medication. I sat, laid, and slept most of every one of the 10 days in a row it took to endure the withdrawal symptoms. I ate food from a community fridge at a church nearby and relied on good-hearted people to help as well, time to time. Every time I felt weak, my love for her kept me going. She wiped every tear and bead of sweat, and I let every painful moment be a reminder never to get on opioids ever again.

I'm technically still homeless, although now I'm currently in a motel room. She has a job, and I am going to a scheduled job interview Monday morning that pays 18 dollars an hour. It's a start. I've been sober a good while now but I have also had to take things slow because I've had to remove a lot of familiar faces and things from my life. People, places, and things that would be a direct line back to addiction.

Re-entering the sober world hasn't been easy. Hopefully, soon we will be able to move back into a real home. I guess this is primarily a story about addiction, but it led to homelessness which I endured for years.

What life advice have I gained through it all? Stay away from hard drugs, period.

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