The Puffer Forum

As many of you know, i'm a recovering addict. I have 13 years clean. At my last anniversary, there was a young couple. They were newcomers trying to get off heroin. The girl called me a couple of days after that meeting. They were out of drugs, out of money & living in his car. She said if they couldn't get into treatment that day, they were planning on killing themselves. I helped them find a facility & only by a sheer miracle (with the way state funding is nowadays), did they both get in the same day. I called over there to give her words of encouragement 2 days later & they both had already left. The gal died today at 22, of a heroin overdose. I'm sad today.

WOW thats gotta to be hard.

I'm really sorry to hear that PP ='( i hope she is at peace.

I hope she is too. I don't think the BF is learning from this now. he's caught up pretty bad in his addiction too. I blame a big chunk of this on the rehab, taking them both in. Of course they'd leave together!

This is very sad indeed, I'm very sorry things ended like that.

I'm sorry to hear this. Stay strong PP.

How sad. May she rest in peace now.

OMG! That's so sad! At least you did what you could do to help. As you know if they really want help they would have stayed. My cousin died from drug abuse five years ago leaving 4 small children for her mother to raise. Then her sister-n-law died 6 months later from an overdose, she left one child for her mother to raise. It's hard when you try to help someone and they say they want help but don't take it. I'm sorry to hear that pufferpunk. I truly hope she is at peace.

I think they were only desperate to get into treatment because they were out of drugs, $$$, a home & going through withdrawals. They did go to a meeting though, even though they were high there.

That is a truly sad story pufferpunk. My heart goes out to you. I wish I had enough fingers and toes to count the number of friends that I have lost to heroin. It really is an epidemic here in the chicagoland area. If anyone is interested there is a non profit group called the heroin epidemic relief organization, h.e.r.o, that is trying to make a change. It was started by two fathers in my town who both lost their sons to heroin less than two weeks apart. I live in will county and last year we lost 30 kids to this. That number has already been passed up this year. If this was an e coli outbreak there would be a quarantine on every street corner. This problem needs to be brought to light. I encourage everyone to go to h.e.r.o's Facebook and share your stories. Or better yet, come to a rally. It's up to us, the survivors, the friends, the families of these people to try to stop this.

I would have thought the drug of choice in rural areas would be meth. I'm glad the families of those kids have found something they can do to help.

It's kinda crazy but you can see what I mean by bringing it to light. Not many people who live around Chicago really know it's a problem. I think that's why it is so important to share stories like your's. There is a thousand other people within 50 miles of you that have similar stories. But because of the stigma of the drug lots of people keep it secret.

This is exactly why I don't chose to remain anonymous.

This is truly a sad story. I feel for you but admire you for doing your best. I am very good friends with a set of twins who suffered a similar struggle, both tried hard to get out, one lives in a council flat on the dole and just gets by. The other went up and became a pub/ b&b manager then left me a note on facebook, before i could get to him he commited suicide as he felt he could live nomore.. Such a waste of life. After driving for 2 hours i found him. The worst part was breaking the news to his twin. I think he somehow knew tho.

I grew up in Chicago, and I lost quite a bit of my friends growing up to drugs and gang violence. I think that's one reason why I moved out of the city... too many bad memories.