A former heroin addict has shared the scary, painful, and harrowing details of her battle with opioids in an effort to educate others about the current health crisis.
Cortney Lovell is now clean. She works in North Chatham, New York as a public speaker, a recovery coach, and an addictions counselor — but her expertise in the subject comes from her own terrifying experiences.
In a new essay for Refinery29, the 29-year-old reveals how she got addicted in the first place — as a teenager — and the overdoses and arrests she experienced before finally getting to recovery.
Honest: Cortney Lovell, 29, had opened up about her experience with opioid addiction
Like many opioid addicts, Cortney didn’t paint the picture of a typical drug user when she first started. She was just 16 and took a prescription pill — without a prescription — given to her by a friend.
Though it made her sick later, it also flooded her body with warmth. She loved the high, and began to seek it out.
It might not have gone as far as it eventually did if her mother hadn’t been diagnosed with cancer around the same time. Cortney didn’t know how to cope, and became addicted to opioids by the time she was 17, using until she dropped out of school.
‘Once you use opioids for more than a few weeks, you become physically dependent,’ she explained. ‘My life became a cycle of doing whatever I had to do to get money and buy drugs. I couldn’t stay in college and I couldn’t hold a job, so I would manipulate my parents and come up with crazy, asinine reasons why I needed $40.’
Dangerous: She first tried the drug at 16, and by 17 she was addicted and had dropped out of school
Her addiction grew worse. While visiting extended family, she miscalculated how much drugs she needed to pack to get her through, and quickly started going through withdrawal.
A distant relative took advantage of the situation, tricking her into going for a ride with him by telling her he’d find her methadone or suboxone, two medications that can help with withdrawal.
Instead, he raped her in a parking lot.
‘Afterwards, I blamed myself,’ she said, recalling how she felt that ‘it would never have happened if you weren’t addicted to drugs, if you weren’t living this lifestyle.’
When she got home, she was so desperate — she was sick and vomiting bile — that she shot up heroin for the first time.
Terrifying: During her addiction, she stole, was charged with crimes, and was raped while going through withdrawal. Eventually she OD’ed and her parents called the cops
‘As soon as I stuck that needle in my arm, my pain and worries disappeared so quickly, like a switch. I vowed to never experience withdrawal again. I was going to live and die a drug addict, because I would never face all of that stuff that the drugs pushed away. It was not an option for me,’ she said.
Things got worse from there. She stole money to support her habit, racking up 27 felony charges (mostly grand larceny) and misdemeanors.
At 19, she decided to kill herself by intentionally overdosing. Despite taking enough that she believes she should have died, though, she woke up.
When she went home, her mom told her that she loves her — and then called the cops on her. Cortney went through withdrawal in jail, which is where she said she ‘finally got the help that I needed.’
She was forced into treatment programs, and then a therapeutic community, where she was sent due to bad behavior. During this time her mom broke the news that she the cancer had taken its toll and she was dying.
Accomplishment: She is now ten years sober and works to help others with addiction
‘That was the moment that changed everything for me,’ she said. ‘It was that profound moment of realizing my mother was going to die. She was a beautiful, kind woman who wanted to live; I was hurting and broken, trying to take my own life on more than one occasion. Yet I was still alive, and she wasn’t going to make it for much longer.’
She got to see her mom before she died, and then went back into recovery. It was a difficult road, but this month marks ten years sober.
‘I threw myself into my recovery, and eventually my recovery wasn’t just about doing it for my mom. It was about me,’ she wrote. ‘The self-esteem, self-worth, and self-love that I hadn’t had my whole life started to develop, and it has been this remarkable — sometimes beautiful, sometimes painful and hard — journey. I am empowered, healthy, and whole.