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IMPACT PROFILE
The face of ADDICTION
Once drugs take hold, they can change
lives – and not for the better
As she injected herself with repeated doses of Demerol in a bathroom stall at work, Kim was praying for a change, hoping for death or something close enough to it that life as she knew it would be dramatically altered.
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GARY HIGGINS/The Patriot Ledger Kim passed summer days in a peculiar, frantic dance that revolved around heroin. |
After years of using drugs to numb sadness and boost self-esteem, the 30-year-old Quincy resident finally got what she wanted.
Things did begin to change for her that day - April 11, 2001.
They got worse.
Kim’s on-the-job drug use became apparent to her supervisors and cost Kim her nursing license, and in the absence of work, drugs became the focus of her life.
Drugs came between Kim and her 9-year-old daughter, alienated her parents, drained her financially and ultimately, she said, when she looked in the mirror, she was a stranger to herself.
By the end of last year, Kim had checked in to a recovery program, leaving behind everything she knew to get her life back.
Kim’s story is an example of what happens when drugs grab hold of an otherwise average life and tear it apart. She is also among a growing group of female drug users seeking treatment locally and statewide.
| About one out of every five Quincy residents signing into a treatment program was a woman, and that number has gone up in each of the past four years for which figures are available. |
In the 12 months that ended June 30 of last year, 776 women with Quincy addresses sought treatment in Massachusetts rehabilitation facilities for their drug use. About one out of every five Quincy residents signing into a treatment program was a woman, and that number has gone up in each of the past four years for which figures are available.
Kim, who asked that her last name not be used, began using drugs long before April 11, 2001, but on that day, the semblance of normalcy she maintained for years was completely upended. She crossed a line. The events of that day shifted her from doing drugs mostly on nights and weekends to ease a bad mood or cope with insecurity to being a full-time junkie.
Kim said she was involved in a relationship with an abusive man and on the evening of April 10, they had yet another blowout.
So by 10 a.m. the next day, Kim had made several trips to the ladies room, injecting a total of 700 milligrams of the painkiller Demerol, hoping to ease raw emotions.
Drowsiness set in. Instead of focusing on patient care or paperwork, Kim ducked in and out of a room used by nurses for updating medical charts.
A nursing manager who noticed Kim’s sleepy eyes and lethargic behavior confronted her. Kim was escorted to the emergency room to take a drug test.
The state Board of Registration in Nursing, which licenses Massachusetts nurses, was notified of Kim’s emergency room visit. The board would decide Kim’s punishment. A hearing was set for July 6. Until then, Kim was barred from work.
In the meantime, a childhood girlfriend introduced Kim to another drug that she started using in hopes of easing her despair.
Kim passed summer days in a peculiar, frantic dance that revolved around heroin.
Every morning, when she opened her eyes, heroin was the first thing on her mind. The first phone number Kim dialed most days was her dealer’s. The first activity of the day was the 15-minute drive from Quincy to South Boston to meet her dealer at Castle Island or Carson Beach.
| “Everything was on hold unless
I got that high. Once I got high, I’d go home, get things organized, get
my daughter organized.’’ – Kim |
Kim’s 9-year-old daughter often went along on that ride. Eventually, the girl began wondering aloud why a man named Derek would get in their car for a ride around the block and then get out.
“Everything was on hold unless I got that high,” Kim said during an interview at a Falmouth treatment center where she took up residence last year. “Once I got high, I’d go home, get things organized, get my daughter organized.’’
Kim grew up on a side street off Quincy Shore Drive lined by single and multifamily homes. Most have American flags waving out front and small, neat yards.
Home for Kim was a four-bedroom garrison colonial. She and her sister went to religion classes on Sundays at a local Catholic church.
As is the case with so many stories of addiction, Kim’s begs one core question: Why?
Why drugs? What was wrong? How did drugs help?
When Kim was alone, when she was searching, she fell into a different life. She started using drugs to cope with difficult emotions - everything from abusive relationships with boyfriends to low self-esteem. Drugs, she said, helped her numb an inner emptiness and hopelessness. It wasn’t so much about being drawn to the drugs themselves as it was about being drawn to the feelings they delivered.
“I just wanted to feel better,” Kim said. “I was escaping from myself.”
On July 6, the state nursing board offered Kim a three-year license suspension if she checked into a six-month treatment program. Kim took up residence at Emerson House in Falmouth.
Emerson House is a Victorian manor with stained glass windows, hardwood floors and a large stone porch. It sits behind a semicircular driveway on 5 acres of land.
About 80 women live in this grand old home, one of several addiction treatment facilities and programs operated by a nonprofit organization called Gosnold on Cape Cod.
“What they do here, it’s not like we’re only drug addicts,” Kim said. “It’s a whole process that leads up to our self esteem and relationships with men. They teach us that we’re the only ones that can make ourselves happy and that we’re women of dignity and self-respect.”
As Kim speaks, her slouching shoulders straighten, her face brightens slightly and confidence edges hesitantly into her voice.
Kim said her family had already begun to notice a change.
“My mother said last weekend: ‘I really had a good weekend with you. I liked being with you,’” Kim recalled.
“What happened had to have happened. I wouldn’t have stopped otherwise. This has given me my life back.”
Click here to see chart displaying drug treatments and arrests on the South Shore
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