In the past year, two people I love dearly, who were both extremely instrumental in helping me to develop a strong recovery program and a greater faith in God, have both relapsed back into their heroin addictions, which is something I thought would never happen to either. And sadly, given the number of years both had sober from that deadly drug, I’m struggling to hold on to any hope that either will ever find sobriety again.
Some may think this is me being overly pessimistic, but truly it’s not. The harsh reality with heroin is that less than 20 percent of users who relapse will ever find recovery again. Even worse, the longer a user remained sober prior to that relapse, the less likely they will even fall into that 20th percentile.
Because I’m not one who always believes in the statistics I read on the Web, I decided to do my own poll around the rooms of sobriety only to find out that no one there knew of anyone either who came back to a life of recovery after as long of time sober as my friends had. One of them had around 13 years, while the other had just over 10 years. And while I have known a number of heroin users who relapsed in their first couple of years of sobriety to eventually return to a life of recovery, I don’t have a single instance of anyone who reached 10+ years of sobriety from heroin ever finding recovery again after a relapse. Honestly, I wish I did, but unfortunately, I don’t.
That’s not the case though in the alcohol recovery realm, as there I’ve known plenty of people who had even 20+ years of sobriety relapse and eventually return to the rooms of recovery again. But not so with heroin, as it seems as if the ego gets too deep of a grip on one who succumbs to this deadly drug again after a long period of sobriety to ever allow them to recover again. Tragically, most end up dying from their addiction because of it.
And that’s precisely what I fear right now as I type these words, that one day soon I’m going to receive a phone call where I’m told that one or both of these two friends who were so instrumental in my spiritual growth and recovery from my own addictions, have overdosed and died. The fact is, I’m actually finding it really hard to even write about this because I’ve already lost too many people I loved in the past bunch of years to heroin.
So, as my two friends, who at this very moment, remain active in their addiction to heroin, my prayers go out to them. And all I can hope for is a miracle from God, one that will overcome those terrible statistics and harsh realities that too many of us know about in the rooms of recovery with heroin.
That’s why I leave this up to You God and pray that You save my friends, two people I love dearly that truly helped me to develop a closer connection to You. Please God bless them with the gift of desperation to return to recovery again, a gift that I know will not only save their lives and souls from this deadly drug, but one that I also know can ultimately only come from You…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
