Fentanyl Addict interview-Jake

all right jake jake uh where'd you grow up where are you from originally huntington beach california orange county orange county yeah and tell me about your family he had mom and dad yeah i had mom and dad um one sister um they got divorced when i was about 12. but it was always kind of like they were divorced but living in the same house so it was kind of like a relief almost when they got divorced how would you describe your childhood in general dysfunctional um i was more i had anger issues as a kid

i feel like and i have adhd depression bipolar disorder a few different things so growing up wasn't easy and especially at school it wasn't easy because i'd always be getting in trouble for trying to talk too much or bully if you're trying to talk too much um is that the adhd yeah yeah and then when i got put on meds um it made me just focus but like apparently like it made me a zombie i don't remember much but um they didn't like me on meds much either because that was bad so it took me

off that then i got put on the painkillers for having my leg broken so you broke your leg skateboarding broke my leg um motocross racing what aggression yeah and then after the painkillers it's funny like i i didn't even start doing them automatically like i saw it on dr house that he popped them i was like oh i have that in my cabinet and i just like popped two first time i got kind of sick i was like i don't know if i like this but at the same time it was like it was like

you know a release like i stopped feeling so much pain for a little bit i guess and that's why i kept continuing to use went through that supply pretty quick hundred bottle um sorry just trying to buy from people at school but that stopped working because people were out so um i just kept they're selling those at your high school oh yeah every joke you could want um i resorted to stealing opiates for a long time actually i stole um a little pint from one of my friends so that's sad um this is a real

only a few people know about this one i stole uh oxy from my aunt with cancer so some shows you where drugs can take you um i started doing a little bit better when i got a girlfriend around 16. um for about a year or so i was working just smoking weed that was it um but things started getting toxic with her like if i would be at work she would just be trying to start fights with me while i was at work for like whatever reason she had um [Music] what was it it's one

of the worst mental disorders i forgot what it's called um it's not borderline personality yeah borderline personality disorder she has that and um if you don't know that's very hard to live with she lived at my house so fighting was constant it's how i lost the tip of my finger um got slammed in a door when she was screaming at me and i kept trying to run away like to close his door and she just kept slamming it open and i tried to push it and she slammed it and it was on the ground and

i was just like holy [ __ ] like my fingertips just on the ground like it was kind of a surreal moment and that was one of the first moments where i realized like this relationship is so not okay and uh i went to the hospital my dad took me she didn't come with me so um yeah and it's funny because as soon as i saw in the the johnny depp trial that he lost his fingertip the same one on the same hand and i was like that's so crazy what a coincidence but not a

good coincidence he and she actually had the same mental disorder that amber heard had so yeah interesting so eventually this led to street drugs oh yeah um yeah well as things got worse um well one time uh i got a bunch of molly and all of my friends we were rolling at the skate park and the cops come they search everyone luckily it was in my backpack but everyone was on drugs and like i didn't know how they didn't notice but i got to go home and like i just raced home and then that night

i went home and did like all the molly and if you don't know what happens after that it's like the worst come down in your life like you feel like you just want to kill yourself like no serotonin in your brain at all and after that um instead of just picking up weed like i normally would i just got coke and then i based on coke for a week and then after that that come down adding on to the other come down was like i couldn't handle it i went and got some xanax bars from

the skate park came home popped three the next morning i i if you don't know what bar rage is i got into bar rage i woke up and i was just really mad and i started just like [ __ ] [ __ ] up and cops came and i got arrested for six months so that was the longest time i've ever been sober was that stint being in jail yeah juvenile hall actually i turned 18 in in juvenile hall see oh um that was a weird birthday um but honestly i wouldn't change it i would

still have gone because i feel like it it made me a better person it made me re-evaluate some things um even though i came out and i started to use again while i was in i i was like working out instead of using drugs to you know fight those demons or whatever and that was helping a lot i came out a lot bigger than i went in because i was bingeing on coke and stuff so i came in i was skinny i went came out like pretty good healthy not much else to do in there

yeah exactly so said workout so yeah um after i got out uh i wanted to be sober but like everyone that i knew was smoking weed and they were like oh dude you can just smoke weed like you can just smoke weed and like i kept telling them i don't think i can i really don't think i can just smoke weed but eventually i just i gave in started smoking weed again and that same day that i started smoking weed um it just all it went all crazy um i started drinking alcohol i popped some

clotting pan i got in a car crash um at the beach i i backed into some guy's car and it was like smashed smashed in i was i was so scared i heard him or something and i got out and like i was just like very intoxicated but i dealt with it somehow still and like i decided to drive home and like i felt so bad i was like what the [ __ ] can i do other than just giving my information like and that was like you i would say it's a wake-up call but

it didn't wake me up i kept doing it so um it kept getting worse from that point um a little bit after that my grandpa passed away and i had to watch him pass away we went to texas and um for two weeks watched him fade away in front of us and i was really weird um and to try to deal with that um i popped like or i i tried to buy some xanax to bring so i could deal with it better when i was out there and um i ended up taking all the

xanax at night all 10 and i drove to my friend's house and i don't remember driving there or all i remember is stumbling in the door and no one's saying a word to me everyone was just staring at me like what the [ __ ] how did like what the [ __ ] going on like and i was just pissed off that no one said anything to me so i just got up and left again somehow i drove home didn't get a car crash i don't know how many times i've driven home and i don't

remember a thing about it and i just somehow woke up in my bed and my car's outside sometimes it was parked pretty [ __ ] up but i didn't kill anyone luckily um so after my grandpa died i started using heroin that was the first time i used heroin um i went to his funeral on heroin i don't know how much my family knew about it but my ex said that they probably all knew it was pretty obvious she said and um yeah i came back um i started to use fentanyl for the first time

i was at 17 and um i only use it for about a week and i was in the living room talking and i guess i nodded out in front of my whole family just like and then i woke up with like my dad shouting at me like what the [ __ ] are you on like what the [ __ ] in like he didn't let it go he was like if you don't stop this you're out that you're out of the house you're out of the house if you don't stop it and um i stopped

i went through the withdrawals um i used kratom my ex helped me through it the whole time and then um the sad thing is i didn't stay sober i just hopped onto adderall because i started going to college as a way to like he was my dad was like either get a job or go to school you got to do something now that you're off heroin again you can't just be sitting in my house so i started to go to college again um originally i was just taking adderall because i have adhd and i literally

cannot focus i tried to go a few days and i could not focus at all and um it was sad i i really wanted to be able to focus but like it's just not i don't have the ability to and so i try to start taking adderall and i was able to focus i was able to retain the information it was working like i was so happy that this first time like i didn't really remember taking it as a kid much but taking it starting again it was like i can actually like i could sit

and do things i'm motivated i haven't been able to do any of this my whole life so i loved it and the adderall dealer moved away and i was everyone always said like it's so close to math like methanol are the same thing they're not the same thing but i started doing math and it got a lot worse it went from me taking adderall to to make clothes and do homework and stuff for college to me doing math and playing video games all day long and or me doing meth in doing [ __ ] i

shouldn't be doing behind my girlfriend's back not cheating but stuff i shouldn't be doing um that was one of the main things in our relationship that [ __ ] it up was um me using math um it was already a bad relationship but the math made everything so much worse because when she would be angry instead of me being calm and trying to deal with her being upset i would also be extremely angry and i wouldn't be able to control it so she would start throwing blows and i would just try to be pushing her

out of the room and like it was just it was not good like my dad had to physically like escort her out of my house multiple times um she broke down my door one time and left a scar on my face like broke it down and it hit my face and left a scar she tried to kill herself in my bed almost successfully she stole my bars popped 10 of those walked down to the walked down to the liquor store stole some hennessy um down that and i come in to my room and she's just

like didn't look like she was alive and i started like pushing on and like she wasn't breathing that was terrifying um i was tripping on that i was tripping actually that day um i was on 2cb and snapped me out of it real quick i got sober real quick i just started to like like push on her chest like i don't have to do cpr but i tried and um i started to give her mouse to mouth and the mouth-to-mouth worked somehow she just started to breathe again and i was like like [ __ ]

sobbing i was just sobbing i was like no you can't you can't die you cannot die you cannot die like i'm not letting it happen whatever like it's not happening like sorry it's not happening and like i'm nurtured back to health i made her throw everything up like you know what the [ __ ] up part was it was her dad's birthday and i was trying to call an ambulance and she was just begging me like don't call an ambulance my dad's birthday he'll [ __ ] everything up for me and like i feel like

a piece of [ __ ] because i didn't call an ambulance but like at the same time like i'm thinking i'm trying to help her but it really wasn't helping her and uh of course my family wasn't there for that whole entire thing so no one was there to stop anything um that was traumatizing so where are you at today where am i at today what are you doing i mean are you still using yeah um i was actually it's funny because i keep i keep trying to quit you know it's not easy quitting fentanyl

but um i kept messing up going on my methadone clinic and i would like skip a few days and i'd have to restart the dose or whatever and in two or three days my dose should be back up to what it should be and i'm gonna try to quit again in like two to three days and i really hope this time it works because the dose should be at the right point so but yeah i am still using fentanyl um i'm not using method anymore i quit that a long time ago fentanyl is just about

the only drug i do except for xanax sometimes to because i have pretty bad anxiety insomnia is there downside to taking the adderall oh yeah one thing it does is make you very sexually devious like you do you do things you would never do and and everyone can act like they don't but it's an open known thing for for adderall and math that it it makes you very like you do some pretty messed up [ __ ] um you get angry very easily very very easily um and you can't like stop being angry like you

just storm around the house [ __ ] mad like there's lots of downsides to adderall i don't think the upsides are worth it because i'm gonna i'm going back to college and i'm not taking adderall i'm never gonna take that stuff again it's not worth the risk in my opinion i mean amongst your peers like when you're in high school or back in in huntington beach are there a lot of kids that are in a similar situation with drugs as you no really actually no i was one of the few in my school um i

dropped out like sophomore year um i got my ged but you know um it's good to hear i didn't really know many people to be honest like i had a very small group of friends um the worst they did was maybe like xanax they didn't get close to what i did um and after high school everyone i knew kind of started just like drifting away um i just one really good friend still and we were like starting a brand together because i'm into fashion if you couldn't tell it's one of the few things that i

still have during my addiction and um we were doing a brand together and like i had a few of things that i had in this collection i was going to make but it was not released yet and he just went and took everything and released it on his own brand and like did give me credit didn't ask me anything so that was the end of that friendship and i was like the last friend i had where and then i had like no friends and then my ex was like all i had for a long time

and then after i cluttered like doing [ __ ] behind my back multiple times i finally just like i thought like if she's not gonna stop and it's it's not gonna stop hurting me i have to make the decision to make her stop hurting me so i did that and then after that is when i started to really use that null um right after that breakup that's the first time that i used fentanyl in a few years um that's how it started this this current addiction was that break up it took the pain away completely

100 took the pain away so it was helpful at first um for maybe like a month and then i realized when i don't have it i go to severe withdrawals and it was terrifying to realize that because i didn't have it one time and i didn't know how bad it was gonna get and i it got so bad and withdrawals are the worst part about it i'd say it's really i wouldn't wish it on anyone like i just had covid and that's the sickest i've ever been and i would prefer that to withdrawals any day

for sure what are you afraid of now i'm afraid of not being who i feel like i could be i'm afraid of wasting my potential because i feel like i know i have a lot of potential are there things you'd like to do with your life yeah um fashion like i make clothes um photography like graphic design and i've been told by many people i'm very good at it like people buy my clothes sometimes like i'm not ashamed or i'm not like afraid to say like i know i'm very good at fashion but um it

yeah i know during the this addiction it has kind of taken that away to an extent though um i'm not really making clothes anymore i'm just buying them so that's really something that i want to start again but at the same time it's like the only time i was able to do that really like well was when i was on math and it's like i don't want to go back to that just to make clothes so it's a really weird predicament like it's hard to do anything without the stimulant when you have adhd it's just

really hard so what's your biggest regret that's a really big question i'd say smoking weed after i got out of jail you feel like weed's a gateway for me i don't think it's the gateway for everyone but i think when i do any drugs it's it just goes all out like so yeah i feel like that's if i i really feel like if i chose not to charge smoking weed i would be completely cool right now i think i would have been able to deal with everything in a different way i think i would have

learned how to i would have worked out at home like i did and i wouldn't be in the mess i am now like it's just it's crazy how much money i've spent on this drug like it's the most money i've ever spent in my life and it just goes to waste just so i can feel normal like i don't get high anymore i just feel normal that's what sucks like i don't get any relief i just well i get relief from feeling super shitty but i don't feel good ever so jake what would you say

is the most important lesson you've learned in your 21 years when you have a good thing don't try to don't don't resort back to your old ways and make a mistake because you're on this new path and you could do so much and if you know that something will bring you back to your old ways you need to stay away from it all right jake thank you so much for sharing your story i appreciate you lots of luck in your future thank you you