Fentanyl Addict interview-Mike

all right mike yes mike where'd you grow up where are you from originally i grew up in chino hills um i was born in corona hospital tell me about your family my mom's a professor of child um development my dad's a mechanical engineer for anheuser-busch or they were they're both retired now sounds like a good home life at home yeah i had a really good home life no abuse nothing like nothing crazy going on no no abuse um nothing crazy any addicts in your family um my biological father is an addict but i didn't grow up around him um my dad adopted me when i was in sixth grade and um yeah when did drugs come into your life around the age of nine or ten oh early yeah i started smoking weed around nine or ten i have a brother that's 10 years older than me and um he got me stoned so i wouldn't tell mom and dad that he was getting stoned and from that point on i would go out of my way to try to catch him getting high so i could get high too and then he just progressed from there did he end up having a problem as well with drugs no he actually he had no issues at all you have a harder time putting it down um yeah yeah i i excelled and he stuck with um alcohol and pot i mean he still drinks but not not alcoholically yeah and did it affect your education um no i i have a bachelor's degree in business um i i didn't have a problem with drugs until i started doing heroin i had broken my leg about 15 years ago and the doctor prescribed me 60 narcos with 10 refills every two weeks so i was getting 600 narcos every two weeks and then when they cut me off i just started doing whatever i could to so i wouldn't get sick and um i started doing heroin and then i mean it just slowly my life kind of i threw everything away from that point on um i was a loan officer for eight years for a mortgage company um i was making close to a quarter million dollars a year uh legally um and i at the time i i didn't know about like real estate cycles and i didn't think that um i thought that's how i was going to live forever it was just going to continue to make that paycheck and when the housing market crashed my bills were at 65 000 and i made 42 000 that year and i ended up spending it on just my lifestyle and not really my bills so i filed bankruptcy and um my life's just kind of slowly deteriorated since then you've been homeless yes um yeah i was homeless my first time in santa ana actually um in my i lived in this apartment complex in santa ana and they have these little storages above the parking structure and um my wife and i we were staying in there in the parking structure because we could climb out of it and put a lock on it during the day and keep our stuff secure and then run around town and do whatever we needed and then come back as you but i it was it was in the apartment complex that actually i used to live in but as you were progressing into your addiction did you see your life unraveling um yes like did you did you realize what was what you were doing and could you put the brakes on it or no i mean i didn't put the brake i mean i've i've wanted to put the brakes on it ever since i started but i i just i don't i mean i um once i started doing crime and stuff like that um i started stealing to support my habit and then i got arrested for uh grand theft and then my life i mean from that point on i couldn't get bonded by the state any longer so i couldn't go back into doing loans um so i mean i just started stealing more and then going to jail i was in and out of jail and then this last time when i was out i started manufacturing ghost guns and that that supported my my habit and my lifestyle for a while until um it's not registered it doesn't have any serial number on that you can order them online and just put them together and then um i finally got it caught up with that and um i was i just did 13 months and i was released out of jail about three four months ago and i was just homeless until um the tiny homes let me start staying there and that was just a couple weeks ago but this criminal behavior is it's not in your nature no no it's all from my addiction yeah what do you what do you think most people don't understand about what you're going through with drugs just how difficult like how much time and effort you have to put into it it it it takes everything that you love you your love ends up going into the drug and um and it takes away everything else that you love um right i've lost my wife i've lost my kids my family doesn't like talking to me um and i mean i was really close with my family my whole life um i mean i'm a mama's boy and my mom doesn't the only reason my mom even talks to me now is because she has my son and i i call every saturday and sunday and i spend an hour on the phone with my son and she and she she has to observe um the phone call but other than that i mean she doesn't want anything to do with me same thing with my dad and i mean i don't blame them i've stolen from them i've used them and yeah i really don't blame them not not the only family that i talk to anymore is my uncle who lives in germany and that's just because he has never spent any time with me really he only knows me through social media like he knows the person that i used to be not the person that i've become how is this it's gotta be hard for you emotionally uh sure definitely just the shame alone yeah especially with my kids um i missed the relationship i had i've had with my kids um it hurts watching my mom raise my son um luckily my daughter's with my wife um or i mean soon to be my ex-wife she left me this time around when i was in jail i haven't talked to her since last june um yeah she moved back in with her parents when she we we had gotten arrested together we were in laguna i was taking her out to dinner and um and we both had gotten arrested she had a probation warrant and so she went in just for a couple months and i i had five glocks on me and 40 grams of fentanyl so i ended up doing 13 months total and yeah and this time around um i mean the only thing i had left when i went got arrested was my wife um her her parents had our daughter and my parents had our son you still seem to have your common sense about you and your wits you you're you're it seems like the the real mic is still inside you all right thank you i appreciate that but you are also pulled away by by the addiction for sure i i have really good skills um i mean i i've worked my whole life with through my addiction i mean i've always been on some kind of substance whether it was hallucinogens or i was a real bad alcoholic for a long time um i mean with alcohol i just replaced it with heroin um i always replaced it with something like it was from pot to cocaine cocaine to alcohol cocaine and alcohol to heroin and now fentanyl and now fentanyl um and i mean i want nothing more than to give up my habit and spend the rest of my life trying to help people like me like that that's my ultimate goal it's the only way i feel like that i can make my kids proud of of me because i've been such a disappointment to them yeah it almost makes the problem worse for you because you're a disappointment to your family your kids yeah everyone around around and around you probably have no friends now yeah i mean the only friend i really have left is um is is my my friend cameron i think you interviewed him as well yeah and that's because he's in his addiction as well um and we both have the same goal as to wanting to help others as we if we clean up but it's just words right now i mean i i want nothing more than to put into action but it's just it's hard like to to go through the sickness and and to detox the drug and i mean it's just a cycle over and over again i don't know why i do it but i do i do whatever i can to feed that habit and i i put everything that i care about and i love on the back backhand like i just don't get it what do you do for money now um anything possible um whatever i need to stealing is my main thing um i i mean i don't steal from people it's a big thing of mine like i don't wanna i would never wanna steal from somebody that's struggling like me but um i have no problem stealing from stores so i'm really good at it too um i mean i say that but i also have i i believe seven felonies because of ceiling but compared to what i've gotten away with um i mean there's no comparison but this isn't somebody that i would have ever been if i didn't touch heroin um yeah are you adhd yes you didn't take long to answer that no yeah real tension disorder i see a strong connection between adhd people and these addictions that are just so overpowering that they can't yeah because i mean looking back in my life um i've always been an addict before the drug it was it was always something i mean whether it was my hobbies to begin with and to start off with and then it was work i've always done everything addictively um which i i can see being very helpful i mean that's why i was so successful in the past um because i give my all to whatever it is i do um i mean it's just heroin and fentanyl takes everything like it takes all of your energy it takes all of your effort to support your habit i mean if you're rich i i there's i don't really see a problem with it like if you're rich and you could support your habit and and it doesn't take away from your life then i mean then that's what you want to do but if you don't have that you're you have to dedicate everything you are to support your habit and it's going to take everything from you um i mean that's just what it does i've seen it over and over and over again i've seen the best families fall apart because of it i've seen the most successful people on the streets um and it's just yeah it's it's sad what emotions do you go through you get depressed i'm sure for sure um yeah i definitely depressed i'm it's not easy to throw away everything that you love for something that you you you don't want to do how old are you i'm 40. you're 40. yeah is there any chance that you could like when you go to jail you get you get forced to be clean right yeah and when you came out of a a jail stand you is there any way my goal in jail was to stay clean and then but just going through the depression of my wife leaving me getting the adoption papers from my my parents they want to adopt my son now um they already have custody um but now they want to adopt my son but if you were able to get clean i'm sure they would give you your son back if you yeah stay clean for a long time for sure i'd have to go through a process of they'd have to earn their my trust back of course yeah i'm not saying it would happen instantly but all i'm saying is like if you were able to replace your opiate addiction with a career or something that you were really into motivated by yeah and i know that's it they always say that that they they miss the real michael yeah that's always what i hear from them [Music] my dad my dad um i mean he was a mechanical engineer for anheuser-busch but when he retired he started doing real estate investing and i was a loan officer so i mean i've helped my dad build um what he has and like he just he doesn't get like why like why i can't put it down i don't either i mean i've done drugs my whole life and like nothing ever took me away from like my my lifestyle was all i always use drugs purposefully whether it was spiritually or to have fun like that night with a group of people whatever it was i always did it purposefully but when i started doing heroin it became selfishly it became just to just to feed my habit like just to and it's such such an illusion like it it gets a grasp you and you just you don't see everything going like throwing away and all of a sudden you just have nothing and then you get to a point where you don't know where to start um nobody trusts you nobody wants to help you you've thrown all of your bridges away and you you're almost content in your depression and your in your lifestyle you get used to it and it and you kind of just fade away you've lost your id and you've lost all your finances and everything everything yeah yeah and you're surrounded by people that are in a similar city in the same situation and yeah i mean nobody's helping anybody what's your biggest fear at this point um having my kids see their homeless dad their their nobody dad um not being a part of my kid's life like i i didn't give my kids away i threw him away and it sucks to even like to think that but that's the truth i gave my kids up for fentanyl and i hate myself for it um not only do i hate myself for it like i don't give up the thing that i hate doing for the something that i love and that that's the saddest part about it do you know anything about your your dad's addiction um my dad's been a a successful addict thank you um his whole life he he's um a union electrician who is your biological dad yeah my biological father uh he works for uh he's retired now but he was worked for international brotherhood of electrical workers his whole life since my he was with my mom um in fact they used to hide the my dad's wages so he wouldn't have to pay childs for it and but he's always had a job done a career speed was his drug of choice and i mean he still uses today and he doesn't really have an issue just like with me i used to use quite a bit of cocaine and alcohol when i was successful in real estate and it was never an issue in fact it kind of helped me make money um it allowed me to open up when i needed to it allowed me to focus when i needed to and i just played that nobody saw saw me because it was all on the phone so i just had to play this this role and as long as i could play that role money came in and i mean that's just how my life was for a long time and then to have fun with i i enjoyed using hallucinogens that was my big thing um i mean that's a lot for me for like my spiritual practices and stuff i've always used hallucinogens um so i mean that was never like an addictive thing but i don't even believe that i could use those successfully anymore because because of my my use with fentanyl has turned like my my habit addictively like in everything that i use but in a negative way whereas before i'd always i'd used to enhance my life not to throw it away and and today i used to throw my life away unfortunately what's your biggest regret um biggest regret honestly if i can turn my life around if i if i could stop using i don't really have any regrets i look at it as an experience and as long as if i could turn this around and turn it into something positive there's nothing to regret it's it's all positive in in the long run but um to get there is the hard part is if if i ever do get there um i mean i i don't know because i'm not there now i'm not i i haven't started cleaning up um yeah i i have these wants and these desires but i don't put any action to it but if i can there's there's nothing to regret i mean i i didn't do these things because of the person that i am i did these things to feed a habit to i mean i don't look at it as a negative thing that i did i i did i i put my all into something and that's really what you should do but if you can i mean it's such a trap put your all into something positive don't don't put it into something that there's you don't get anything good out of fentanyl there's nothing good about it there's no reason to ever use it even if you're dying of like you have some terminal illness and you're dying and it takes away the pain for someone like it there's [Music] to outweigh the negative that it has is there's no reason for it at all like there's no nothing that i can see positive out of it like it doesn't help people at all it just numbs you and then you throw everything away and it's just you have nothing and you won't have anything until you give it up and that's if you can i i haven't been able to like regardless of how much i want to i even i even had 13 months clean in jail and i went right back to it when i got out my depression just brought me right back to it i i believe if i got out and i i wasn't on the street like if i if i would have went straight into something that i probably would have i mean at least been successful while i was doing it i don't know do you feel like mental health is the real issue behind it for sure there's definitely like depression um yeah definitely mental health i mean that's what it all is it's not stopping the drug it's fixing the mental state because if you were if you were a sound mind and inspired to do something with your life you'd probably steer away from this when you came out of jail for sure sounds like you have a great mind and you've learned a lot what's the most important thing you've learned most important thing i've learned um i'm not really sure um like i enjoy learning whatever it is um reading is one of my biggest hobbies um i still do that in my addiction i like to write too um i like to journal or or create something always i draw i like art a lot um best thing i probably have learned is is how to excel my my art skills i it's it takes me that's the one thing that still allows me to escape no matter what it is i'm doing um no matter what it is i'm dealing with um my art allows me to to get away from it and not have to deal with it for that that period of time um and i don't do art for anybody else besides myself like i don't expect to have a career out of it or anything it's just something that i enjoy doing um for me and i i mean that's my i love learning anything there is to do with that'll excel or enhance my skills in art i love to share it with anybody as well um that's my addiction your addictions aren't the art that's what saves me all the time yeah my whole life my whole life because i probably fall into some of the traps that all these people i interview might have without it yeah i i don't want to be some like this rich person or or anybody big like my goal is simply to become some of my my my kids can look up to um i don't want to become a loser that i am now that my kids don't i mean my son's he's going to be five um on august 27th and i mean he doesn't i'm still his hero um i mean i still have time to turn it around um he doesn't understand why dad's not with him or dad lives in a park but he's going to learn real fast and i'm just going to become the same person that my daughter looks at this this loser that has nothing to give or that hasn't been there for her birthdays or christmases or or in school to watch her graduate or or anything good she gets to hear from me when i go to jail and i give up my drug because i'm finally clear-headed enough to call her or a writer am i i don't want that for for myself or anybody my family like that's not me i've always been the person that likes to surprise my family with with something like good like my mom's birthday is i'll blow up hundreds of balloons and leave it in the garage i'll go sneak over to her house and put hundreds of balloons in the garage when she goes to work she has to go through like this lake of balloons or or building a bench that she's always wanted or this is anything like i i love to surprise my family with with things that they don't ask for but like they've hinted that they wanted and and i've always been good at that and i don't do that at all anymore for my son's birthday the only income i have is my general relief that i get from um from the ebt i get food stamps and general relief which is 221 and it's my son's birthday this this month so as soon as i get my gr i have to go spend it on my son and mail it out to him before i use that money for my habit even if i buy my my son presents and i don't mail it out i'll go return the presents just to support my habit if i don't take care of it right away like i have to use my money to get rid of it out of sight out of mind and then i would support my habit just by any means possible like i do normally and is it that's sickening 221 is nothing like it doesn't support me at all that can barely gets me anything and i i throw it away as soon as i get it on my drugs and it i mean over my son's birthday it's just sad and that's how i treat everything maybe it's not fair for my kid like on christmas if if i don't do anything to support to help myself i have to use 221 dollars to from for my kid's birthday i mean for christmas for my kids and that's only because the only reason i even have that is because the government gives it to me if i didn't have that 221 dollars from general relief i would i wouldn't even i wouldn't do anything for my kids on christmas and it's sick the people i love the most in life aren't as important as my drug i get everything comes second to it everything there's no way to live that's hard you deserve so much better thank you you really do appreciate that hearing your voice you

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Length: 29min 22sec (1762 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 19 2022