4/26/2024

Anonymous:

I was introduced to kratom powder and capsules in 2017, age 35. I’d heard it helped with pain pill addiction and while I hadn’t recognized I had an addiction, I clearly did. That’s how it started; I wasn’t. crazy about the powder at all. The capsules weren’t an issue either for me. I wasn’t out buying these things or anything. I honestly don’t remember how I first learned about the OPMS shots, I remember in 2018 trying my first one and just trying to get it down. It tasted like diesel would taste to me. Once I quickly felt the effects, I was hooked, it was like Lortabs sold at the local gas station. I just thought I had a problem to kick with pain pills, what the next 5 years brought me far outweighed any problems I had before.

Fast forward to 2020, I’m constantly lying about where my money goes, taking out loans, stealing from my family, pawning precious items I can never replace and just miserable all around. I pawned my wedding ring. READ THAT AGAIN!!! To make it worse, a friend got hired at a gas station in town so I got them for free for about a year or so. That ended around 2021. If I imagined what a heroine or meth addict lived like, it was the picture. Everything revolved around the shots. In 2023 my husband of 14 years is at his wits end and I’ve ruined my reputation. Nobody knew what kratom was and certainly nobody that I knew would even consider trying it.

I am from a solid family with a great name and I’d always been trustworthy and dependable, and someone you could count on. I was the total opposite of that. One day the best thing happened to me. I got pulled over for swerving all over the place, leaving my favorite gas station. I’d downed a fireball before leaving the parking lot. I’m in a small town and sometimes it’s a blessing and a curse.

This time a blessing. The cops knew me well and I knew I needed help. I was facing rehab or jail. Again, I knew the addiction was kratom, but the cops had no idea what that was. I luckily got to do outpatient with STRICT supervision by my husband and parent’s. They took my keys and I haven’t handled money in the last 8 weeks of outpatient rehab, 4 nights a week. It was in those meetings where I met the first person to hear talk about kratom. I’ve been clean for 16 months. I can’t STRESS how dangerous this stuff is, it almost cost everything it NEVER heled with aches and pains or anxiety…it’s all excuses. It needs to be banned.