“It’s just a down[ward] spiral,” Dominick says.
Dominick was born and raised in Muncie and began to drink alcohol at the age of 16. This recreational drinking slowly turned into the usage and selling of drugs including methamphetamines.
“I went from selling to using, from living to use, to using to live. Basically, if I didn’t have what I needed, I didn’t get out of bed,” Dominick says.
A little over two years ago, Dominick was arrested and held in Delaware County Jail for ten months.
The addiction crisis continues to have a devastating effect across the state of Indiana, according to an article published by Indiana University (IU). According to the article, the rise of drug usage is seen not only among adults in Indiana but also among teenagers.
“What I experience most when talking with my clients is they say they first engaged in drug use via social experimentation in early adolescence,” says Hannah Perkins, IU Health Addiction Treatment and Recovery Center addiction counselor.
College students are more prone to use marijuana than any other drug, according to American Addiction Centers. It is the highest drug used for people aged between 21 and 22. However, Hannah has noticed an increase in the use of illicitly manufactured opioids which she says has been responsible for multiple overdose deaths in the community.
Professor Jean Marie Place, who teaches in the Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences at Ball State University, says that students tend to get involved in drug use because those individuals think it will improve their performance in the classroom.
Place explains that many students feel that in order to do well on tests and other homework assignments for their classes, they need to use drugs.
A life changing impact
Addiction wasn’t classified as a disease until 1987, according to IU Health. Addiction and drug usage can be caused in multiple ways. According to the article, risk factors for addiction include family genetics, the environment you were raised in, and using drugs as a person’s brain is still growing and developing.
The longer a certain person uses drugs, the more that person becomes addicted, which makes the brain less in control to stop partaking in substance use.
After his arrest, Dominick confessed that if he got out of jail sooner than 10 months, he would have continued using and drinking.
“I was going to go out and get high or drunk because I wasn’t ready to stop,” Dominick says.
A few months into Dominick’s sentence, he knew he needed to make a change.
“Two months into that ten months — I can’t keep doing this,” says Dominick. “I can’t keep doing this to myself. I can’t keep doing this to my family.”
Place emphasizes addiction is a chronic relapsing brain disease, and while she recognizes that others do not associate addiction with that definition because “there’s also an element of choice,” she still stays adamant about her answer.
Substance use can affect an individual’s social behaviors. Professor Place explains drug usage can cause many disruptions in individuals’ lives.
“It affects your life,” Place says. “It affects friend groups [and] a variety of areas of your life.”
Dominick says his addiction “broke the people around me.”
Dominick further explains that he’s a very family oriented. However despite this, his battle with addiction led him to distance himself from his loved ones.
“It was me staying away from my family because I was guilty of the way I was carrying myself,” Dominick says. “I didn’t think they saw me or my behavior, but they noticed everything. It was ultimately me that I was hurting in the long [run].”
Along with the effects of drug usage on an individual’s social behaviors, there are many physical and mental health effects as well.
“Physical effects can range in severity and can include increased heart rate, dental problems, or sleep difficulties,” Hannah says.
She explains how the physical effects of drug abuse can vary from person to person, depending on factors such as frequency, duration, and the quantity that has been consumed.
Along with these short-term effects of drug usage, Hannah says possible long-term effects include cirrhosis of the liver, HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis from intravenous use, or cardiovascular issues such as heart attacks from methamphetamine and cocaine usage.
Withdrawal symptoms also make up a huge portion of the physical effects of drug abuse.
”We often hear the question about why someone can’t simply stop their use once they start,” Hannah says. “This can be explained by considering the withdrawal that an individual who is dependent on a substance experiences. This can include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or constipation, severe muscle and body aches, and significant fatigue.”
Hannah goes on to explain how the cycle of withdrawal can feel never-ending. Many individuals suffering from addiction are dependent on substances in their lives, causing them to possibly seek medical intervention.
Free and clean
Treatment and recovery was a steady journey for Dominick. While he was in jail, he met other inmates and started going to classes discussing recovery.
“[The class] taught us things on the brain, how the brain works with drugs and alcohol, [and] how it stimulates it,” Dominick says.
After Dominick got out of jail, he attended a five month program at a safe residential recovery house in Indianapolis called Progress House, and a 21-day program at Hickory Treatment Center.
During this time, he was able to implement new routines in his life and learned how to love himself without the use of substances. Dominick got a job and was taking classes daily.
Once his program was finished, he had the choice to either stay in Indianapolis or go back to his hometown, Muncie.
In the end, Dominick decided it was better to stop “running from my issues.”
Dominick is now an Alcoholics Anonymous advocate, encouraging and inspiring as many people as he can.
“You never know what people could be going through,” Dominick says. “I have friends that are in active addiction still to this day.”
Dominick encourages people who are going through the battle of addiction to reach out to others and talk to sponsors.
“You’re not struggling by yourself and you’re not alone, so don’t ever feel that way,” Dominick says.
Sources: Indiana University (IU), American Addiction Centers, Progress House, Hickory Treatment Center
