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Kara W. had her first drink at the age of 14. It was the summer of 2006:
My mom had gone out of town, and my dad was home but not very present. We took his beer, my brother and my friends, and I got drunk for the first time.
The second time that she got drunk, Kara drank to the point of blacking out and falling in a ditch at a party: “I just remember being there for quite a long time,” she said.
From then on, every time Kara drank, she drank until she blacked out.
“Back then, I just thought that’s what you do when you drink,” she said.
From Alcohol to Prescription Painkillers
Partying and binge drinking would become a prominent part of high school. Kara, who grew up in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, said that she “partied a lot in Nashville,” during her teen and young adult years.
At the age of 17, Kara broke a tooth. The ensuing treatment and implant surgery were especially painful, thanks to some unexpected complications, including an infection of the gums and two bone grafts.
“That introduced me to prescription pain pills for quite some time,” Kara said. “I didn’t know anything about physical dependency at the time, so by the time I even learned about that, I was physically dependent and going through withdrawal.”
Self-Medicating PTSD and Depression
At around the same time, Kara’s home life began to unravel as her parents’ marriage fell apart. That emotional turmoil, accompanied by her medical challenges, meant she struggled to keep her grades up and eventually withdrew from school.
A subsequent move to Indiana with her boyfriend may have seemed like a welcome escape. Instead, the relationship became abusive, and Kara returned home to the Nashville area and took a job as a server in a restaurant.
Leaving the boyfriend proved easier than ditching the painkillers. Soon, Kara was getting “Roxies” (oxycodone and acetamenophin) and “Opanas” (oxycodone and morphine) off the street. She knows now what she did not know then: that she was self-medicating PTSD and depression from the trauma of an abusive relationship and the chronic stress of the previous years.
Kara’s use of opioids quickly spiraled into a daily habit. “When I first started, it wasn’t an everyday thing, but it became an everyday thing for the next seven years. It helped me get out of myself and made me feel numb to everything.”
Opioid Addiction and the Reality of Relapse
Kara was 23 when she went to rehab for the first time:
I didn’t want to go to treatment and fought it the whole way. My mom made me go, so while I was in treatment, all I wanted to do was get home and get high and drunk. Treatment was 11-weeks-long. I stayed clean long enough to test for a drug test for a job. I was carrying a Xanax bar from off the street and used it as soon as I left treatment.
(“Xanax bar” is slang for street Xanax, Kara explained.)
Six months later, “life became unmanageable very fast,” Kara said. “I wrecked my car in a mailbox, so went off to treatment for 45 days to get out of the situation.”
This time Kara managed to stay sober “for maybe six months and was doing okay but then started using again.”
Heroin and Vivitrol Treatment
When she “couldn’t find the Oxy anywhere and was in withdrawal,” Kara turned to heroin.
“Within two months of using and shooting heroin, I went back to treatment,” Kara recalled. “I lost two jobs within two weeks of each other, because I kept nodding out at my desk.”
Kara called her mom and, with her mom’s help, again enrolled in treatment. This time, she was prescribed Vivitrol, a medication-assisted treatment for opioid addiction, and she began regularly attending AA meetings (also a first).
The new plan of treatment seemed to work, at least for a while. Kara stayed sober for nine months, her longest, post-rehab record thus far, and she continued with the Vivitrol shots—until they were no longer available. She was working at a billiard hall in Nashville, and there were “a lot of drugs in that scene.” When her doctor could no longer provide the Vivitrol shots, she relapsed almost immediately.
Hitting Rock Bottom and the Turning Point
Sometimes things must get much worse before they can get better. In early 2019, Kara was in withdrawal and on her way to Nashville to get drugs when she got into a car wreck and broke her back.
“All I was concerned about was having my dealer come to the hospital to get me my drugs,” she said, recalling the insanity of addiction.
The next 10 months “got progressively worse again.”
Kara was arrested.
Eventually, “I was at the point where I wanted to kill myself,” Kara said. “I was so desperate at that point that I didn’t want to wake up anymore.”
Kara weighed only 98 pounds at 5’9” when she again entered treatment with her mom’s support. Unlike previous rehab stints, her mom made it clear that if Kara did not stay in treatment, Kara would be on her own to “figure it out.”
Today, at the age of 32, Kara is in successful long-term recovery and has been sober for four-and-a-half years.
What was the turning point?
“The spiritual brokenness that I was experiencing at the time,” Kara said, “and my mom, too—she had enabled me for so long. I started being held accountable for my own actions.”
What Life in Recovery Is Like
Life in recovery is “very peaceful” and “very busy” at the same time. Kara works full-time as a store manager at Starbucks and attends multiple AA meetings each week.
Kara is also the program director at the same women’s sober living residence where she started out in early recovery. She oversees three houses, providing structure and accountability to the residents.
What’s the best part of the job? The best part is when “these girls come to me if they need support or advice,” Kara said. And “when I get to see these girls come in and they’re beaten down and broken, watching the change and the light come back into their eyes—that’s the most beautiful part of sobriety for me, helping as many people as I can.”
Final Parting Advice?
If Kara could offer a word of encouragement to someone who is struggling with addiction or mental health issues, what would it be?
“Life does get better, and it’s worth it to get through the bad times. It’s always worth it to experience the bad times and see what you can learn from them. Sobriety has not been easy, but it’s always worth it to get through it, and something I’ve learned may help someone else.”
There’s no shame in getting help for a mental health disorder or a drug or alcohol problem. That’s the message of our “No More Shame” campaign, which seeks to reduce the stigma surrounding these health issues. In continuation of that theme, this story is part of a regular series featuring the true stories of people who asked for help and found hope and healing.
