November 17, 2014 at 4:41 p.m.
Recovering heroin addicts want chance to be productive citizens
Recovering heroin addicts want chance to be productive citizens
He has had several brushes with the law in both Wisconsin and Illinois, including arrests for possession of schedule II narcotics, burglary and forgery.
Like a lot of addicts, Frankie began using heroin after abusing prescription medication.
"I dabbled with prescription drugs first, but I would say eight or nine years ago I was already onto heroin, even before there was a whole lot up here, because it was so much cheaper," he said. "I knew people down in the Chicago area and that's how I got introduced to it."
Originally from Des Plaines, Ill., Frankie's parents moved to the Northwoods in 1988-'89 when he was seven or eight.
"I've lived in Wisconsin most of my life," he said. "I'm from here, that's what I tell people."
According to Jim Webb, co-director of Koinonia treatment center, each addict is different. When they decide to go into recovery, most are just sick of the lifestyle and want to change. Frankie, who was interviewed at the same time as Webb, agreed.
"With heroin and opiates, it's likely something that has been going on for quite a few years. Because of the expense and the lifestyle, it doesn't take more than a couple years to realize this sucks," Frankie said. "Most people in that situation, I know I was, are just beaten down physically and mentally and emotionally gone. There was nothing more."
The last time he got arrested was the final trigger in making him want to change.
"I had gotten arrested multiple times, and probably spent maybe three and a half, fours years locked up in county jails here in Wisconsin and in Illinois. And the last time was just enough," he said. "I had a (district attorney) once tell a judge that I'm the kind of person that parents warn their children about. That really stuck with me because it was so shocking."
Like so many heroin addicts, Frankie said he started using the drug with some friends.
"There was a bunch of us who got into it at about the same time and we fed off each other. Through that, we eventually found the people who had what we wanted," Frankie said.
Of the people he hung out with when he first got into drugs, the toll has been high.
"Two are dead, one's in prison and one fell off the face of the earth. I have no idea whatever happened to him," he said. "And I recovered."
Unlike a lot of the people interviewed for this series, Frankie said heroin has been in the Northwoods a long time, you just had to know where to get it.
"Heroin started coming up here, that I know of when I was 19 and I'm 32 now. I remember going to Chicago at the age of 19 and picking up heroin from Conover," he said. "Nobody really noticed it, or didn't want to notice it, back then. But it was there, it's been there the whole time. It's just gotten to the point now that it's everywhere and people are like 'Oh, now we got a problem.' But this has been going on years, decades at least."
September marked two years of sobriety for Frankie.
"I can't even begin to describe the gifts I've gotten back," he said. "My worst day clean is better than my best day using."
For Frankie, Koinonia was literally a lifesaver.
"I've been clean since I came through here," he said. "I tried kicking it using jails and other means, but that never worked. I always went back to the drugs."
Frankie said there is a physical as well as psychological component to addiction and not only is it very much one day a time, "but sometimes one hour at a time, if need be."
"When I first got clean, certain places or thoughts would trigger that part of my brain where I was 'wait a minute, I remember this and this is a familiar feeling.' That was the stuff I had to work through early in my recovery to get past that," he said.
He is active in the Koinonia Alumni Group, a collection of recovering addicts who give back to the treatment center and the community.
"It's a place for people who get out of treatment to stay connected with each other. A lot of times, people will go home and be at home and be like, here I am, now what? So it gives them a place to go, it keeps them accountable to a certain degree and it's a way to have fun," Frankie said. "We get together and plan events for the clients here, because we all came through here. We like to give back what was given to us. We do road cleanups, help with medications where we can."
Frankie is studying information technology at Nicolet and looks forward to a future career in that field.
"I'm doing two degrees right now, programming and networking," he said. "There is a lot of money involved in that (the IT field) right now and it is supposed to grow 22 percent in the next five years."
The last semester he was in school, he was nominated to be selected as a state student ambassador.
"There was like 14 of us who got nominated by different faculty. So I went in there and told them exactly where I had (come) from and exactly what I was doing, and they picked me," he said. "I went to Madison and was given an award, which was cool because I got to attend a state dinner. It was something that never in a million years I would have expected, ever. And it was all because I got clean and decided to do something with my life."
Frankie also took first place in a state programming competition which earned him a trip to Indianapolis for the nationals where he finished 11th. He has also used what he has learned at Nicolet College to build and maintain the website for the Wisconsin branch of Faces and Voices of Recovery.
"In January, Wisconsin decided to put together a panel of 20 individuals, both recovering and advocates, to start a movement in Wisconsin to talk about recovery, try to change some policies," Frankie said. "If you look at when the AIDS epidemic came through, how was that so successful in changing the stigma? It's because they gathered in masses, they were loud, and they got real change done. So what Wisconsin is trying to do is do the same thing. There's a lot of recovering people in Wisconsin, but nobody hears about us. We recover, we get better, and we just blend into society. So what we do is get together and try to change policy, try to relieve some of that stigma. People still think that addiction is a moral deficiency, and it's not, obviously. There's proven science for that."
Frankie is grateful for the opportunity his employer gave him.
"I do have a substantial criminal record, but I'm working on repairing that right now," he said. "I do community service work, I'm a student ambassador at Nicolet, I work with some people down in Madison with a group called Voices of Recovery to try to offset my criminal record."
Frankie said he would remind anyone who is battling drug addiction that there is a light at the end of a the tunnel and it is possible to live a clean life.
"Recovery does work," he said. "If you want it, it's there. There is an easier way to live. There are people who care. Stick with the winners, that's one of the things I learned. When I got clean, I saw people in recovery (who seemed to be putting their lives back together). Those are the people I gravitated toward."
Jamie Taylor may be reached at [email protected].
Comments:
You must login to comment.