I am a recovering addict with three years clean. With the help of my medication, I have been able to put my life back together. I was addicted to pain meds. I was crushed in a roof fall in a coal mine in 1999 and became addicted to OxyContin. It was the worst hell I had ever been through.

In December 2001 I called the ambulance to take me to the emergency room where I got help to get into a drug rehab center. There is where I got the help I needed. I had made up my mind not to take methadone, but after 23 days of pain from the roof fall that broke both my hips and back, I started methadone treatment. In two weeks I was walking without using a cane.

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