WINNIPEG – Fentanyl is so dangerous police and first responders have to wear protective gear when they have to deal with it.
However, people hooked on the powerfully addictive opioid can’t stop using it.
“I knew every time I put that needle in my vein I was putting my life at risk and I just didn’t care, I just wanted that high more than anything. I was willing to do anything for it,” said a recovering fentanyl addict who lives in Winnipeg.
READ MORE: Manitoba launches fentanyl public awareness campaign
Global News has agreed to conceal the identity of the 26-year-old, who’s now been clean for one year but doesn’t forget how the drug nearly took everything from her.
“All I had was a garbage bag full of a couple outfits and that’s how I was living, just going day-by-day with my little garbage bag going place-to-place,” she said.
Her battle with addiction started when she took Tylenol 3 pills from her dad’s medicine cabinet when she was 12-years-old.
She then started using different drugs and drinking alcohol for years after that. It was a long road that eventually led her to fentanyl in 2014.
She nearly died from an overdose that year, requiring Naloxone to revive her.
RELATED: Two dead, one in critical condition after suspected fentanyl overdoses
“The whole time I was laying in the hospital bed I could not stop shaking, and sweating and puking and I felt like I lost total control of my body and I just remember thinking I can’t believe this is how I’m going to go,” she said.
The experience didn’t stop her from using. As soon as she and her boyfriend, who often used together, were well enough they went right back to the drug.
They would spend hundreds of dollars per day to get high. In just over a month they maxed out his credit card for $10,000 snorting and injecting fentanyl.
“We’ve been held at gunpoint, we’ve been robbed, we’ve been in terrible situations involving that drug, it’s literally like hell on earth,” she said.
But the feeling after she’d get her fix was completely the opposite.
“It gives you that feeling that once you have it that’s feeling you’ve been searching for your whole life,” she continued.
RELATED: Survivors of fentanyl overdoses often suffer devastating brain damage
After a year-long battle with fentanyl she reached out for help, something she urges anyone else struggling with addiction to consider.
“I got help and I’m on methadone and it’s been a solid year off of fentanyl and any other opioids,” she said.
She’s now well into her recovery at a transition house where the next step will be to get a place of her own.
She’s hoping to go to university or college when she’s finished treatment.
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