Knowit Addiction Stories
James Thurow
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TULSA — Gene Mansfield can itemize the price of addiction.
Using crack cocaine cost him his friends, his family, two houses, several classic cars, his marriage and more than $200,000 cash.
Of course that was 15 years ago — back before he got clean, found God and dedicated his life to helping others do the same by working at the John 3:16 shelter.
Robert Michael Behlen - The Cost of Addiction
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Just look at Robert Michael Behlen.
Drug addiction cost him his freedom. It cost him his law license. It almost cost him his life.
Behlen went from being a successful attorney to an addict so desperate for pain medicine that he took a gun last September and robbed an Edmond pharmacy of pills. He gobbled down 10 to 12 pills during the robbery, police reported.
Stephanie Roberts
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Now in her 30s, Stephanie L. Roberts of Oklahoma City doesn't have much in her troubled lifetime to brag about.
Sexually abused as a child. Binge drinking in high school. Shoplifting. Purse-snatching. Three children by three different men. Domestic violence. Stripper.
Addictions to cocaine and marijuana, and living on the streets.
“I haven't been relationship material,” Roberts said of her past.
In 2005, she hit rock bottom. She pleaded guilty to child neglect. Her children were gone.
Jailed and suicidal, her life was primarily redirected by the Sister to Sister program of the Oklahoma Citizen Advocates for Recovery and Treatment Association in Oklahoma City.
Hitting bottom - Jacob Baroi's Story
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Jacob knew he’d hit rock bottom when he found himself inside a railway station scouring trash cans for a brick and newspaper. Coming off a long drug binge, the married father of two, who had once been a doctor, knew from experience that a brick and newspaper make a decent pillow if you plan on spending the night on the streets.
Taryn G.
0 Taryn G., Oklahoma City, alcoholic
Taryn G. has been an addict most of her life. In middle school, she found alcohol provided the jolt she’d always sought.
“I remember being really young and being addicted to any thrill,” said Taryn, who chose not to give her last name. “I was always looking to feel good.”
She was interested in the substance after her first sip of alcohol: Her first communion.
Chase Morgan and Oklahoma Outreach
0 Chase Morgan knew he had a substance abuse problem the morning he woke up choking on his own vomit, his mother crying as she tried to turn him over so he wouldn’t drown in his own fluids.
“That’s when I knew, 16-year-olds don’t do this,” said Morgan, now 19. “I felt like a ghost. I knew I had a problem, but I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about it.”
Nicole Walden - Addiction to prescription medications
0 Nicole Walden spent her 2005 wedding night in the emergency room at Oklahoma City's Deaconess Hospital. A drunk driver had rear-ended the vehicle she shared with her new husband.
She didn't know the pain pills she was given would lead to an addiction to Loratab and Flexoril.
Debbie Moore's Story
0 Debbie Moore understands addiction. She has extensive experience working with adolescents and the challenges they face as a licensed professional counselor in Edmond.
She also understands addiction from a mother’s point of view. For years Moore she was in denial as she watched her oldest son struggle with drugs and alcohol. He took his first drink in eighth grade, while staying with family friends. He then began using marijuana, then cocaine.
“I thought of cocaine users as skid row guys,” she said. “For my son he was depressed and he was self-medicating depression.”
Moore found out about the drug and alcohol abuse after overhearing her son on the phone with a friend.
The Story of John B.
0 A night of out-of-control partying that ended in a wreck and his arrest was a wake-up call for John B.
John, 34, who requested his real name not be used, hit rock bottom that morning. He called his dad, telling him he needed help to turn his life around. The next day he attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. For the last 12 years, he’s been sober.
It hasn’t always been easy, he said. “I’ve had ups and downs, but my life kept getting better from that point.”
John grew up in what he described as a normal family in a small Oklahoma town. “I have very good parents who are still married and never drank,” he said. He was quiet, made straight A’s, didn’t get into trouble.
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