Just a few pills...after all I can handle it now

After getting clean in 2000 and staying that way for a year and a half. I found myself in central Mexico at a pharmacy buying antibiotics. While standing in line I noticed a generic box labelled Tramadol. Remembering getting a buzz from two tablets given to me in detox I reasoned that I might just buy a box. It had been a long time since I had been to any meetings or really even maintained my sobriety, so to speak, so very easily I fell prey to this highly intelligent reasoning.
I thinks it goes without saying that of course the using continued..for about 8 years. At the beginning I went from 4 pills a day to around 22 pills a dose. After getting scared well, I dropped it down to 6 a day and maintained this dose without much cheating for many years.
During this time I did what we all do, I let this drug supply my motivation for doing anything in my life. It was my social lubricant, my energy, and all my life was built on the foundation of these pills. I began studying veterinary medicine and began working with a few doctors. It ws here that I began forging Xanax prescriptions. In mexico, as odd as it may sound, doctors will prescribe these medications to be filled in the people pharmacy. Medications specifically packaged and marketed in animal doses are not as common as they are here so It went unnoticed until I brought attention to myself and wrote a prescription for 2mg.
One day, my DoC was only available in injections, as they had sold out of tablets... things went completely out of control rapidly and I was lost.
One day I found myself googling addiction forums. For many years prior, as I described, I had been IVing my sedatives and the Tramadol. My house was a wreck. I had not cleaned it for over a year. The water was cut off and I continued to use the toilet even though it would not flush. When its capacity was reached I turned to using a bucket lined with garbage bags, Keeping my growing number of cat's litter clean was almost impossible so I made the wise decision to abandon it altogether and let them defecate wherever the chose. I began taking more animals off the street and by the time I found sr there were 22 and two new litters of inbred felines. Some were completely feral even having been born inside my house. There were so many flies that everything in my house was covered in their trademark block dot waste. As long as I was high, I somehow, could exist in this environment. The **** could pile up to heaven as long as I was high and had a corner to put my computer in. My skinny butt was full of bruises from injections. It was completely hard...I did not know that human flesh could become some hard. I, mentally, began to give up on myself. It is very hard to describe this to someone who has never thrown in the towel with regards to themselves. Many people have said, well how did you expect to get through this Chris... How were you to get out? They fail to understand that I had no plans for getting out.. I had given up on myself, regarding myself as someone who simply was not able or capable of change. I sincerely believed this, therefor I did not envision a light at the end of the tunnel.... I was going to just go down. I had accepted it, and I even wrote letters so that when I was found my family and friends could be notified. Having given up, I began to indulge in things like anorexia, drinking only milk for days on end, and even denying myself food. I didn't have much of an appetite really. I also dabbled in bulemia. I found myself eating massive amounts of food. After gorging I found I had the desire to eat even more, so I would thow up so I could eat more or sometimes I would want to eat, but really not want to swallow the food so I would hold it in my mouth hoping to somehow just ingest the juice or somehow get the hutrients out of it, then I would spit it out. It's strange how I engaged in these strange behaviors as if they were something on a menu and I was choosing what I would try next.
The day I googled and found SR I had been stricken with phlebitis. I believe I posted on day and the next I was developing blood poisoning. After a day of not being able to find any veins I went out to buy some food at the pharmacy. I know I looked bad, and stunk somewhat and on the way out a woman I do not know approached me and begged me to let her help me. I tried blowing her off but she had a peircing gaze and almsot would not budge. SHe kept looking me in the eye and telling me..."but you are not well... You are really sick!" I let her drive me home but did not open up to her. The next day I was stricken immobile. I could not move. as the days went by I had to use two smalls ticks for canes, I had to use a small stick to help dress myself. Putting my own socks on was an impossible task.
I began to realise I was deathly ill and began to formulate a plan to get out and home to the states but I also began to see that my physical state was not realy improving and it scared me soo much that I told my mother. The next day I was desperate. According to my treasoning if I could call that anonymous lady, and have her help me run a few errands, that I would be able to drive myself to the US the following day.
When I called that lady, she came over, barged into my house, drug me out and began to help me gather my belongings. She asked who were my best friends there and wanted their phone numbers as well as my Doctor's phone number. In a whirlwind afternoon of ahppenings I found myself in the doctors office being told I was lucky to be there as I would have died. The doctor told me I was experiencing a sort of dementia that people sometimes suffer prior to dying. Long story short..we returned to that house and I got my favorite cat and a small trunk of belongings and I stayed the next weeke and my best friends family's house before being driven to the border to meet my parents.
I was a spiritual, physical, and mental wreck. I could barely think and could barely feed myself. I remember the horrible sinking feeling I had as my girlfriend had to help me dress myself and I just cried. She just told me to shut up as many years before we confessed our deepest fears to one another and one that we shared was getting old and having to have some unknown person have to wipe out butts or take care of us so that day she just told me to shut up and stop crying.. she reminded me that we made a promise to each other that day and she wasn't doing anything that she wasn't sure I would do for her.
The people on the board helped me realise that I could actually make a change.. even at the desperate depths I had come to. The encouraged me to reach out for some help and they helped me push the guilt and shame away so that I could take steps to get out and get things in order.
I remember thinking then, that I was emabarking on a series of steps and I saw the road very long before me, and wished somehoe that I was already in the middle of it... or at least a bit further along... the end seemed so far off. Now I am just over a week sober.. after 2 months tapering off suboxone. I have my life, my family, and my cat. ALthough this week has been a little rough I am OK. Without the sub I find lifes little stresses kind of bumpy, but I am still going to meetings, reading here, and reading online recovery sites as well and forcing myself to engage in my old hobbies, and meditating and praying a lot. I have the desire to learn new tricks so I can live life without my crutch.
I have to say thanks to everyone here, because I REALLY REALLY got a lot of support in a very crucial time, and your advice was more than instrumental in the choices I made and the outcome. I'm thankful.
Chris