From fentanyl addiction, prison, and eventually sleeping in parks to being clean and making millions.
By: N Farina
Tags: Recovery, Addiction Recovery, Homelessness, Fentanyl, Self Help

From fentanyl addiction, prison, and eventually sleeping in parks to being clean and making millions. n farina Aug 9·5 min read

How I came back from the brink of death and I couldn’t be happier.

I look at fentanyl addiction like I look at everything in my life ride it until the wheels fly off or the door flies in whichever comes first. I’m Nick Farina ex fentanyl junkie, ex federal convict, ex-”street pharmacist” and now I’m just a part time dad in recovery who’s looking to make a mark. I realize all the shitty things I did while I was using to not only my friends and family but to any shmuck unlucky enough to cross my path if I needed something they had.

From a very young age I was taught nothing good happens. That's it nothing good happens and if by some sliver of luck something good does happen, well look the fuck out cause something worse is coming for you. case and point when I was 8 years old my older sister gave me a puppy. Awesome. Then my moms drunk ass flavor of the week boyfriend came in saw it and shot it dead. That's right he pulled out a pistol and shot the dog dead. Told my mom he thought it was a coyote or some shit. Not like she cared anyways when I told her it was my puppy she ended up giving me swats for bringing a dog home with out asking her first. Double fuck.

So anyways the whole nothing good thing stuck with me from that time all the way until I was 35 years old and believe me in that 18 years aside from the births of 3 wonderful children nothing good happened. 15 of that 18 years was spent under community supervision of one kind or another whether it was being incarcerated for four and a half years in federal prison or serving one of the countless terms of probation I was constantly under, life on the installment plan seemed to be in the cards for me.

If I wasn’t fighting my way out of literal handcuffs then you can guarantee the reason was that I was wired to the heroin or in the more recent years powdered fentanyl was my D.O.C or drug of choice for all of you people who prefer a more pro sobriety stand.

I have been clean for 68 days. I know it was 68 days because that was the day my father passed away at 72 years old after a long a tough fight with Cancer. Two months prior to that I was staying at a motel and my dad just showed up which was weird first because I knew he hadn’t been feeling well lately and second because my dad wasn’t someone who just showed up anywhere. if he was coming he called and told you he was coming and you had better be there when he shows up. That was my old man so needless to say this was troubling. He comes in my room and starts to tear up and he tells me all he wants is for me to get clean.

That he will help me out in any way he can but I have to get clean on my own first. when I showed him that he would help me get a place and change my life around. So what do I do the great son that I was? I continued to get high for another month. Ill never forget Feb 21 at 1030 am I received a call at the homeless shelter I was staying at, it was my niece and all I remember her saying is sorry uncle nick and I knew. I dropped the phone and went and did the only thing I knew how to do when I was dealing with something this upsetting, I got high.

Then something happened to me, I remember walking back to the shelter thinking about my dad and what he had said to me the last time we saw each other. How I hated this life I was living, I remember thinking these exact thoughts I Wanna live or I Wanna die and then I slipped on black ice and broke my leg. right there in the middle of the street I’m laying there and I hear someone say do you need an ambulance to which I replied “Naw its cool ill call a cab”. I then proceeded to the emergency dept. via cab with a broken foot high as hell not feeling the pain yet. And it comes to me fuck this I’m done. Time for me to honor my dads last wish of me and show everyone that you can come back from the brink. You can start at the beginning from this moment right now and begin to move forward. Why cant you?

The only thing stopping you from starting fresh right now moving forward is you. Get out of the way. Life is so magical so amazing that you can decide whenever you want to restart . Yesterday is gone last week is forgotten nothing good ever comes from stressing about the past. Its done and gone you can not change it so accept it embrace it and move on. As a matter of fact that goes for all stressing, frustrations and anxieties no good comes from any of these negative frames of mind.

Which brings me to the next thing you can start to do right now to get in and stay in a positive frame of mind. Whenever you catch your self stressed, complaining or even if your feel yourself starting to get a little hot under the collar, you say loudly in your mind or out loud if you wish “STOP” and instantly think of the opposite of whatever it was you were stressing or complaining about. That way you transmute the negative thought into its positive opposite. Example: I knew I shouldn’t have spent all my money on weed, I knew my loan payment was due. What am i going to do? Change that thought to I’m so happy my loan is payed in full and I’m so happy that I had extra money for weed. Thank you. See how easy that is? So I hope everyone liked this first story depending on the reply and response will determine if i keep writing. So like and share and comment. Maybe ill get into the millionaire part of the story..