I had almost given up. After two years of trying to fight, it felt like I had nothing left. It seemed like the only thing to do was declare defeat and relinquish my life to painkillers. The whole thing just seemed completely unfair and unexpected—I had struggled my whole life to build something for myself and it was taken away from me by a car accident. During the last days leading up to my treatment, I literally spent all day racked with pain, and sick with the fear of having to ultimately face the prospect of losing everything that was important to me in my life.

I don't believe there is anything special about me. I wasn't any stronger or weaker than anyone else when I started taking oxycodone. One of the things that I took away from this addiction was that it could happen to anyone, and thus, these pills ought to be illegal. It started with a few pills for chronic back pain. And eventually it seemed like the better I felt, the more I took. In just eight short months I went from being a respected business owner with my life together to being someone with a "connection" to illegal prescriptions—if you don't think it can happen to you, you're sorely mistaken.

My family stood by and watched my systematic deterioration until it became unbearable for them to witness. My wife and I separated and she took the kids. For about two weeks after we separated, I sat on the couch feeling sorry for myself and missing family so much that it was difficult to even blink. I had two options: death or treatment. Thankfully I chose the latter and checked myself into a drug rehab in Florida that I found from researching on the internet.

At first, I found it really hard to believe that any treatment program could help me, but after I had completed the initial detox, I slowly began to start to think differently. So much of my self-pity had been wrapped up in immediate physical pain, and that had basically subsided very quickly after I got clean. I felt, in a sense, reborn and focused my aims on completing rehab and getting my family back. I spent the full 30 days in their program and after returning home, I wrote my family a 4600-word email apologizing for the person I allowed drugs to turn me into.

My wife made me a deal that if I could stay off of pills for six months, she would consider moving back in with the kids again. I didn't squander my second chance that my wife offered me and have been clean for about two years now.