PNN RoofLESS Radio: Eugene Encampment Stories -- John
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ3HpF_w30E
what's your name or what would you
like to be called?
my name is john
how long have you been in this
encampment or houseless in general?
i've been houseless since
the end of 2019
So what's your story?
My story is i was born and raised here in eugene oregon.
i struggled all my life with addiction and
i finally got a foothold on that when i
was 25 and had my first child
my son
he was born in 2005
And that gave me the ability and the courage
and strength to sober up and get clean
off of amphetamines.
I was clean for about 10 years off of amphetamines.
i was married for seven
years, i got divorced and
i started drinking heavily, and my
addiction problem reared its ugly head
just with something else and that was alcohol.
about a year into that i ended up going to prison
for a burg charge because i tried to beat up my neighbor
in his house for assaulting my son.
i went to prison for 30 months for that
gave me time and clarity to actually
be sober it was the longest period of
time in my life that i was actually
sober from all substances
The 10 years i was clean off amphetamines
i was still drinking, smoking pot here
and there. I was a functioning addict.
I got out of prison in 2018.
i moved up to portland
because my kids and their mother moved
to washington so i want to be closer to them
things were going fairly smooth and
then i started having problems with their mother.
she had remarried and she
didn't trust that i was completely sober
and that really affected me a lot actually
because i was i was actually sober i was
the healthiest i'd ever actually been in
my entire life
i got a job with union carpenter's union
i was making really good money i was on
the path to be able to buy my own home
within a year.
but she was able to convince
her new husband along with my kids that
i had been using and i was no not safe to be around
even though my parole officer continued
to tell her that every time she called and accused me of
using he never got any dirty UA from me, it was always
clean, i was clean so as far as he knew
and he was convinced I was clean.
she still pushed and persisted and
my kids ended up stopping talking to me
towards the end of 2019.
They broke my heart.
I wanted to commit suicide but i just didn't
have the courage to so i tried heroin
for the first time at 36 years old.
It was the biggest mistake of my life.
because that started this this cycle
that i found myself stuck in along with
the pandemic.
things were hard and
once family members found out that i had
a problem with heroin even though they knew who i was
without heroin, they've heard horror
stories about heroin and heroin addicts
and they just couldn't trust me.
so i found myself on the streets.
i couldn't hold a job since the end of 2019 up until
six months ago and i finally got a job
at the jiffy lube across the street and
i've just been kind of bouncing back and forth
from this camp to other spots
trying not to be here because my heroin
addiction makes it really hard to stay clean.
but it's so convenient for work.
And here I am. I've recently relapsed. i was clean for two
months and then i relapsed again and here i stand.
Thank you for your story.
