The Human Side

Amanda

Amanda overdosed on fentanyl three times, but Narcan, a medication that reverses such overdoses, brought her back from the dead each time. She started using drugs when she was 18, trying to numb a traumatic childhood. 

“I was sexually abused by my stepbrother when I was a child,” she said. “I was depressed and started taking painkillers, including Lortab. I fell in love with numbing parts of my life so the past didn’t haunt me as much.”

Working as a waitress in Mobile provided easy access to any drug she wanted. She said she doesn’t know how she lost control or when her opioid tolerance became so high. 

“One day I was fine; the next day it was all I thought about,” she said. 

Suddenly she was taking 10 Lortabs at a time, 10 times a day. She moved to Dilaudid, OxyContin, and Roxies (Oxycodone). 

“I never pictured myself being a drug addict,” she said 

There were times she tried to stop. She went to rehab twice at Bradford Health Services in Birmingham and took Suboxone, a narcotic medication used to treat opioid addiction. Then she started heroin.

”Heroin was everywhere in Birmingham, and it surprised me that it took so long to get to Mobile,” she said. “It was much cheaper than other drugs and spread as soon as it arrived here. It took off in Mobile because of the Crossley Hills drug gang. A lot of people bought from them.”

Cheaper heroin meant she didn’t have to worry as much about getting money and could use more often. She went from spending $150 a day on pills to $40 a day on heroin, using every few hours to keep the withdrawals away. 

“I stole money for pills, but I sold just enough heroin to a few daily customers to support my habit,” she said “Having a few buyers meant I didn’t have to do the things I used to do for pills.”

One of her heroin dealers was William “Whip” Owens of the Crossley Hills gang. Owens was recently found guilty on federal charges of conspiracy and distribution of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and heroin. Part of that conspiracy was causing the overdose death of a young woman.

’I met Whip through mutual friends. He was a womanizer and was always trying to hang out with me,” she said. “I knew what he made women do who didn’t have the money for drugs. When I bought from Whip, I always took a man with me and always had cash.

”Heroin comes from hell. It’s the devil,” she said. “Men use it to prey on women who have a drug addiction and who would do anything to get it.”

Deep into her heroin addiction, the next hit was all that she thought about, Amanda said. 

“Heroin controls your life all day, every day–with no days off. 

“I felt like I would die without it,” she said. P

It became even more dangerous using heroin because suppliers now mix in fentanyl most of the time, and people don’t know what they’re getting, Amanda said. The last time she overdosed, she was just doing a tester line. She only remembers waking up after the Narcan. 

After her first time using fentanyl, her tolerance “went through the roof and plain heroin wasn’t as good,” she said. She preferred fentanyl because it was cheaper and stronger. It also put her to sleep.

“Sleeping was my favorite thing to do, and fentanyl got me there,” she said.  “I wasn't trying to kill myself, but I also didn't care. Maybe I was intentionally flirting with death. My whole body was numb, and nothing else was as pleasurable.” 

But shooting up takes a toll on the body, and Amanda blew out the veins in her arms, legs, and stomach. The withdrawals came fast, but when she held what she needed in her hand, she automatically felt better.

“I was depressed, and drugs sent me into my comfortable place,” she said. “It was heaven and a home away from reality. After being numb for so long, it was hard to find motivation to do anything–including cleaning, showering, or taking care of myself.

“Wrapping my mind around being sober was hard,” she said. 

Amanda had three children during her 15 years of addiction. She got pregnant in high school and had her first child at 17. The children were raised by Amanda’s parents, who refused to let her come around if she couldn’t get clean. Amanda didn’t see her kids for almost five years because she couldn’t change, no matter how much her family tried to help. 

”I wasn't ready, and I didn't want to quit,” she said. “I have broken my family’s heart time and time and time again. My mom finally said, ‘Enough.’ She did the right thing because if she hadn’t put her foot down, I never would have stopped.”

As the years went by, it was easier not to think about her children, but every now and then, she was allowed to talk on the phone with them. On June 26, 2021, her son asked her to come home for his birthday. Amanda called it a moment of clarity. 

Two weeks later, she went into detox and to Home of Grace, a faith-based recovery program.

“The withdrawals during detox were horrible,” she said. “I was on the bathroom floor, throwing up and sweating profusely. But something– it must have been God–made me stay, but I didn’t believe in God before Home of Grace. Since then I have been sober for 11 months, the longest I've ever been clean.”

At first, Amanda’s parents were reluctant to let their daughter see her children. But two months after graduating from Home of Grace, Amanda went to their home for Thanksgiving.

“My thinking was: how could someone who is worthless and screwed up her kids’ lives, get clean and be a mother again,” she said about herself. “I never thought that moment of seeing my kids would come. It was like a bad dream, and I was going to wake up at any time back in my old life.” 

Amanda is slowly getting closer to her children, including her oldest daughter. 

“I missed out on so much of her growing up,” Amanda said. “She could have had a different life if I had not been addicted and messed up in so many ways. I will have that guilt for a long time, but the reward of getting clean is having restoration with my family. I am getting better at being a mama.”

Amanda recently graduated from the Restore Class at Ransom Ministry. She passed her medical coding exam, paid off her legal fines, and is working on getting her driver’s license back.  She is a house mother at Home of Grace, giving back and showing women there is a life after drugs. 

“I thought the drugs had done so much to my brain that I wouldn't be able to comprehend anything, but that wasn’t the case,” she said. “Renewal of the mind is real.

“There’s so much more to life than being miserable,” she said. “You don't have to live in hell.”

Vern

Vern was 17 the first time she did drugs. She became a drug dealer, selling for decades to pay the bills and support her habit. 

“I went to jail three times and almost died a couple of times,” she said. “I kept hitting the wall over and over. I had so much loss in my life, I just didn't care.”

She was a young girl when two men in her family started molesting her. Other family members didn’t want to believe her or take her side. 

“It was in the 1970’s when we didn’t talk about this, so I kept it to myself,” she said. “All of that messed me up. 

A few years later, she started smoking weed and hanging out with bad people, ending up in juvenile detention. She left home at 17 and met her first girlfriend. 

“She was trying to pay the bills with prostitution, so I joined in,” Vern said. “We made enough money to pay the rent and buy weed and alcohol.

“The first time I did it, I got drunk. I always needed a few beers and shots of whiskey before I got going,” she said. “Prostitution was belittling, and I already had a bad thing about being abused by men. I never should have done it.”

The two got out of prostitution and into other jobs. Vern’s girlfriend was hit and killed by a truck while washing the walls of one of the tunnels in Mobile. Devastated by her death, Vern kept using drugs. 

”Heroin had just been cleared out of Mobile, and Dilaudid came out. We used Percocet and Valium,” she said.

The first time Vern went to jail, nobody picked her up when she was released.

“I wound up at the dope house,” she said. “I know that's a poor excuse, but going there seemed like my only option. That kept me on a bad path.”

She started shoplifting for drug money. 

”We lined bags with aluminum foil so we wouldn't set off the alarms,” she said. “We stole a couple of packs of meat every day. We used that to buy crack.”

She also started selling drugs.

“Selling drugs meant I didn't have to do the things I used to do to buy them,” she said. “I know what I did was wrong, but it was the only way I could make money. I was too strung out to get another job.”

In the 1980s, there were strip clubs and brothels in downtown Mobile, and Vern sold drugs to the women working there. 

The drugs she sold changed with the trends. She learned how to make meth but quit the day a sheriff’s deputy left his business card on the door of the trailer where she was making it. When doctors freely prescribed OxyContin, Vern went to multiple doctors to get prescriptions of OxyContin and Xanax, then sold the pills.

”I rotated doctors in Mobile, Fairhope, and Mississippi, going to a different one each week to get prescriptions,” she said. “Pills sold for $1 per milligram. I sold an 80 mg pill for $80 or 40 milligrams for $40.”

Vern sold from her house and some customers stopped by several times a day. She also met them in the bathrooms of fast-food restaurants or delivered to their jobs. She charged $5 less to customers who were turning around and selling the drugs to support their habits,

“People were out there looking for drugs. If they didn’t buy from me, they would buy from someone else,” she said. “Most of them didn’t care that they were messing up their lives.”

Getting caught or someone snitching was always in the back of her mind, and there were a few limits to who she would sell to. She didn’t sell to teenagers or pregnant women. She even tried to talk a few mothers out of using because they had kids at home.

“I wish someone had talked with me about what happens when you go down this road,” she said. “One customer got clean, and I was so happy for her.”

Vern was also raising a daughter. As her daughter got older, Vern knew it was time to change. 

“She was 14 and seeing stuff,” Vern said. “I couldn’t give her much, and I didn't want her to follow in my footsteps. She was already headed in that direction.”

Now on methadone as treatment for her addiction, Vern is thankful she stopped selling and using drugs before fentanyl landed in Mobile. 

”Fentanyl is a monster that is killing people,” she said. “Now you don't know what’s in the pills you are selling, and they can charge you for murder. I used to think it was bad with the stuff I was doing, but it wasn't as bad as fentanyl. The customers have changed, too.”

Vern still beats herself up for what she’s done and the people she hurt. 

“I used to blame the drugs, but there is no one to blame but me,” she said. “I put the drugs in my body and sold them to a lot of people doing the same thing. I had to go through a lot of s-t to get back right.”

After losing years of her life that she can’t get back, Vern is trying to finish up an English class and get her diploma. Her daughter is going to school to be a nurse. 

“I have a grandson who I adore, and my daughter is a better mother than I was,” Vern said. “They are my reward for everything, and I am so proud of them. 

“My daughter forgave me for what I have done,” Vern said. “But I still have to work on forgiving myself. 

Da'Von

Da'Von Stovall is originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When he was about 12 years old, doctors removed his gallbladder and put him on oxycodone. Regularly taking pain pills by age 16, he realized he was in full-blown addiction at age 18.

The first time he took opiates, it gave him a warm sensation and took away his pain and stress. It calmed his nerves and gave him courage. 

“It was a loving feeling that felt like everything was going to be okay,” he said. “We call that chasing the dragon because you're chasing the first high that you ever got. You will never be able to reach that first high, but psychologically you have to try.”

He began taking painkillers to cope with other problems. He thought he was in control until he woke up sweating in the middle of the night and couldn’t keep his legs still. 

“I had a temperature and was coughing and sneezing. I felt like I had the flu, but when I took an oxycodone, it went away in less than a minute,” he said. “I Googled for an explanation and learned that those were withdrawal symptoms from the medication.”

In his twenties, doctors removed one of his kidneys, and an oncologist put him on fentanyl strips. He didn’t have cancer and tried to only use the fentanyl in extreme pain, but the doctor told him to keep the drug in his system.

Only nine months away from graduating from college with a degree in physical therapy and a minor in psychology, he kept taking the fentanyl strips thinking that the oncologist knew best. 

One day he showed up at his doctor’s office for a refill, but the doctor’s office had been raided and closed down. 

“I was left high and dry and addicted to opiates,” Da'Von said. “I had to find a way to keep getting drugs to avoid withdrawal.” 

Drugs were hitting Pennsylvania hard. One oxycodone pill cost $30 to $60, but heroin cost just $5. He switched to heroin and got the same high. 

“I took the opiates to stay normal,” he said. “I needed a fix as soon as I woke up just to feel OK. My tolerance got so high that I started shooting opiates in my veins.”

He went to the hospital because his veins were infected from shooting up. The patient in the bed next to him called a drug dealer who snuck in some fentanyl. With an IV already hooked into his arm, Da'Von thought it was a chance to take fentanyl. 

“I was not in a sober mind,” he said. “I have an addictive personality, and anything I love to do, I’m going to do it. You can’t put a limit on it.”

Instantly overdosing from the fentanyl, the nurses hit him with Narcan to reverse the effects of the drug.

“I came to a little bit and heard a nurse say, ‘Oh my God, I've never given anyone this much Narcan in my life.’ They gave me one more dose, and I was revived.”

That overdose scared him. He was living with his mom, who did her best to care for him, but she was “sick and tired”  of his lifestyle,

“She heard about Wings of Life in Mobile, and I arrived here on June 6, 2019,” he said. “That program saved my life.”

He was only planning to stay a week or two at Wings of Life and detox, but God had bigger plans, Da'Von said. After finishing the 90-day program and giving his life to Christ, he became the outreach coordinator, mentoring others who were going through the same thing. 

“There has been a major increase in fentanyl usage since I came to Mobile in 2019,” he said. “People were predominantly using crystal meth, crack, and cocaine. But the dealers are lacing these with fentanyl because it’s cheap and highly addictive. 

The user gets hooked without even knowing that they used fentanyl, then keep going back for more, Da’Von explained. 

“The craving is so strong, and it makes you physically sick when you stop,”

Quitting is hard, Da'Von said. But it helped to come to Mobile for a fresh start where he didn’t know anyone. He couldn’t go back to the friends he used with. 

“You have a higher success rate when you are in an unfamiliar place,” he said. “I had to go 17 hours away.”

Addiction affects everyone in a family, Da'Vone said.  He sees parents and grandparents crying out for help. 

“Some stay at Wings of Life for a short time,” he said. “Even if they come to our program for 30 to 60 days, it gives the family a chance to relax and slow their nerves. They sleep a little easier, knowing that their child or grandchild is safe for that moment of time.”

“We say at Wings of Life that we aren't dope dealers, we are hope dealers,” he said. “If I can save one person's life or give them hope, it's worth it.”

This is was part of “It’s the Devil,” a yearlong series about the drug epidemic in South Alabama. The series ran in Lagniappe in 2022.