MAKING A DIFFERENCE –

Dec. 28, 2021 – The road to recovery was riddled with several obstacles, according to Huntley, including another episode with a different form of opioids: methadone. Used as a medicine to treat drug addiction, methadone is what Huntley turned to.

“To get you off the meds, they give you more meds,” said Huntley. “Sometimes you end up being on methadone longer than you were on oxy. We have a problem.”

Slowly, but surely, Huntley said he started noticing the decrease in the effectiveness of the methadone. What also worried him was his increasing dependency. Every visit to the pharmacy would be accompanied by the worrying thought of the dosage not being enough; that the lack of potency of the drug could easily trigger withdrawals.

“When you take the medicine, it binds you but when you don’t, you lose control,” Huntley said.  “You lose control of yourself and everything.”

Huntley’s path to recovery lacked what one might call an epiphany or a pivotal moment. He woke up and decided “enough is enough.” He quit the methadone “cold turkey” and entered a solitary phase of dealing with chronic pain and withdrawals for months, with some help from family.

“My son helped save my life,” Huntley noted. “He would bring me blocks of ice that I froze overnight, and I would use those to numb myself down.”

He said his son, Trevor, who suffers from cerebral palsy, witnessed his father’s recovery firsthand.

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