Brandon Allen (right) and Rachel Pioltini,share their stories on May 30, 2019 (Photo: Matthew Brooks/KSL)
‘Addicted We Stand’ is a support group for those in recovery. Through its Facebook page, people can find resources that will help them improve their lives.
Its Facebook group offers communal support from those who are reforming their lives after addiction.
Brandon Allen is a co-founder of Addicted We Stand, and he joins two episodes of Project Recovery to share his journey from pain and addiction to recovery.
Casey Scott recognizes the resource that Facebook is for recovering addicts.
Allen says his mother died from breast cancer shortly after his eighth birthday.
He endured some sports injuries as a teenager that led to being prescribed opioids.
Using pills to deal with his physical and emotional pain led to his drug addiction.
It took about two years on pain pills for an addiction to begin.
He says he was a full-blown addict when he was 19.
He got started on heroin after he lost job and thus his medical insurance that provided his prescription of pain pills.
“I did terrible things to get it,” Allen says.
He funded his heroin use by stealing from his own family.
“It turned my friends into enemies and my enemies into friends,” Allen says, repeating what his brother once told him.
Podcast co-host Dr. Matt Woolley says this is a common story among addicts.
“People start doing things they never would have done. They start hanging around with people that they never would have hung around with, and the only thing that becomes important . . . is [they] fell in love with [the drugs],” Dr. Woolley says.
Allen says he has spent an accumulative two to two and half years in jail.
His rock bottom happened in 2015 when he was running from his parole officer.
He got into a serious car wreck. He says he totaled three cars.
In the ambulance, he saw the look of disappointment on his father’s face.
Later, he attempted suicide by overdose. Somehow, the overdose barely made him high, Allen says.
He didn’t know he could get out of his addictions.
Podcast co-host Casey Scott says recovery centers and drug courts don’t fix a person, they only provide options.
“Only you can fix you,” Scott says.
When you make your recovery your idea, recovery can begin, Scott adds.
For Allen, building connections with others was a key part of his recovery.
He says he had to replace “everything I had with a group of people that love.”
“I wanted to feel things. I wanted to be able to feel what I hadn’t felt in a long time,” Allen says.