The date of the last time I used heroin correlating so closely with my daughter's birthdate felt like a horrible secret, like the worst math in the world.'
To other mothers, I'd confide the minimum: "I'm in recovery," or "I 'got clean' before I had my daughter." I felt invested in a false narrative fairy tale of my recovery having happened overnight, as if the moment I found out I was pregnant the dark part of my life ended and the beautiful part began.
In reality, my past and future bucked right up against each other. Having struggled with opioid use disorder for years, my body barely functioning, the last thing I'd expected to be was pregnant. I was shocked to learn I was six months along. The reasons I’d used drugs to begin with, all the ways those reasons had snowballed during addiction to make heroin even more alluring, and the challenges of past attempts at treatment suddenly seemed like simple, enviable problems compared to the loneliness and shame of being pregnant and addicted.
[For more on this story by Morgan Gliedman, go to https://www.thefix.com/opioid-...ng-can-still-be-okay]
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