A fighter’s battle through addiction
David Cantrell is a warrior. His burly appearance and the fire in his eyes say it all. They tell the story of someone who has seen the worst and survived. From the time he was a child living at home with his parents, Cantrell has suffered the consequences of addiction. He fell martyr to drugs early on and remained at their mercy for a long time. He battled many skirmishes over the years between feeling like a misfit, struggling with addiction, strifing through the recovery process, and building a new life.
“You have to think of drugs as predator and prey,” Cantrell offered. Drugs choose to prey on people who suffered from some form of household trauma or low self esteem. These are the people most susceptible …show more content…
Users begin to withdraw from their family and they’re disinterested in things they once loved. Their focus is on the next high. As the addict spirals, families and friends begin to suffer the consequences.
Cantrell not only experienced these “side effects” throughout his childhood, but for the duration of his life. His parents were both alcoholics, often drunk in front of him, and they frequently became violent. His father was an ex-Marine boxer with some undoubtedly dangerous moves. Cantrell was no stranger to his father’s wrath, as anytime he lied or deviated from his father’s expectations, he’d be punched. Not only did Cantrell suffer from physical abuse, but he endured a fair share of verbal and mental abuse as well.
When he was 13, Cantrell experimented with heroin for the first time. He said drugs were the cure to the emotional and physical trauma he experienced as a young child. For him, drugs created a reality so good and realistic that his brain thought it was true -- a common experience for thousands of other addicts nationwide. He lost all sense of who he was. As most addicts, he began to disengage with his friends and family and lost interest in some of his favorite …show more content…
At 34, he began the road to recovery by admitting he was an addict.
“Everyone could see [my problem] but me,”he said.
Today, Cantrell is 40 years clean of using any form of narcotic or consuming any form of alcohol. He went on to become a counselor and retired a few years ago.
Cantrell’s addiction began about 60 years ago. But the opioid crisis has only grown worse, particularly in the past decade. Cantrell said the epidemic is worse than he’s ever seen it.
Addiction is the biggest killer in the U.S., but it’s almost hidden from us. More than 42,000 people died from opioid overdoses in 2016, a five time increase from 1999, according to the Centers of Disease Control. In Michigan, deaths from opioids increased almost 20 percent between 2015 and 2016, a “statistically significant increase,” according to the CDC.
The epidemic is being addressed in multiple ways, from increasing funding for recovery programs to training more people in the use of anti-overdose remedies to attempting to decrease the stigma associated with the disease so more people seek help. The cost of the disease on society and on families as well as the cost of treating it will be