Hunter Shepard

Who are you?

My name is Hunter Michael Shepherd, and I am a recovering addict from Parkersburg, West Virginia.

What is your story?

I am a recovering addict from a place called the Mid Ohio Valley, which is actually most commonly known as the place with the highest opiate overdose rates in America. For me, my childhood was great from the time I was born until I was 11 years old. I grew up with a happy, loving family. Both parents were present. I have a huge family that I'm super close with, and everything was great. At 11 years old, I realised that I was very unhappy with who I was as a person. I was overweight. I also got diagnosed with a DD without hyperactivity, and I was prescribed to Adderall at 11 years old, which for me, I learned very quickly that actually it didn't work how it was supposed to, and I could actually abuse that medication. And at 12 years old, I started to smoke weed and drink. I started to experiment with those types of substances mixed with Adderall is never a good thing, and I was a very angry and aggressive young man. So I also got arrested for the first time at 12 years old. Over the next four years, a lot of people say that weed isn't addictive, but for me, I was completely obsessed with it from the very beginning to the point where even though I knew that there were going to be consequences, like failing a drug test for my probation officer, I still continued to use that drug. And so between 12 and 16, my life spiralled out of control. I lost my childhood best friend from a drunk driving accident, and it had a major impact on my life. At 16, I used heroin for the first time, and I knew that the consequence of that was that I was going to go to juvenile prison. I knew that I was going to be on juvenile parole, and I did it anyway. That's how much of a hold that addiction had on my life. At 17, I was released from juvenile prison and I started to use a drug called spice, which is actually an issue here in the uk still. The reason that I started to consume that drug is one, it was very easily available. You could purchase it over the counter in corner stores or gas stations. And two, I knew that I could pass a drug test for My parole officer. What I didn't realise is that it was one of the most physically addictive drugs that I would ever take. And it was also the first time that I was actually physically dependent on a drug. It was to the point where I would literally lay on my parents' bathroom floor because I would get so sick that I couldn't leave the bathroom, and I would withdraw for days from it. And then that drug became illegal in the United States. So my supply was cut pretty much overnight. And again, it had such a hold on. Addiction had such a hold on my life that I couldn't go without my next high. So I started to use heroin very quickly and pain pills, literally anything that I could get my hands on. And yeah, my parole officer caught up with me very quickly and put me into a juvenile prison again. And yeah, I mean, that drug had so much of a heroin, had so much of a hold on my life that when my daughter was born, you would think that in that moment that would be, and my daughter literally looked at me and smiled when she was born. She didn't cry or anything. And for a normal person that would have so much of an impact that you would think that that would be enough to motivate me to get sober. But I was so addicted that I was literally in the parking lot getting high before we ever even left the hospital, because I felt at that time in my life that I couldn't even go without getting high. Between 19 and 21, I was full-blown addicted to fentanyl, which is the fentanyl epidemic, started in West Virginia and Ohio where I grew up at. So between 19 and 21, that drug then had full control of my life. I literally was so physically dependent to it that I couldn't go 45 minutes without using it. But I knew that I needed help. I knew that it was a dangerous drug, and I tried to get sober. Between 19 and 21, I tried to get sober on my own. It never worked. And on my 21st birthday, I used meth for the first time. And that drug, even though I suffered physically from opiate addiction and spice addiction, Meth psychologically brought me to the rock bottom that any other drug couldn't. And between 21 and 23, I went to rehab six different times. I would go for 30 days and come home in other states, and then I would come home to West Virginia and quickly fall into the same patterns, being around the same people, fighting with my parents. I'm living at home with them. And it got so bad that the last time that I relapsed, in a matter of three weeks, I lost 45 pounds, which I believe is two and a half stone. I slept maybe three days. In three weeks, I was in full blown psychosis. I was dehydrated. I was absolutely out of my mind. And a girl that I was hanging out with decided to poison the drugs that I was using with another drug called Flocka, which is a synthetic drug that's made in a lab. And for three days, I didn't know who I was. I didn't know where I was. My parents literally came and picked me up from the hotel I was living in and took me to the hospital. When the hospital released me, I literally slept in between my parents for three days because I had no idea what was going on. I was absolutely terrified. And I would go to sleep and wake up still in psychosis. And my parents knew at this point that I needed to go to treatment and stay in treatment for long-term. So when I came out of psychosis, my parents had a treatment centre already available for me. And I did the assessment. I committed myself to 120 days in treatment, and my parents drove me to the airport to go to treatment for the last time. And on the way my dad asked me, he said, do you want to be buried or do you want to be cremated? Because if you don't stop, that's literally the only choices that you have left. And in that moment, it hit me that if I didn't fully commit myself to getting better, that I wasn't going to survive. I went to treatment, fully committed, worked the 12 steps, participated in therapy, did literally every single thing that they recommended to me and something actually special. This time in treatment happened for me. I started to document my journey on social media. I think I was two weeks sober when I started to post, and I was very honest about where I was in my life and my journey. And today, I have, in February and next February, I'll have eight years of sobriety. I have coming up on 2 million followers. I think in the last 90 days, I've reached probably three, 400 million people. With my stories and other people's stories of recovery, I've had the opportunity in recovery to work with the best treatment centres around the world here in the uk, Thailand, South Africa, all over the United States. I have part of my career today is doing interventions on people that are suffering from addiction. Families literally all over the world have hired me to come and convince their loved ones to go to rehab, and then to transport them to rehab safely. Today, I have a beautiful family. I have an amazing girlfriend. I'm able to be present in my children's life, and I'm able to be the son that my parents need and deserve today. And yeah, I've committed myself to making a difference in the world.

How has ADD shown up in your life?

Yeah. So for me, a DD is something that I have lived with my whole life, and it still does show up every single day. However, the difference between now and when I was younger is that especially as an American, medication is thrown at everything. For us. We're probably the most over-prescribed country in the world. When I was younger, I grew up in the kind of the era of over-prescription of Adderall. However, now for me, as somebody that is in recovery from addiction, I realised that drugs like Adderall are almost chemically identical to methamphetamine, which was my drug of choice. So I can't use substances like that now, and I feel that it's a blessing for me because I don't actually need drugs to live life on life's terms. And even though a DD still shows up for me, and I do struggle with attention, I constantly remind myself that that is something that I struggle with. And I try to remember that when I'm working on specific things. And look, I'm just grateful that I don't feel the need to take drugs to live life today.

How would you explain your experience of addiction?

What is something that people who haven't experienced addiction need to understand about it?