NTB

A NEW LIFE EARNED NO TURNING BACK

A GOOD CHILDHOOD Eddinger does not see the source of his struggles with drugs in his upbringing. Raised in what he believes to be a relatively healthy environment, he wasn't running away from abuse at home or school. He wasn't avoiding his family or friends. He was avoiding himself. “I was always uncomfortable in my skin,” he says, noting that drugs were a way for him to get out of his own head. “It was denitely a kind of way to escape from my inner discontentment with myself.” Beginning in high school, Eddinger started smoking marijuana. He liked it. A curiosity arose and he began experimenting with other substances. “I was always trying to nd something more intense, an escape that would be a bit more high then I was before.” Adderall, an amphetamine stimulant medication prescribed to treat attention-decit hyperactivity disorder, was the next drug. Prescriptions for Adderall are easy to come by, and easier still is getting Adderall from a friend. Eddinger’s use of the easily accessible stimulant paved the way to cocaine use. “It was fun at rst, obviously,” Eddinger recalls of his younger self. “I always heard about how everybody tells you drugs are destructive. What do you know?” Eddinger began to roll with the highs and avoid the lows. There was no self to avoid, no insecurities to compensate for. Just drugs and more drugs.

Jack Eddinger sized up the jail cell that was to be his for the night. While being arrested for cocaine possession and transported to central booking, he had been in shock. Now, alone in the cell, he broke down. Dropping to his knees, Eddinger pleaded with God. He begged for forgiveness and mercy. He asked for help, a second chance. This arrest, he prayed, would be his awakening. “I’ll do anything if you help me get out of here,” Eddinger bargained. “I need some type of change. I don't know how to do this on my own.” At 3 a.m. the next morning, Eddinger was released from jail. His possessions were returned to him, including some money. He walked out of central booking, went to a drug dealer and purchased crack cocaine. “Crack cocaine is the worst thing I could ever even imagine. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy,” Eddinger says now, astonished by the power of the drug and the control it held over his decision-making. “It’s so deceiving.”

“If you want to live a new way of life. If you are tired of the endless cycle of addiction, come to No Turning Back.”

Jack Eddinger No Turning Back client

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