Like any substance use disorder, opiate abuse can often start as an attempt to simply get high or find relief from an unwanted physical, relational or emotional state.  For a significant number of people, though, their first experience with an opiate can induce a state that feels like life is now “just as it should be".  Whether the first opiate is a legally prescribed painkiller or a hit of street heroin, the state is so intensely deep and satisfying for some individuals they are already on the road to opiate addiction.  Such an addiction threatens to erode every part of what it means to be human - physical, emotional, mental, spiritual.

This reality is part of the story of Edward Taylor, Birmingham native, Auburn University graduate and enneagram type 4 who is now grateful to be in lifetime recovery.  In today’s episode Edward recounts his emotional struggle - despite a great upbringing - to make life work as smoothly as he perceived his peers could, his early dabbling with substances as an escape from those feelings and to fit in, and his eventual slide into an opiate addiction that resulted in a desperate and daily existence focused only on avoiding dopesickness or the dark depression that made suicide look like the only way out.

All that and poor Edward is an Auburn football fan, too!  And their up and down 2021 football season is not good for anyone’s serenity but can be especially challenging for an enneagram-type 4 in recovery and trying to learn to master their internal emotional roller-coaster.  Join us on this edition of Hows That Working For You for a sometimes harrowing and sometimes hilarious conversation on life, addiction, college football and a surprising encounter with Wise Hope.