Kicking the habit: Jeff Mills, student, tells story of his struggle with opiate addiction

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By Mackenzie Clark

Every time Jeff Mills looks at his arms, he is reminded of his struggle with heroin abuse.

Mills started experimenting with marijuana in his seventh grade year and began using it frequently in eighth grade. During his freshman year he tried hallucinogens for the first time.

“I started first with shrooms because I thought hey, they’re natural, and so is weed, and I wanted to try something new,” Mills said.

Later that year, he “dropped acid” for the first time. His sophomore year was when he began experimenting with heavier drugs.

“I wanted to see what drugs were really like, so I started trying ecstasy and cocaine, and prescription pills like Xanax and [hydrocodone], just really did whatever I wanted,” he said. “I really started getting into the drug world between selling, mostly to support my habits.”

During his junior year of high school, cocaine became an everyday thing, and he’d spend the majority of his weekends high on ecstasy, partying and drinking.

“That’s about all I remember,” he said.

That year, Mills was arrested for the first time for possession of marijuana and paraphernalia and placed on diversion.

“Kids experiment with marijuana,” said John Mills, Jeff’s father. “…I wasn’t really all that alarmed by it. We made it clear that it was unacceptable…but I wasn’t all that worried about just that.”

Because he was on diversion, Mills stopped using cocaine but occasionally used hallucinogens. Then he started taking Xanax again, which led him to Oxycontin, an opioid pain reliever, “and that’s where everything started,” he said.

It was winter of Mills’ senior year, and he had very easy access to Oxycontin. He built up a high tolerance and started having to sell the pills to support his own habit. He continued using heavily, and spent the day of his high school graduation withdrawing from opiates in a hospital bed.

“I wanted to go to my high school graduation sober, but I soon realized that I couldn’t be sober anymore,” Mills said.

From the hospital, Mills went to an outpatient rehabilitation program, but his sobriety only lasted a couple of weeks before he started taking the pills again.

“We didn’t know what was wrong with him, to be honest with you,” John said. “I suspected drug use – certainly didn’t know what he was doing…[I felt] a whole series of emotions, anywhere from concern, to worry, to anger, to really just a feeling of helplessness.”

Mills abused Oxycontin for the entire summer of 2009 and racked up excessive credit card debt to support his habit. In September of that year, he went to Columbia, Mo. with his girlfriend, whom he wishes to remain anonymous.

“We were getting loaded [on Oxycontin] the whole time we were down there, and by this time I’d tried heroin once or twice but I hadn’t really started doing it,” Mills said.

Around that time, his parents received some checks in the mail that Mills had written, which had bounced. They found out about his debt and his drug habit, so he returned with them to their home in Lenexa and the next day left for St. Gregory Retreat Center in Iowa.

“I remember that was the worst car ride of my life,” Mills said. “I had my head in a bowl for the full five and a half hours. [I was] puking when I got there, I was so dehydrated that I couldn’t stand up. I couldn’t hear; all I could hear was ringing in my ears and everything was blurry.”

The doctor at the center gave him Suboxone, a drug used to treat opiate addiction, and he detoxed. He spent eight weeks in their Life Process program, which is completely different from 12-step programs such as Narcotics Anonymous.

“It was a really nice place—leather couches, nice TVs…It was just awesome, it was like a vacation,” Mills said, “but I learned a whole lot there. I got out on Thanksgiving…and I went out and smoked some weed, thinking that weed isn’t my problem, I’m staying clean off opiates.”

At St. Gregory, he had made a plan to move to Moberly, Mo. with his girlfriend, which they did on Jan. 1, 2010. He found a good job and things were looking up.

“We spent three really great months up there,” he said. “We stayed off all opiates; we were doing awesome. I was going to school and we were just really in love and had a great, great time.”

After those three months, Mills and his girlfriend experienced a tragedy about which he declined to comment, but it caused them both to relapse. They came back to Kansas City and purchased heroin and “spiraled downhill.”

“I also began trying meth…Meth was easier to get than weed,” he said.

That May, a fire started in the apartment below Mills’. Trying to find a new place to live was complicated with his work schedule and he ended up being fired, so he then had to find a new job, also.

“It wasn’t going so hot, and I was still really, really addicted to heroin and meth,” he said.

Mills and his girlfriend decided to return to Kansas City for the fourth of July. They stopped at a gas station and the attendant called the police because Mills was in the bathroom for fifteen minutes. The police asked to see his arms, which were still bleeding from injecting methadone, a drug often used in rehabilitation centers to wean users off heroin.

They were both searched and arrested: Mills had a needle and spoon, his girlfriend had the bottle of methadone in her purse. He tried to tell them the pills were his, but they couldn’t charge him instead because they found them on her person. She was charged with four felony counts of possession of a controlled substance while Mills received a paraphernalia charge and got to go home.

He moved back in with his parents and agreed to go to rehab at Valley Hope in Atchison.

“As my lawyer later told me, you might as well call that place ‘Valley Dope’ because it’s true,” Mills said. “It’s like ‘The Real World’ without celebrities.”

At Valley Hope, patients could have their cars and leave whenever they wanted; Mills was still getting high frequently and drinking for the 18 days he spent there. From there, he was accepted into an Oxford House but he wasn’t helped by the 12-step style program there.

He left the Oxford House and “went off the grid,” staying on friends’ couches for a few weeks and using consistently. After a while, he apologized to his parents and asked to come home but they insisted he pass a urinalysis before he could stay; he failed because he’d just used heroin but talked them into letting him stay.

“I’d really destroyed my family by this point,” he said. “They were about to give up on me, I was just a wreck.”

He convinced them he wasn’t using, but “stooped to new lows, stealing lots of stuff from the family.” His father kicked him out when he found out he’d forged checks. He’d also been selling his prescribed Oxycontin to buy heroin instead.

“There were signs, I should’ve seen it even earlier then,” John Mills said.

He lived at hotels for a while and slept in his car for a few nights. Eventually he moved into the apartment of a friend he’d met at Valley Hope. They were both unemployed, using heroin and started begging for money, stealing “whatever we could to get enough just to get a piece or so.”

One night he’d refilled his prescription, sold the pills and had over $1,000, but he and his friend stole a DVD from a store and got caught. They ran from the police but Mills got caught and arrested on a warrant from Moberly.

“It was my first time in jail and I was really, really scared,” he said.

He spent about two weeks in jail pleading with his father to get him out, and finally it happened. John Mills paid $2,000 to bond his son out just in time for Christmas.

“I was so grateful to be home,” he said. “I had spent the time in jail that I was going through withdrawals so I was feeling better…and I was ready to go to rehab, and this time really makes it work.”

Two days after Christmas, his parents drove him back to St. Gregory in Iowa.

“The first time [at St. Gregory] was good, this time was great,” he said. “Not only was I building my self esteem up, and my confidence and everything, I was getting so healthy.”

Mills learned a lot, and got out in late February of this year. He was still facing many drug and theft charges in both Kansas and Missouri which added up to 36 years in prison. With the help of his lawyers he pled down to 14 years and ended up getting on intensive supervision probation instead.

He has now found a good job and is attending the college, and finally feels like his life is getting back on track.

“[I’m] happy and scared to death every day at the same time that it’s going to happen again,” John Mills said. “It’ll take a while…I want more than anything to trust Jeff. I’ve fallen into that hole too many times because I want to trust him…I want it to be there in the worst way.”

Every day is still a struggle, as addiction goes, but Mills and his family continue to try to rebuild their lives and trust.

Contact Mackenzie Clark, features editor, at mclark68@jccc.edu.

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