Ken’s story

It was decades before Ken was able to confront his substance use. It was something he kept to himself, something he didn’t think was a real problem.

And beyond his wife and his immediate family, nobody knew about it.

“I thought it was a moral shortcoming,” Ken says. “So I always quietly beat up on myself about it.”

Born and raised in Long Beach, California, Ken was a recreational substance user who occasionally got in trouble with the law for selling drugs. In his early 20s, he was shot during a marijuana deal that turned violent, and he was given morphine to deal with the pain while recovering in the hospital. That’s what began his decades of opioid use.

Ken says he tried methadone, a medication to treat substance misuse, multiple times over the years, but it didn’t seem to help him. His opioid habit intensified a decade ago, when he was prescribed oxycodone after undergoing back surgery, and it eventually led to him using heroin.

It was around that time he reached out to MultiCare for help, a decision he admits was initially difficult.

“I don’t think anyone wants to be an addict,” Ken says. “It’s the biggest hole in their life, and they know that.”

But with the nonjudgmental treatment of MultiCare specialists and a regular program of Suboxone, which is used to treat opioid dependency, Ken has stopped using. He’s now retired from a long career as a printing press mechanic, he has embraced his religious faith and he enjoys working on his 1953 Chevy.

“Substance use changes how your brain is wired,” Ken says. “You can’t function without it. But now, life is just so laid back and nice.”