A Recovery Journey: Blake Payne

Introducing our newest staff member – Blake Payne. As a graduate of the program, Blake has been a part of the Greenville Transitions family for quite some time. We are excited that he is joining our growing team as the Admissions & Outreach Specialist! He shares his story below.

My name is Blake Payne. I am in recovery and my drug of choice was opiates. These are the words that seemed impossible to say not too long ago, and they have now become an important part of my life. I hope my story can encourage someone else to take the first step and say those words.

Growing up I had a lot of hobbies. I loved to workout, go hiking, and play football. But most of all I loved to go fishing. As a South Carolina boy, I spent days on end fishing the lakes of Greenville County, but nothing was better than driving to the coast for a few days with the rod and reel. I spent hours out on the waters around Charleston, somedays getting lucky and other days not so much. I loved it nonetheless.

In my later teens my hobbies started to shift. While I still enjoyed days out on the lake, they started to include drinking some beer and smoking some weed with my buddies – my new favorite hobby. I would smoke or drink almost every day, but it seemed harmless. My life was manageable, and the weed or alcohol weren’t causing any big issues.

Once I graduated high school, I didn’t quite know what I wanted to do next. My hobby, and my job, became working with cars. I started working for my dad’s small business to make some money until I decided my next step in life. Since the business involved something I loved, cars, I was content and making good money. I eventually moved into an apartment, paid off my car, and had a decent amount of money in the bank – life was good.

Outside of work, my buddies and I would still smoke regularly. It wasn’t long before this became an everyday habit again. I started to dabble a bit with opiates, but it wasn’t too serious. Then I met the completely life consuming hobby that wrecked my world – one little blue pill.

I was hanging out with friends one night when one guy pulls out that little blue pill, a roxie. I had never taken one of those before, and I had heard a lot of unsettling things about it. People in the surrounding area were overdosing and dying from “roxies”, because they were sometimes fake and pressed with fentanyl, a powerful and addictive pain killer.

I was definitely hesitant, but for some reason I believed my friend when he said, “nah man these are the real deal.” Since he already had experience taking them, I thought I should be fine. He broke down a line, just a quarter of the pill, and I snorted it. Immediately I felt something I never had before. My brain screamed, “This is it. This is what I’ve been searching for!”  After a bit I turned back to my friend and said “Man, we can’t do this shit all the time. This is too good.” 

As the days went on, I completely lost all self-control. That little blue pill took ahold of me. I dreamed about it, thought about it all day, and spent all the money I had to get my hands on more. It wasn’t long before those pills started to really get me into trouble. I wouldn’t see friends or family if I didn’t have it. The anxiety was unbearable if I had to be out in public without the drug. I was always in constant survival mode, and I felt trapped. It was my idol, and I was its slave. 

After a while the drug didn’t do anything for me anymore. I used it just to feel “normal.” My thoughts began to shift from “This isn’t that bad, I can bounce back from this” to, “I guess I’ll be doing this for the rest of my life.” I was always the type to put on a fake smile even when things were going bad, so I hid it from everyone around me except for a few friends that also used.

I was sick. Addiction completely consumed me. I feel like it’s hard for people who haven’t gone through addiction to understand how powerful it really is. It makes you stay in survival mode and you will steal, lie, and manipulate to get that drug. 

Finally, it all came crashing down. I couldn’t carry the burden anymore.

I was newly married, and completely unable to provide for my (then) wife. I bled everything out of our bank account and when the money was gone, I tried to manipulate my wife into selling her engagement ring. I told her I would stop using, and that I could stop on my own. I truly believed that I could. She couldn’t keep the secret up any longer, so she confided in our marriage counselor. I was completely devastated and angry that she had let out my secret, my weakness.

With the encouragement of our marriage counselor, I was able to tell my parents what was going on. He set up a time for us all to meet. I was so frustrated that he was pushing me to say something because it was MY way of life. Thinking back on that situation, I’m definitely not still mad about it. I’m honestly kind of glad he did that because I don’t think I ever would have said anything until I absolutely had to. I needed that push. 

Later that week my parents insisted that I go to treatment. I told them repeatedly that it wasn’t that serious, and I didn’t need treatment to make them “settle down”. They sent me to a treatment center anyway. When I arrived I felt like it was anything but normal life. A lot of the guys there were cool, but I didn’t want to be there. I managed to still find a way to get high and was kicked out. They dropped me off at an AA meeting and I had to figure out where to stay for the night. Luckily some alumni let me stay at their place, and my parents came to pick me up the next day. 

My parents quickly picked another place and off I went to a new facility. I hated it too, but I had no other choice but to stay there or be homeless because going back home was not an option. Yet again, I found a way to get high. I had never done heroin at this point, and I figured “Why not?” My mind was sick. I was using that for a few days and soon enough I was kicked out. They dropped me off at a shed-like house with cockroaches and mold throughout. There were no sheets on the bed and bed bugs all over the place. I woke up covered in bug bites, but I still had a little bit of heroin left on me. It’s crazy that as long as I had that stuff, I was okay with my surroundings. I started walking to a country club to try to get a job, and my dad called me on my way. He told me he was going to pick me up and find a more structured place for me to go. After that call, I finally realized all of the destruction that I had been causing to myself and my family. I couldn’t believe that my dad was willing to do anything to help his son. For the first time, I wanted to change, but I had to do it for myself, not my parents, not my wife, just me.

We ended up at a hotel in downtown Greenville for a night or two because my parents were having a tough time finding the right place. They were stuck so my dad reached out to their therapist for a recommendation. She recommended Greenville Transitions that was right in town. Surprisingly, we didn’t realize there was a place quite like it so close to home. I was actually a bit relieved that there was another opportunity for me to get it right.

I spent the next 7 months at Greenville Transitions where I formed an amazing community and made friends that I could turn to anytime I needed to talk. I honestly didn’t know recovery could be like this! The main thing that really stood out to me was that the staff actually cared about me. I wasn’t just another number to them. They were awesome and pushed me to success. Even though there were times where I didn’t want to do the things they asked, they pushed me out of my comfort zone, made me more confident, and helped me find true joy and peace. I gained back all the things I had lost: my relationship with my family, and all those old hobbies that made me so happy. I have gained my life back and can enjoy those days fishing on the coast again. 

Living with addiction was not stable. No matter how hard I tried to make it work, I simply could not. This new way of living is what it’s all about, despite having a few troubles along the way. It’s truly incredible that I now get to work at the place that helped me become sober. It’s a job that I get excited about, and I finally love what I do! My life is dramatically different from how it was before, and I owe it all to Greenville Transitions.