MANSFIELD, Ohio — It started out as a way to “fit in.”
That’s how Mansfield man Steven Lowe, 38, described the beginning of his drug and alcohol use.
“I used to fit in and do what everybody else was doing,” Lowe said. “I was raised here in Little Kentucky and drugs and alcohol was a big part of the community. Not a huge part, but for those that I hung out with it was.”
The youngest of five children, Lowe witnessed each of his siblings drink and use drugs and didn’t want to be the odd man out.
“I’d dump my beers out at parties and just carry around an empty can just to fit in,” he said.
His drug use began with marijuana, which, as he described, helped him deal with the harsh realities of life.
“I didn’t like the situation I was in–not having a father, my brother was abusive toward me…,” he said.
At the age of 12, he entered rehab without any intention of getting clean. “It was cool to be in drug counseling,” he said. “It was cool to be an addict–for me I thought it was.”
When he was 15, he dropped out of school. “Drugs and alcohol was my primary focus,” he said. “Learning wasn’t a necessity. In my eyes I thought I could make it without having an education.”
He started working at a construction company with a friend who also used drugs.
Describing their daily routine, Lowe said, “We’d get up in the morning, go to work, get paid and then go party.”
Lowe used to smoke a joint each morning before work and also at lunch time. “I always looked at marijuana as my Xanax. It kept me grounded,” he said.
It eventually got to the point where he was using all day at work–and that included “harder” drugs like prescription pills and cocaine.
First attempt at getting clean
When he was 19, he got an aggravated trafficking felony charge for selling marijuana with a gun in the car. He was placed in Richland County Drug Court and was part of that treatment program for 17 months. Just one month before he was slated to complete the program, he said he got kicked out for using drugs and had to finish his sentence in jail.
While in jail, he told himself, “I gotta do something different or this is going to be a pattern.”
And so, he attended recovery meetings and took whatever classes available that could help him through the recovery process.
“My intentions were well,” he said.
Having his first child before he was incarcerated served as motivation to get clean he said, noting, “I went without a father my whole life and I didn’t want to do that to my son.”
After he was released, however, it wasn’t long before he slipped back into the same bad habits. He initially stayed away from the harder drugs, “and that lasted maybe a couple of weeks,” he said.
To make ends meet, he worked temporary jobs, but “none of them ever worked out because of my drug and alcohol use,” he said.
He turned to selling drugs and working odd jobs for income.
“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”
At the age of 25, he landed a fulltime construction job and tried to limit himself to smoking marijuana and drinking.
“By this time, I could function just fine drinking and smoking pot. It was my daily; it was just like eating to me,” he said.
Around this same time, he met a woman who introduced him to snorting pills.
His attitude shifted to “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” which caused him to start smoking crack, even though he had originally told himself he’d never do that. “I always set boundaries growing up for what I would not do, and I always crossed them. It never failed,” he said.
Once crack came into the picture, “It got real bad,” he said simply.
He was fired from his job and started stealing items such as copper and car batteries. “If there was a way I could get easy money by taking from somebody else, I did it,” he said.
At 33, he got another felony charge for breaking and entering. As part of his sentence, he was placed in the Mansfield Volunteers of America Halfway House, but got kicked out for drug use, he said. He then was placed in Crosswaeh Community Based Correctional Facility in Tiffin and was able to complete that program. When he was released, he was placed on probation and got busted using drugs again and was sent to jail for 13 months.
Jail time helped him clear his head, rekindling his motivation to get clean.
“It worked out for a couple weeks and then I got right back on the pills, and that’s when I was introduced to heroin because I couldn’t find the pills…that progressed really fast. After doing it two or three times, I had to have it to even function,” he said.
Though he had regained his fulltime job after he got out of jail, he lost it again.
“I started selling my kids’ things, like my kids’ PlayStation, or I would pawn their computer. It got to the point where I couldn’t even steal enough to get what I needed,” he said.
“There’s gotta be a better life”
After six months of using heroin and feeling stuck in a cycle of emotional, physical, social and mental sickness, he thought, “There’s gotta be a better life than this.”
He had heard about Mansfield Urban Minority Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Outreach Program (UMADAOP), which helps at-risk youth, adults and families receive prevention, intervention and treatment services to combat alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs abuse, help reduce violence and resolve other crime-related problems.
He entered the program at the age of 36 and is still involved a year-and-a-half later, though circumstances are quite a bit different than when he first checked in.
“I did good the first four or five months of being here, but then I started smoking crack again,” he said.
The day before Easter, he was taken to jail, where he spent 13 days.
“For those 13 days, I thought about everything that was going on, and I just told myself when I get out that I’m going to do this thing right. I’m going to do what they suggest and I’m not going to use,” he said.
He kept his word this time, reentering UMADAOP with a newfound determination. “I actually did what I was told, and it worked and it’s continued to work,” he said.
In addition to UMADAOP, he participates in a 12-step program to help with the recovery process.
“The longer I stayed clean and did what I was supposed to, the more things came my way,” he said. That included the establishment of his own construction business.
“I never thought that I could quit using drugs completely,” he said, “but there is a better life out there–you just gotta go after it.”
Mental health and substance abuse treatment combined with healthcare reform is helping some local residents along the Road to Recovery from addiction. In the series, Road to Recovery, Richland Source shares their stories in cooperation with the Richland County Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Board.
“I never thought that I could quit using drugs completely,” Steven Lowe said, “but there is a better life out there–you just gotta go after it.”
