CRAWFORDSVILLE — Adam Winn was addicted to heroin for two years. During those 24 months, the drug tore apart what he had spent a lifetime building up: He lost his family, his home and his job.
"If you don’t have anything to fill that emptiness in your heart that your addiction ruled, you're just going to go right back to it," Winn, 44, said from a secluded Crawfordsville residence that Trinity Life Recovery Program for Men has called home for several years. "There's nothing to overcome that craving."
He was prescribed Oxycontin and Percocet after his collarbone was snapped in half in a 2009 car accident. Three surgeries and months of rehabilitation couldn't completely restore his range of motion. As the flow of pills tapered, Winn told himself he would never try heroin; he would never stick a needle in his arm. But one night in 2013, he succumbed to his urges and the crippling sickness from withdrawals melted away.
It didn't take long for his life to slip out of control.
"My family pretty much disowned me because they couldn't help anymore, and I was stealing and lying and manipulating," he said. "I had nowhere to go. I had nowhere to turn. I was living with dealers; I was living with people that would always have it."
State of Addiction:
Winn started his uphill battle toward recovery in 2014, when he was arrested for possession of heroin. Reclining in his chair, wearing a black-and-white Atlanta Braves baseball cap tugged over his eyes, Winn ticked off the rehab facilities in Indianapolis he tried: Fairbanks, Valle Vista and Salvation Army Harbor Light. A year later, he was accepted to Trinity — a religious addiction recovery program and transitional home. He has lived and worked at the home ever since, mentoring men in similar situations.
In the two years that he has been clean, Winn said he's watched the heroin epidemic worsen. Now, the drug is mixed with more powerful synthetic opioids such as fentanyl and carfentanil, which are 100 times and 10,000 times stronger than morphine, respectively. Since the deadly mixture hit the streets in Indiana, Winn said he knows a dozen people who have died from overdoses.