PHOTO BY SCOTT EISEN
Lisa Wallace during an interview with The Item in her home in Lynn.
By GAYLA CAWLEY
LYNN — Despite being clean for more than a decade, Lisa Wallace, 40, remembers vividly what is what like to struggle with heroin addiction on a daily basis.
She remembers the feeling the disease would give her, like she didn’t fit in with other people, or experiencing the insecurity that somehow others were better than her. “Fake it until you make it” was one of the phrases instilled in her during counseling and rehabilitation. She began picturing herself as the soccer mom, married with children. Later on, that became a reality.
Wallace, a Lynn resident, said she didn’t ever think she’d get to that point. On top of a happy marriage to Joe, whom she calls Shugg, and five children, including one they had together, Wallace is in the midst of living in her second home, and also has a vacation house in Florida.
But before that, the Saugus native found herself prostituting and doing drugs. She didn’t start off as a heroin addict. She started off as the typical kid, smoking weed and drinking.
“I spent the majority of my life fighting a lot to survive,” Wallace said. “When I met my husband, he’s kind of like, what’s that movie, Pretty Woman. He’s my Richard Gere. He doesn’t have that kind of money, but he was the one person who didn’t look at me as just being the person who sold herself on the street or whatever. He actually liked me and paid attention to me. From the first day I met him, it’s 18 years later. He hasn’t left my side.”
Wallace said Shugg knew she had a problem, but she was good at hiding things. He started catching on and one day told her to get help because he loved her too much. She ended up overdosing that week and wound up in the hospital. Leaving wasn’t an option, as it was court-ordered. She spent 14 days in the Melrose-Wakefield Hospital psychiatric ward.
Wallace said she thought at the time the care was stupid, because she didn’t realize she was an addict and that there was something wrong with her. She just wanted to get home. Then one of her bunk mates left the hospital, but came back before Wallace’s stay was up, because she had almost died. That’s when it sank in.
“That could happen to me,” Wallace said. “All the situations I put myself in, I was like, oh my God. I got real scared. It started to sink in when they were telling me, you have a disease. This is not like your choice.”
Wallace went on to get treatment and counseling at BayRidge Hospital in Lynn, where she was taught that she was not her disease and that it was just something she had. She also went to Alcoholics Anonymous in Beverly. She said she quit cold turkey and remembers the pain of withdrawal. The methadone clinic didn’t appeal to her as a treatment option, but she brings friends there to get treatment.
“I went through withdrawal,” Wallace said. “It’s the worst. I don’t wish that on anybody. That type of pain — my legs were kicking involuntarily. I would just be sitting there. You’re cold and hot at the same time. What the hell is that? You’re throwing up but hungry. You’re dizzy and tired and it drains you of everything. It’s the worst thing to go through, withdrawal.”
With all the pain that addicts go through, being dependent on a chemical and loathing themselves for it, and then going through the pain of withdrawal with trying to get clean, Wallace said she found herself angry when she saw the comments people were leaving on a Lynn Police Facebook post last weekend. The post alerted the community that there had been three fatal apparent heroin overdoses in a two-day span.
She especially found the use of the word “junkie” insulting, which she said is the worst thing someone can call an addict, and could send them spiraling back into using again. In reaction, Wallace wrote a post on her own Facebook wall, detailing her own story and urging people to think of her the next time they judge an addict harshly.
Following the Lynn Police Facebook post, the fatal overdoses continued. According to police and the Essex County District Attorney’s office, there were six fatal apparent overdoses within a five-day span from Feb. 3-7, including five from suspected opioids and one from suspected crack cocaine.
“Everybody just needs to leave everybody alone,” Wallace said. “And as a community, we need to start helping and shut up. If you’re not going to help an addict, don’t hurt them. If we’re all worried about the whole drug epidemic thing happening, why would you put somebody down?”
Now clean, Wallace said there’s always a chance of relapse for any addict. She’s seen heroin and opioid addiction kill lots of former classmates from her Saugus High School graduating class of 1994. She thinks to help the problem, people should focus on treating the addiction and the person. Drugs are always going to be there, even if people try to take them away. She said she doesn’t agree with legislation from Gov. Charlie Baker that limits the amount of opioids a doctor can prescribe.
“You don’t limit doctors from writing prescriptions, because then people that are sick, like children that have cancer, can’t get medication and the opioids for their kids to be able to fight to live,” Wallace said. “You’re making it hard for them. You gotta treat the disease. Because if you didn’t have the addict to want the drug, you wouldn’t have the problem. So, you don’t stop the drug. Drugs are always gonna be here, no matter if it’s heroin, no matter if it’s weed.”
Gayla Cawley can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @GaylaCawley.