By Anne DiBernardo - Florida Catholic
Second of two parts
- Prayer, politics and opioids
- Battling opioids in South Florida
- A son’s addiction, a mother’s sorrow
- St. Luke's Center: Gateway to a changed life
Today, the 29-year-old says he was spiritually blind. Now he wears a tattoo of Ephesians 2:8 to remind himself and others that it is “by grace you have been saved.”
While addicted to opioids, Moseley missed important engagements, could not hold a job, and was not present for his family. But he did not know he had a problem with heroin until Oct. 11, 2012, when his parents decided they had enough and invoked the Marchman Act.
Also known as Florida’s Substance Abuse Impairment Act, Marchman is acivil, confidential, involuntary commitment statute aimed at helping those with substance abuse problems get the help they need when they have become a danger to themselves and others.
The police took him to Jackson Detox for seven days, where he attended his first Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. That led him to St. Luke’s Center, a treatment program for adults with alcohol and/or drug addiction operated by Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami.
“St. Luke’s was the doorway,” Moseley said, noting that his father and stepmother made a deal with him: “Stay on top of this and if you do we’ll help you all we can. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them,” he said.
Although Moseley is not Catholic, the program at St. Luke’s is offered to anyone who requests it. “We serve people not because they are Catholic; we serve them because we are Catholic,” said Msgr. Roberto Garza, who has chaired the board of Catholic Charities for the past 17 years.
While the center does touch on spirituality, it is more in line with a 12-step program such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Msgr. Garza said he makes himself available to Catholic participants who want to avail themselves of the sacrament of reconciliation.
“My relationship with Jesus Christ is cornerstone and keeps me sober today,” Moseley said, noting that the foundation of 12-step programs is God. “I studied the Bible my whole life, and even taught Sunday school, but I learned faith without works is dead. I had to take action. The more I did the more God showed up.”
Now that Moseley is on the other side of addiction, he sponsors several men who come to the program. He also has buried at least five men that he tried to help over the last year.
“I use tough love with them. Enabling is very dangerous — it will kill people. I’ve worked with hundreds of guys and I’ve watched parents refuse to say no and contribute to killing their children. It feels like the natural instinct is to protect and help them, but the best thing you can do in that situation is cut everything. And usually when you feel alone you have no choice but to call on God,” Moseley said.
His addiction to opioids started with Percocet, frequently given to dental patients for pain. Then he upgraded to Roxicet, a combination of acetaminophen and oxycodone usually given to dying cancer patients; and finally, to heroin.
“I started with one-quarter of a pill and then as time passed my body adapted. Then it went to two, and then four and then anywhere from six to eight pills a day,” Moseley said.
After law enforcement started shutting down pill mills that proliferated in Broward County, pharmaceutical drugs became very expensive. So he resorted to the illicit opiate, heroin, which satisfied his addiction at a third of the price.
“Snorting and smoking didn’t have the effect I wanted so I got my hands on a needle and learned how to intravenously shoot heroin,” he said. “My life became about using heroin and everything else came last.”
The American Medical Association has classified Opioid Use Disorder as an illness.
“There’s just a class of people who are genetically predisposed,” Moseley said. “I had a spiritual deficiency. We’re all looking to fill the spiritual void with material things. With addicts and alcoholics, it’s magnified. A shopaholic won’t die but with us, once you form that physical dependency, you are taking your life into your hands because today’s drugs are lethal.”
Despite his experience, he said, he wouldn’t change a thing. “The pain and the damage and the people I hurt, I wish I could take that back, but the flip side of that is that I have gotten right with my God. I have a great life today because of all of this.”
And, he added, he can use his experience to help others.
“My illness forces me to get right with God every moment, otherwise I could very easily put the needle back in my arm,” he said. “My faith has gotten me through so much, it’s given me the ability to do so many great things I could have never done on my own.”
