Randy didn’t choose where he started. He was born while his mom was locked up, and he grew up with his great-grandparents in a village he describes as “full of drunks and drug addicts.” By fifteen, maybe younger, he was getting high—weed first, then whatever was around in his small town: pills, cocaine, and eventually crack.
“I never met a chemical that I didn’t enjoy,” he says.
When everything fell apart at once
In 2005, Randy became a father. That same year, he lost both of his parents—they passed away a week apart. About six weeks later, his brothers overdosed a day apart from each other.
“That’s really what just unleashed any semblance of restraint that I had when it came to getting high,” Randy says.
He cycled in and out of prison. It was after his fourth time in the “joint,” in his thirties, that he tried heroin for the first time. Within about a year, he hit what he calls his rock bottom: he lost the family’s house and hadn’t told his child’s mother. When the landlord finally showed up asking why they were still there, the truth came out.
A few days before that, Randy had walked into a bank with a gun, ready to rob it. The only thing that stopped him was the hour—the branch, tucked inside a grocery store, didn’t open until 10:30, and he needed to get high before then. He sold the gun instead and used the money to get high.
“That’s the only thing that saved me from there,” he says.
A decade of trying, and finding Workit
Randy says he’d like to say that was the last time he used heroin, but he can’t. There were a few episodes after that—never something he went looking for, just circumstances catching up with him on a bad day. Still, roughly a decade passed between heavy, daily heroin use and where he is now.
About two years ago, Randy found Workit Health and started Suboxone treatment. Since then, no heroin, no opiates—including through two surgeries, which he navigated by communicating directly with his anesthesiologist and doctor.
“I did the work, but Workit laid the groundwork and gave me the foundation and the tools and the support to really just get through that,” he says. “The worst days, I can log on, and there’s somebody there.”
What recovery looks like now
Today, Randy is in sober living. He has a job. He’s mending relationships he thought were unfixable. He’s working through his remaining legal issues and taking state classes to become a certified peer support specialist—turning what he’s been through into something that might help someone else.
He recently marked six months of consistent sobriety.
“I’ve just got hope for the future,” he says. “Nothing’s changed—I haven’t won the lottery, I’m getting older—but I just see things different.”
Why telehealth made the difference
For Randy, the ability to get treatment from home was not a small detail—it was the reason he sought help at all.
“I would have never went to a doctor to do it. Never. Not in a million years,” he says. “But when I can do it with the privacy of my own home, it just helps. I don’t gotta miss work. I don’t gotta let anybody know unless I choose to share it.”
He also points to the absence of judgment as something he hasn’t found anywhere else—not even at his own pharmacy.
“The stigma of being an addict is horrible, and I don’t feel that there,” he says of his Workit Health support groups. “I believe they’ve been there. I believe they honestly care. And it’s always just a phone call away when something bad happens.”
His advice to anyone still deciding
Randy is direct about what he’d tell someone who’s struggling and doesn’t know where to turn:
“Log on. Make the connection. You can always go back to the misery whenever you feel like it, but you’re going to be pleasantly surprised—it’s easier than you think.”
“Home’s a feeling, not a place,” he says, “and logging into Workit feels like coming home.”
Listen to Randy’s story on the Workit Health Podcast here on Spotify.