John is a volunteer at the 12-step based Turning Point Club in White River Junction, Vermont. The Turning Point Club hosts Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and Overeaters Anonymous. As John says, "If you can get addicted to it, you can have a meeting for it."

I moved up here to stay out of trouble and raise my kids. I thought I could outrun the drugs. The only drug I’ve never done is that ecstasy stuff. Heroin and Oxycontins landed my in prison. Coke pretty much took me down before that. This is in Vermont. I never got in no trouble in Connecticut.

I started my own business when I moved up here- a repair shop in New Hampshire. I went to New Hampshire first.

I started smoking pot when I was probably 13 years old. I went to Catholic school for 13 years. It started with pot first. I don’t know. Maybe the availability, the price. It was cheap, easy to find.

I was in prison. Before I went to prison, I was in contact with the Vermont Harm Reduction Coalition. They were trying to help me get off the Oxycontins and on to methadone. Somebody told me they were methadone advocates. They were helping me try to get the doctors to switch me to methadone from Oxycontins they were prescribing me because I broke my back.

The doctors told me that the Oxycontins would be better for the pain. They swapped me milligram for milligram, but it doesn’t work that way. They cut my medication in effect by 38%, it put me in instant withdrawal. You want to trust doctors… But I had pain specialists testify for me in court. I got a real bad taste in my mouth for the Oxycontin company. It turns out these docs were paid off by the Oxycontin company and that company doesn’t make methadone….