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'I knew my life was forever changed:' Macon woman clean after 15+ years of opioid addiction

Brett Coppock said it only took one use for her to become addicted to prescription opioids for almost two decades

MACON, Ga. — Brett Coppock's addiction first started in 1994, when she was 25.

"From the first time that I took that first pain pill, I knew that my life was forever going to be changed," Coppock said.

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She was injured in a horseback riding accident.

"I had a really special horse named Jessica, and I fell off of her one day and injured my back," she said. 

Her then-husband, a doctor, gave her prescription Hydrocodone for the pain.

"It was a half of a blue pill, and I will never forget the feeling that that pill gave me," Coppock said.

What she didn't know was that her husband was addicted to the pills too.

She couldn't let them go, even when trying to get pregnant with her first child.

"All I could think about is, 'I'm going through all these great lengths to have a baby, and I have this beautiful life, and I'm taking pain medication.' The guilt and shame was unbearable," Coppock said.

After her son was born, she made her first attempt at recovery, divorcing her husband and checking into treatment.

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She says the withdrawals were intense.

"It was like having the worst case of flu, and any other illness you can think off all at one time, layered with anxiety, but you know that if you're to take one pill, all of that will go away," Coppock said.

So, she did.

Coppock started writing her own prescriptions and got arrested for it three times.

The third time, she went to jail. The judge gave her a choice: go to prison or rehab.

"Everybody wonders if they have an impact on somebody, have I changed anybody else's life? Have I done anything worthwhile? And I wanted this man to know that he had done something for me. He had changed my life," Coppock said.

She's now nine years sober and sharing her story helps her see how far she's come.

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Coppock now serves on River Edge's Board of Trustees in Macon and continues to share her story with others who are fighting their addictions.

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