Bolts – In the months leading up to her death, Ashley Omps of Charleston, West Virginia, felt ashamed to be taking suboxone. It was prescribed to her to treat opioid dependency by limiting cravings and withdrawal symptoms, and though it was clearly a much healthier alternative to the pills and heroin she’d been taking before, she hated that she had become reliant on it. Omps felt like she’d replaced one dependency with another.
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“I’ve never been sober a day or two since I was 16,” Omps, who was 34, texted her sister on Oct. 5 of last year. “I do not want to be addicted. I fucking hate needing something to feel normal. I might as well actually get high if I’m going to be an addict.”
Though she resented the suboxone, people close to her said it was crucial to her recovery from substance use disorder. And so it was catastrophic that she could no longer obtain it, midway through 2023, after she was kicked off Medicaid.
