HAWAII ISLAND (KHON2) — A recovering fentanyl addict comes clean after multiple close-calls with death. Loyal ‘Ricky’ Archuletta has been to hell and back and considers himself lucky to be alive. He is sharing his story as a warning and a reminder to never give up hope.
This is Loyal Archuletta Jr. also known as Ricky. At 38-years-old, the Big Island resident is a barber doing what he loves, thriving.
“Right now my life is really truly amazing,” Ricky said.
A far cry from the life he used to live, addicted to fentanyl.
“Three years ago, I didn’t have two slippers,” he said. “What scares me is to be back in that addiction, to be back in that place where you never know if you’re going to live or if you’re going to die.”
His struggle with fentanyl began around 2004.
“I got in a car accident and I was prescribed fentanyl patches and oxycontin,” he exlained.
By the time the doctor tried to take him off it, it was too late.
“I was addicted. Fully addicted,” he said. “After you’ve tasted it, you can’t get anything like that high ever again. So you chase it, and you chase it, and you chase it.”
And because fentanyl pills were so expensive at the time, he said he eventually moved on to heroin and whatever opiat he could get his hands on.
Ricky spent more than 17 years chasing that high. Cheating death.
“The thing about fentanyl is that when you’re addicted to it you know that its an option that you might die,” he said.
And he nearly did, multiple times.
“I had an overdose like three times on my birthday, three years in a row,” Ricky said.
The last time he said he was in a car in Kona parking lot.
“All I remember was when the needle was put in my arm and then after that my friends all had me laid out on the ground (outside the car),” he explained. “And I just remember being really, really mad because they had used Narcan on me and when you’re on drugs and your addiction is opiates, the last thing you want is for them to take away your high and that’s what it does. Essentially it covers all the opiate receptors in your brain.”
“Are you amazed you’re still here?” KHON asked.
“Yea,” he replied. “I’m very amazed that my life has taken on the shape it has today.”
He said he’s been sober since January 11, 2022.
The thing he is most grateful for is his family.
Especially his daughter, who just turned one.
“That feeling, being a dad knowing that I have a job to do,” he paused, fighting back tears. “She’ never going to see me like that.”
For all those still suffering, struggling with addiction, he has this message.
“Reach out for help before you die,” he said. “You don’t have to do all those things, just do the next right thing and you can get better.”
“If you actually reach out, there will be someone there to come halfway,” he added.
When he was finally ready to get help, he chose to call his father even though he thought he’d burned that bridge already.
“He was able to say, ‘I will come and pick you up. I’ll come and pick you up after I take a shower,” Rickey said laughing for a brief moment before a serious expression washed over his face. “But if the drugs had gotten there before he’d taken that shower, I don’t think I’d be here today.”
“When I went and got him and we slept in the car to try to help him it was because I wasn’t willing to give him money anymore,” Loyal Archuletta explained.
He said he’s spent years trying to help his son, but learned a long time ago that giving him money and even buying Ricky things wasn’t helping.
“Just handing him money, I knew it was going for drugs or alcohol, whatever,” Archuletta said.
So they slept in the car to set boundaries and to ensure his son was safe and stayed clean.
“Just grateful,” Archuletta said with tears welling in his eyes as he leaned over to put his arm around Ricky. “Just grateful that he lived through it. We lived through it…We’ve been through a lot and I’m just glad that we made it through. I’m just grateful that my son’s back, that I got him back. Cause a lot of people don’t. A lot of people don’t live through it.”
Ricky said his father helped find him a treatment facility and took him to a doctor for a medical detox. He is grateful his father was there for him when he needed him most.
If you or anyone you know if struggling with addiction and need help, call the CARES hotline at 988.