“If you want to see your children again, you’ll go for treatment.”
That was the last straw. It was time for a change, and a big one. Levittown native Mark Restivo knew he had to get help. Eventually, help would come in the unlikeliest form.
“I was in such a hopeless state near the end of my addiction that I was pretty much praying for death because I didn’t think there was anything that could save me,” Restivo said.
At one point in his life, Restivo was on Cloud 9. He achieved his lifelong dream of becoming a NYPD officer, but his career soon came to a painful halt. In December 2009, while on duty in East New York, Resitvo was attacked by men he was trying to apprehend.
“That night, I went to the hospital to get X-rays, and they gave me a prescription for Vicodin—about 10 pills,” he said.
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