Kelly Kozyra, who has been sober since 2021, recalls shoving her pinky in her nose “to hold all the cocaine up there so I didn’t lose it”
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A Chicago woman is sharing how her daily cocaine habit caused her septum to deteriorate, leaving her with a “hole on the outside of my face.”
Kelly Kozyra first started snorting cocaine after a night out with friends in 2017 — and says she quickly became addicted to the narcotic.
“I didn’t think I was doing that much, but it was a hell of a lot,’ Kozyra, now 38, says, according to The Daily Mail. She spent nearly $80,000 on the drug in less than two years — and says the physical impact of her habit was nearly immediate.
“After three months of almost daily use, I started experiencing bleeding in my nose and was blowing out chunks of skin,” she said. “I noticed the septum was deteriorating, but I thought it would just heal itself so I still continued snorting.”
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As she continued to use cocaine, she says her septum — the thin wall of bone and cartilage that separates the nostrils — “completely deteriorated.” The damage continued, she said, as she developed “a hole on the outside of my face, which grew to the size of a dime.”
But Kozyra said the “gaping hole” didn’t stop her from doing cocaine; Instead, she adjusted how she used to drug to accommodate the wounds: “Eventually I had to shove my pinky up my nose to hold all the cocaine up there so I didn’t lose it out the hole.”
A deteriorated septum is just one of the physical impacts of snorting the narcotic, American Addiction Centers says. Cocaine can cause sinus inflammation and infection, as well as necrosis.
“I kept telling people I had a sinus infection and was lying my way through it. I was horrified by the way it looked,” says Kozyra, who shares she quit drugs in 2021 and has been sober ever since.
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“I think being open about it helps me and other people,” says Kozyra, who has undergone 15 surgeries to reconstruct her nose.
She plans to become a substance abuse counselor, saying, “Cocaine destroyed everything in my life, including my nose.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP
