My Life on Drugs

I started using around the age of 11 or 12. I first experimented with Marijuana. I first started using with my family members. I got high every day. I also started drinking all the time. My freshman year in high school I began going to school high or drunk. I even brought alcohol to school with me. I would hide it in my locker and drink between classes. I skipped school on a daily basis to get messed up. I hooked up with a guy and started doing worse drugs. I used ecstasy, pills, and crank--anything that got me to a different stage. The first time I used all of these was with him. We dated for a long time, he was my first love and I was his. After four and a half months of dating he committed suicide. I thought my life was over. I started using worse substances. It only progressed. Then about a year later I hooked up with another guy. I quit using drugs and I drank all the time. We drank all the time together for a year and a half. I was in a physically and mentally abusive relationship so I used drugs, once again to escape reality. Finally I got up enough courage to leave him and when I did, I turned to methamphetamines (meth).

I started using meth only when I had it, then it turned into an everyday thing. I lived with people who had it on a daily basis. If I didn't have it I would freak out. I would stay up for as long as I could, and when I would come down, I would sleep for 24 to 48 hours straight. I would lose track of time. The longest I stayed awake was around two to three weeks. Then I only smoked it when I was drunk. I ate it, sniffed it, used it pretty much any way but by needle. Soon, I started to hang with the worst of the crowds. I began to experience something I told myself I would never do. I began to inject meth into my veins. The first time I ever used an IV, the person doing the injecting missed my vein, I didn't even get high. My arm hurt for 5 days, yet I injected again the next day. I began to use it on a daily basis.

After I used the needle that was the only way I wanted to get high. I started selling weed to support my habit. I used dirty needles just to get high. Everyone has a list of things they would never do, and once you start using meth that list goes away. All the things I said I was never going to do, I did. Finally after about 5 or 6 months I hit my rock bottom. I couldn't keep living this life of lies and deception, so I went to treatment. That was Sept. 23, 2004, the last time I used any mind-altering drugs.

I feel so much better about myself and my life. I can now face life on life's real terms. I'm happier than I have ever been. I am doing the things I want to do and I am finally going to be somebody!

 

Turning Around

Starting my freshman year of high school, I was a good kid, straight A's, home on time, that sort of thing. The summer after my freshman year went well, and I was having fun. When my sophomore year started, a rumor about me took off that I was a drunken pot head. That may not seem like a big deal, but in my life it was. My parents got mad, my current friends didn't want to hang out with me because they didn't want to be associated with a drunken pot head, and I just didn't feel right at school.

One weekend when I went out of town one of my friends said, "He, you wanna come smoke some pot?" I also had a list of things I would never do, but I was so lost with my teenage, hormone-filled self that I said, sure why not. After that trip I came home and started looking for people who also smoked pot, at least then I would have some friends. I made friends that did drugs and drank and started using right along with them. At first I only did it socially on occasion. Then I only did it once or twice a week, then I was high or drunk all the time. It never occurred to me what I was doing to my body and my mind, only that I was having a really good time. As my using became more and more frequent, my physical and mental health also decreased and my addiction sky-rocketed. I lost all of the sober friends I had left, and kept only those that I partied with. My parents rarely saw me, and when they did we fought. My grades went from straight A's to almost failing, and I was more depressed and suicidal than I have ever been in my life.

In March of my Junior year I went out and got high during lunch. I picked up my friend after school thinking I was totally straight again. I headed home, got some food, and we hopped back in my car. I lit up a cig on the way to our destination and was turning left, and I turned in front of an oncoming vehicle. My car spun in a 180 degree circle, my best friend hit her face on the windshield, our seat belts didn't lock, and our airbags didn't deploy all the way. I got out of the car and crawled on my hands and knees to the other side of the car and opened her door. Her nose was bleeding, she'd bit her lip and she couldn't see. That night I made my decision to quit.

I have been clean and sober for a year now and wouldn't go back for anything. I don't fight with my parents, I have reunited with a ton of my sober friends, and I will graduate on time and go to one of the top colleges in the midwest.

I will never tell anyone what to do, or tell them that what they're doing is wrong. I just want everyone out there to know, life hurts when you're doing drugs. It's not just the effects afterwards, life hurts WHILE your using. My suggestion--don't even get started, and if you are using, get help now. I don't want your life to end up like mine!

 

Lifeways Info:
Phone: (605) 716-6555
Email: lifeways@midconetwork.com
Address: 1010 9th Street, Suite 2
Rapid City, SD 57701
Fax: (605) 716-6557

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