Drug Addiction Stories & Info

Whenever I see a young woman acting a little off, I think back to Marci. I was in college and she was in the dorm across from me. Every time I went out to grab a smoke, she was there. She was watching me from her window. 

Marci was beautiful. I admit, I was into her. However, Marci had a bipolar disorder and when she drank at parties, it was even worse. As beautiful as she was, I could not see her for very long. After just a few weeks, it was getting well, sort of creepy.

I met her at a party one Friday night. We ended up hanging out all weekend together. She was beautiful and honestly, I could have found myself falling in love with her if given the chance. But her mood swings became apparent in just a couple of weeks. Her watching me seemed almost, well, as my mom said, like a stalking situation.

One night, Marci called me. I started not to answer but something made me. Her voice was slurred and I thought she was drunk. She was but there was something more going on. I could sense it. Marci mumbled something about her brother dying. She said she had no family left now and she wanted to die, too. She had taken all of her bipolar medication, a half bottle of sleep sedative and was on her fourth drink. She wanted to die.

I raced over but her dorm was locked. I called 911 while my roommate called Campus security. The paramedics got there and tried to revive her but they were too late. Her neighbor in the dorm said Marci had been notified earlier in the afternoon that her brother had died in a car accident. Marci did not have a roommate because she was hard to live with according to the girls in her dorm.

I think about Marci from time to time. She was so beautiful and had everything to live for. She was in college and wanted to be a journalist. She was always writing in a spiral. She could have gone places.

I was studying psychology and became more and more interested in bipolar disorder after Marci’s death. I did some research and saw that people with bipolar disorder who have a drug or alcohol problem have more episodes than those who don’t. Today I am a mental health counselor. When I see a patient with bipolar disorder, my mind goes back to Marci. When I see one with a drug or alcohol problem, I make sure they are part of a dual diagnosis program. Maybe, just maybe, if someone had done that for Marci, she would still be alive.  I feel like every time I help a patient, I’m doing it for Marci, too.