That may be why it was so easy to just go along with my friends a year ago when they talked me into going to the party and why I accepted the powder that cute guy gave me. The chance to forget for a few hours what perhaps no one in the room had been through? I was all for that!

But that night started a spiral of addiction to cocaine. My family soon noticed the difference but were unsure if it was related to my service or what. I didn’t have the heart to tell them it was a little of both. I couldn’t sleep without seeing my friends’ faces, the ones that died in Iraq. I couldn’t sleep without being back over there. Now, the craving for forgetfulness was marred by the craving for cocaine.

Eventually, my family figured it out and my parents approached me. My dad had never been in the military because of his back and both my parents were only children. With three daughters, I was the oldest and the one who went into the Army and then to war. Still, my heroes are most assuredly my parents as both had a discussion with me one night with my sisters, some friends, an uncle of my mom’s who had served in the military and an intervention counselor.

This Memorial Day is one I can now look upon with strength because I know that my survivor’s guilt is a common feeling. I know that having others to talk to who have been there, even if it means a 3 hour drive for my family, is worth it in order, as they say, to “get the old me back”.

It still kind of makes me nervous when someone who knows I was in the Army says thank you to me. I still think the real heroes died over there. But I am learning to deal with the nightmares without turning to cocaine. I am learning to pause and take a breath without worrying that I don’t have time to think because a bomb could go off. I am learning to see children here and realize that they are innocent and lucky just as I am lucky to live in this country. And every now and then, when I am able to get to a meeting and stop the urge for cocaine, I can almost hear my combat buddies who died whispering “Good Soldier” to me as I get through another day.

David is a drug addict. He has been on meth and cocaine off and on for nearly 30 years and while he has been in rehab several times, he seems to backslide as soon as he gets out. The drugs have destroyed his ability to understand a lot of things and he gets memories mixed up in a big way. He insists that so and so happened at such and such time and it is easier to just nod in agreement than to argue with him.

Some of the family cringe when they see him coming or when the county jail number shows up on caller I.D.. but when I see him at the Food Bank, I am reminded of the big brother I had way back when. He goes around excitedly telling everyone I am his baby sister. Sometimes he does not have his identification on him but they know him as he is a regular. They just look over at me, asking if I vouch for him being who he claims to be and I say yes, he is my big brother and I give him a big hug.

My brother was not always a drug addict. Being the oldest, he played sports and the prettiest girl in school crushed on him. But shortly after they graduated, before they got married, she was killed in an accident along with her sister and parents, and David took to using drugs. He changed almost overnight.

The family tried in many ways to get him to get help over the years. Our younger brother is always bailing him out of jail when he is found walking around in the middle of night, unsure of where he is. An officer told us he was looking for Tara. I cried. Tara had been his high school sweetheart, the one who died.

Still, for just a moment when our eyes meet across the room, I see the big brother I love inside of the man who threw everything away for drugs. Sometimes I pray that Tara is up there somewhere and sees David and how much he needs help. For a long time I didn’t believe that…until last week.

We walked in and looked around for them. We were so messed up and giggly and stumbling around. Then it seemed like everyone was pointing at us. Suddenly, I heard gun shots and people screaming. It seemed like it was all in slow motion. I turned around and saw a guy in a mask pointing a gun at us. He shot it just as he fell backwards, from what I later learned was a gun kept behind the counter and used by one of the bartenders.

My best friend fell down. I looked at her, not believing she was gone. She was. My other friend grabbed a couple of drinks from the bar and splashed us both so it would seem as if we were drinking. The cops bought it. They could tell everyone was shaken up in the bar.

I called my parents later that night and they drove from New Hampshire the next morning to get me. They took one look at me and they could tell. I was not the same Tania they knew. Before the sun was down I was in a residential drug treatment program. Not only did I get clean, the counselors there helped me to get through some of the trauma I had gone through that night at the bar when my best friend died.

I am doing better these days. I moved down south near my cousin and went to work at the company she works for. Still, when I wake up to news of a shooting spree like I did this morning, it brings it all back. I picked up my cell phone and called a friend in my NA group. She listened for a bit. It helped. I went to work and then went to a meeting right afterwards.

There, I can pull out the picture I keep in my wallet of me and Angie. I can show them and they know, many of them having lost someone. See, I feel like I lost my best friend not just through a shooting spree, but also because we were messed up on coke that night and wandered down to the corner bar. Maybe if we hadn’t been on drugs, we would have been at the movies or a party or somewhere else and she would be here today.

It’s still on the news, having only happened this morning. But with the help of the meeting and my sponsor, I am able to get through it. My heart goes out to those who are starting a nightmare of deja vu I live nearly every day, a nightmare that Angie did not survive.

One gets high on crack and throws something across the room, hitting a friend accidentally. His brother jumps up and yells at him to chill out and act like a man. Suddenly they are both fighting each other. How does that happen? Are these the same two young men who grew up so close in age and looks that people often mistook them for twins? Are these the same two who joined a baseball team together and wandered the halls of high school more like best friends instead of brothers?

So what happened? One night the older one got messed up on crack after work with a couple of buddies from the fast food joint he worked at. He felt such a euphoric rush, he wanted to experience it again. And again. And again.

He hid it for a bit but his brother found out. Then his parents. Then his mood swings got bad as the addiction came to stay. He became increasingly paranoid and violent when he was in need of a fix. He had thrown a lamp across the room because the friend had refused to loan him some money to go get some crack.

A fight between two young men turns rough and violent and bloody. One yells he can’t understand where the brother went to that he grew up with while the other tells him to try the crack sometime and he would understand. The mother steps in and gets knocked in the face, causing a greater fight.

She breaks down in tears and they stop. Somehow, some way, he sees that his mother has been hurt because of his addiction. He cries out “I’m sorry” as he sinks down beside her. Right then and there he promises to get help. She picks up the phone on the end table and hands it to him. “Do it now.”

He calls the local rehab center. He doesn’t even question why or how his mother knows the phone number by heart. Arrangements are made and she and her younger son drive the older one over to the treatment center.

How do I know this? It was us. My husband was at work that day four years ago when my sons got into their argument. Today, they are close again. I’ll never forget that day, though, when things had to hit rock bottom before my son got help.

I don’t know what to do. My girlfriend broke up with me. She said she doesn’t need a guy that can’t get a job. It isn’t like I’m not trying. But I can’t even get a job at a fast food restaurant. How am I suppose to do the right thing if I keep getting turned down?

The other day I ran into an old buddy I use to smoke crack with. He is still into it. He invited me back to his place to have some. I was tempted, I really was. I mean, why try if I am going to get the door slammed in my face? Why go out there if I am going to get rejected? But I have been clean for three years so I just shook my head, said “no thanks” and walked away.

The crazy thing? I have friends who did drugs who have jobs. I have friends who beat up people who have jobs. They stole money, too, but those charges were dropped in order to get the felony charge plea bargained. My misdemeanor has me kicked to the curb while their felonies are getting a tax credit these days for companies.

I’m going to go to a meeting now. Writing this out, getting my feelings out, it made me feel better. I see from your site that I am not alone in having problems. I actually see my problems are not as bad as those of some of your readers. Thanks for having a site where people can share. It’s like going to a support meeting. Knowing I am not alone helps a lot.

Somewhere out there is the job for me. In the meantime, I keep doing odd jobs for people who know my parents and my brother. I keep going to my meetings and I am keeping a positive attitude. Okay, most of the time, I am keeping a positive attitude. You know something? I know I am a winner. Walking away from temptation the other day proved that. Thanks again for letting me get this off my chest.

Even though I was popular at my school, at cheerleading camp there seemed to be an entirely new set of rules. In every situation there has to be those at the top and the bottom of the totem pole and for some reason I was towards the bottom. I was not used to that and it affected my self esteem and thus my performance. As the coaches called me out, I felt the heat of being embarrassed in my cheeks.

On Friday evening of our second week we were given some free time and went into town. I went with a couple of other girls who were meeting up with a boy who worked at the camp and his friends. That was the night I got high for the first time. It was the first time in nearly two weeks that I had relaxed. I was beginning to understand how the less popular girls at school felt and I did not like it. I couldn’t wait to get back to my own town and my own status in school.

The next night we went out again and this time my new friends talked me into some cocaine. Knowing I would never be in this position again, I decided to try it. What harm could it do? We spent the next couple of hours getting stoned and before we knew it, we were getting ready to rush back to camp before curfew.

I do not really remember how the accident happened. I know we were driving along getting close to camp when the boy who was driving us back sped up at our urging. As we rounded a curve, he lost control of the wheel as a deer ran across the road. It stopped, startled by our headlights. All I remember after that was screaming then blackness.

One of the two girls with us died. The rest of us had minor injuries. I ended up with a broken collarbone as I fell out of the back of the pickup truck.

That summer fifteen years ago changed things for me. I resigned my position as cheerleader at school and concentrated on my books instead. I was nicer to the less popular girls even though the tables were turned on me as I was the one whispered about. In small towns, gossip spreads like wildfire and everyone knew what had happened even before school started.

To this day I have not done drugs. I do not associate them with being cool. I associate them with the night a girl died.   Getting high at cheerleading camp changed everything.

I recognized the white powder for what it was: cocaine. I knew because that was what my cousin’s brother had died from, a cocaine overdose. Did that give her an excuse every time she went after something she wanted? I didn’t think so. She used it, though, even telling me I could find someone else because Mark understood her and everything she had been through.

What to do, though, about the powder I found. Do I turn it in at the front desk? Do I call the police? Do I get involved? I had slept for a few hours but arguing in the room next to mine woke me up about 4 in the morning. Thirsty, I had grabbed one of the plastic cups, accidentally knocking the small ice bucket off the counter. The powder was underneath it.

My cousin was a few years older than me. He had never really been into drugs. He was a great kid. But one night he partied with some friends after his team won the regional championship and he gave in to peer pressure. He drank some beer and when the cocaine was introduced to the party and passed around, he went for it. He died before morning from an accidental overdose.

 Yes, my cousin had been through a lot. She lost her beloved brother. She saw her parents divorce and her mother slip into a depression. I looked at that white powder and quickly made the decision to flush it down the toilet. I know kids die every day from drugs. No one was going to die because of the powder I held in my hands.

I grabbed my things and checked out immediately. That afternoon, I arrived at my best friend’s house. My new life was just beginning.