Drug Addiction Stories

I’m writing this as a person who knows what an addiction to drugs can do first-hand, both from the view of a family member and then someone who got involved with drugs myself.  My parents were drug addicts, both of them.  It was not hard for my older sister and I to get into drugs when we were around them 24/7.  Neither of my parents could keep a job.  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out they were dealing as well as using.

When CPS came and took us away, we were sent to live with our grandmother.  She constantly put us down, saying we were losers just like our parents.  My older sister took off the day after her 17^th birthday.  I was 14 and had no one left to turn to.  So I turned to drugs. 

The other kids at my new school did not seem to care about getting to know me.  It did not take long after my sister took off for me to get in with the outcasts, the kids who sat on the sidelines in gym, who sat on one side of the cafeteria, who did not go to the games or get involved with extra-curricular activities. 

I would get high and drink until I was numb, but some nights, I still cried myself to sleep, missing my parents, my sister and wondering why my grandmother hated me so much.  Then one day, I got up late.  She had not gotten me up for school in her usual loud way.  I went to see where she was and found my grandmother had died in her sleep.  I found out after the paramedics came that it had been a heart attack.

I cringed that day.  I had just turned 15 and knew I would go into the system as a foster child.  But as I sat in the apartment with the social worker, I heard my name called after the front door opened.  It was my sister!  She was 18 and working, had gotten herself off drugs with the help of a co-worker, gotten into church and was begging the CPS worker to let her move in to the apartment and take care of me.  She had her pastor and several church friends with her. 

I am now 22 and about to graduate from college.  My sister has been my rock and my shelter.  Together, she and I volunteer to help other kids who find themselves in turmoil thanks to drugs and alcohol and family problems.  They seem to listen to us because they know we have been there. 

If you find yourself in my position, don’t wait until a family tragedy befalls you.  Get help now.  Call a hotline, call a pastor, call a youth counselor.  People really do want to help and guess what?  I know you don’t believe you are worth it because I felt that way. But you really are.   Make the call.  It’s not too late.

I loved high school. I had it all. I was popular, had a cute boyfriend and was a cheerleader. I enjoyed going to school so I could see my friends and be seen. Then came the summer between my junior and senior year when I went off to cheerleading camp. 

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.

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.