Drug Addiction Stories & Info

I sat watching him as the monitors kept tabs on his vitals and his breathing. I had not seen him in four years when my mother got the call two nights earlier and I heard her cry out “Oh no!” My father was in the hospital, in ICU, and he was not expected to live. I was 17 and had not seen him since the week after my 13^th birthday.

My father was deeply enmeshed in cocaine, marijuana, heroin, whatever he could get when he could get it. My mother admitted that both of them had been on drugs in high school and during the early years of their marriage, but a wake up call when Child Protective Services took me and my older brother away from them did just that. It woke her up, she got clean and has been the greatest mom ever since.

My father couldn’t let go and my mom finally told him that he had to choose. Unfortunately, his choice was not us. Still, before he disappeared out of our lives, he did one thing right that my mother made sure me and my brother knew about.

My father was an only child and his parents’ home was left to him. He signed it over to my brother and me in trust so that we would always have a home.

Now, I sat there with tears running down my face. Before me, two parents who had each made opposite decisions. My mother chose me and my brother. My father chose a life of drugs even though he did do a wonderful thing for us by leaving us the family home. Still, there were times when I would have gladly lived in an apartment if I could only have my dad.

My mother has always been honest with me and my brother. She tells us that being addicted to drugs is hard to get over. Even now, she occasionally has to go to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting when life gets stressful. I knew she would be going over the next few weeks for sure. My brother and I also went from time to time to the support group for family members of those addicted to drugs or alcohol.

The doctor came in and told us that there really wasn’t any hope. Everything had shut down and my father was breathing only with the help of life support. The three of us had discussed this and agreed to let my father go in peace. We all hugged and kissed him one last time.

I have learned that drugs affect everyone, not just the person doing them. As I hug my own four year old daughter, I have wished many times that my father could see her and my niece and nephew. I have learned from both of my parents and, while we learned that kids can often follow in their parents’ path, my brother and I made a pact with others in our support group to not fall into that pattern.

In the end, my father gave me two lessons, one in love and one in life. He gave us a home but he took himself away.

I woke up this morning to news of a deadly shooting spree. It took me back to a few years ago when I lived in New York. To the night when my friends and I were so messed up on cocaine. To the night when we decided to go flirt with some guys down at the corner bar. 

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.

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.