It’s Not Too Late
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 17th 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.
