I never knew that tough love was the greatest love of all until a couple of years ago. I deeply resented my parents for their divorce and the fact that my mother moved us halfway across the country to her home state. My dad was always traveling for work and she wanted to be close to family. I did not care. I was pissed.
The other girls stared at me at school. So did the boys. My brother and sister were younger than me and neither was in high school. I was a junior and I hated starting in a new school. I heard a prissy cheerleader whisper to her friends and then laugh. I turned beet red. I just knew they were talking about me.
At lunch I looked around and that same cheerleader came up to me and asked if I wanted to join her table. Thinking I had totally misunderstood earlier I said sure. She just looked at me and said “Keep dreaming”. I decided then and there that every movie ever made about rude cheerleaders was based on her.
Someone else came up and asked if I wanted to join her table. She looked a little gothic but she was nice. She invited me to a party that weekend. I started getting high and my own life did not seem so bad.
At first my mom was glad I had made friends but she smelled pot on me one night and threw a fit, forbidding me to leave the house. I was furious and snuck out anyway. I tried crack that night at the party. Sure enough, my mom was waiting for me when I got home. I was busted but good. I turned it around on her, though and told her if she had not divorced my dad and moved us to this crummy town, it never would have happened. She looked crestfallen and sent me to my room. I eventually fell asleep with tears running down my face.
The next day I heard voices outside my room. The crazy part was I could swear one of them was my dad. It was. My mom had called him and he had flown out to help her straighten me out. They united together in tough love and got me into treatment that afternoon.
My parents are still divorced and we still live a ways from my dad but I realized while in treatment that I still have two parents who love me. I have been clean for nearly two years now and I am going to college close to where my dad lives next semester. He was at my graduation, sitting right next to my mom with my brother and sister on either side of them.
Tough love. It is the greatest type of love in the world. I know because I have the parents who cared enough to use it.
Half asleep, I reached over to the night stand to grab my kit. Ahhh, there is nothing like that first line in the morning. I added a little to my regular “dose” and snorted away. As usual, the result was short but sweet. I decided to do another line when my roommate came pounding on the door. I knew she was going to complain about something so I figured I 
may as well be riding high when she had her little fit. “Late with rent…” yadda, yadda. I barely heard her once she got past the first sentence. It was all so routine by now. “Ok, sorry, I’ll work on that today” I mumbled as I went back to my room. Actually, what I was going to work on was getting more cocaine.
I stopped at my Sister’s place first. She had that disapproving look but at least she let me in. We drank coffee and she told me about how our parents were doing. It was so hard to sit there patiently. Finally, she left the room and I scrambled across the kitchen to the counter, where her purse was. I got into her wallet and took out $60. I would have liked more but I felt compelled to at least leave her something. I stayed for a while longer, only because I knew that when she found out, she would be mad and I wouldn’t be allowed back in there for a while.
I headed downtown and got my precious package. I knew it wouldn’t last long but for now, I was set. My dealer was feeling generous that day and we did a line of his stuff. About 10 minutes later my heart started pounding. At first, I thought it was going to be a great rush but something didn’t feel right. My chest felt tight and it got harder and harder to breath. Instead of feeling just warm, I felt burning hot. I guess I must have passed out on the sidewalk.
The next thing I knew I was waking up in a hospital with a respirator in my throat and I.V.’s running into my veins. Apparently that last line of cocaine had done something to my heart and I had been unconscious for 3 days. My parents were there and even my sister came. That was my wake up call and the truth is; I’m lucky I woke up at all.
As people filed past the coffin, tears streaming, I’m sure they were wondering how different Kim’s life could have been.
It always seems like a terrible nightmare when you have to attend the funeral of a young person. The younger the person is, the more terrible the nightmare. Kim was only 15. As people filed past the coffin, tears streaming, I’m sure they were wondering how different Kim’s life could have been.
There were people there from all walks of life but many of them obviously were family friends. Kim was dressed in a pair of jeans and a nice white blouse with long sleeves. Her hair was pulled back, as it had been in life. The morticians did a good job but they could not erase all of the signs on Kim’s face. Kim was a drug addict and had died as a result of that addiction. Kim had become an addict at the age of 12. That’s when her aunt introduced her to crack cocaine. Kim, who had been a slightly above average student slowly, started dropping in her grades. She spent more and more time at her aunt’s place so she could party with her aunt and her friends. Kim’s mom knew her sister did crack but she never thought in a million years that she would give any to Kim. Kim’s mom worked hard to provide for Kim and her brother. Now, her baby was gone and although she tried to cope, shortly after the funeral she began to smoke marijuana. Rocked by grief and not knowing where to turn, her life began going downhill and along with hers and her son’s. She just didn’t know where to turn, what to do to stop the hurt so she filled it with drugs. First marijuana, a little cocaine, and then a little more cocaine. She quit her job and started selling weed. She just wanted her little girl back, but what she didn’t realize is that she was part of the drug addiction trap.
Most people do not start out doing drugs with the intention of becoming drug addicts. Most do it to have fun, or perhaps to ease pain. Kim probably started to have a little fun and perhaps out of curiosity. She not only became addicted, but also ended up overdosing at the tender age of 15. Her Mother had been able to avoid drugs in her life because she focused on her children and knew the history in her family. The death of Kim was just too much, so the cycle continued.
