Drug Addiction Stories & Info

This time of year brings back memories, most good and a few that are sad. It’s a time of enjoying a break from school, taking vacations, people getting married. With me, though, it’s a time of reflection because not only is it summertime, it is also the anniversary of a time when my little sister hit her lowest point.

Summer was always beautiful. She was vivacious, well-liked, enthusiastic and loved life to no end. She was a sports fanatic and always the first to sign up for a team. She had a big heart and was always the first to sign up to help with a volunteer project.

Then came that early summer day when our small town was hit by a tornado. Summer’s best friend and her family were killed. My little sister was devastated. She seemed to lose her will to live and over that summer we noticed other changes. At first, we thought it was still depression over her friend’s death, but eventually we realized that Summer was on drugs.

When our parents confronted her, she denied it at first. She turned it around on them, asking how they could even think such a thing. They apologized.

But as summer ended and fall approached, bringing with it the beginning of Summer’s senior year, her mood swings escalated. One day, I came over with my little girl who was three at the time and I went into Summer’s room and did a search. I found some pills and some white powder. My little sister was indeed, on drugs.

That afternoon, we confronted her again, this time as a family with our pastor and a drug counselor in the room as well. Again Summer denied it till we showed her the evidence. Then she broke down. We were all crying when she said she felt guilty about being able to go on with the plans that she and her best friend had made, going to college, sharing a dorm room, going after their dreams.

“It’s not fair! I can’t do this without Shari, it’s not fair to her!” Summer cried.

The drug rehab counselor spoke up then. “Summer, the best thing you can do for Shari is make sure that you DO follow those dreams and fulfill your goals. If you give up, it makes Shari’s life seem meaningless and you know that isn’t so. Do this for you and for her.”

Then Summer told us something that shocked us. She said that she was planning to commit suicide on the six-month anniversary of Shari’s death. We all cried again as she agreed to get treatment.

That was ten years ago. Summer got into rehab, then finished school a semester late. We didn’t care, we were just grateful she was still with us. She went on to college, here at home instead of off somewhere else though, because she wanted and needed our support as she was still grieving. Then she got a job in the big city a hundred miles away and today she is living her dreams.

In the morning I am leaving to go spend a month with her. Every year I am there with her for a month as she gets through the anniversary of Shari’s death. I go to her meetings with her and we bond as sisters. She’s doing good and I am making sure she knows she has me. When Summer falls, her big sister and her support group are there for her. I sometimes think Shari’s above, watching over her and being there for her, too.

As we sat on the bus that day, the stranger next to me and I, my surroundings were not really of importance to me. I didn’t realize I was crying until she leaned over and asked me “Are you all right?” I nodded quietly. I didn’t tell this stranger that no, I really wasn’t. I didn’t tell her that all I wanted was the courage to go somewhere and quietly commit suicide. 

I had no family. Mine had died years earlier in a tornado. This time of year was always hard for me. I had gone into foster care and then into society on my own the day after my 18^th birthday. Some people like storms. I hated them with a passion. I was going back to my home town to try to have the courage to die so I could be with my family again.

The woman next to me began to talk. She told me she had an anniversary coming up that was important to her. I cringed. I did not want to hear about something good. I had an anniversary coming up to and all it was filled with was heartache. I just wanted to know how to get the guts together to do myself in so I could join my family.

She talked about work and life and being on drugs. She talked about losing friends to drugs, about losing her home because she had spent all her money on drugs. Her friends that had not died from overdoses were in the pen or she had lost touch with them once she had gotten clean after making a promise to one of them before he went to prison.  She realized she needed to just that because she had been in a tornado of her own making with her addiction.

I turned to her and asked if she knew where to get some of those drugs. I was hoping maybe I could take something and have one of those overdoses she had mentioned. But she told me I didn’t need drugs, that I was a pretty young girl and had my whole life ahead of me. I told her I didn’t.

That’s when I confessed everything to the stranger on the bus beside me. I told her about the tornado and foster care and counting the days until I was 18 so I could go back to my home town and finally be with my family by way of suicide. When she told me she was from that same home town, I was shocked. The anniversary was the same. Her only child had died at a sleepover that evening.

We talked all the way. We went to the cemetery. It was the same one for her daughter and my family. We talked for a long time. She told me how she had turned to drugs but how she had been clean for a year now. She told me suicide nor drugs were the right thing to do.

She invited me to stay with her as she was starting over also. That was two years ago. Today I am in college and she has become a true “mom” to me. Tornado season still bothers both of us but we know that we have each other. “Mom” is getting married soon and I am seeing a great guy I met here at school. “Mom” told me one time that she thinks her daughter and my family brought us back together. I think she’s right.