Drug Addiction: I survived High School & My Many Addictions

By Dean, from Indiana

I don’t know how someone starts out a story like this, but here goes.

I remember the first time I took Xanax. It was in High School. My 3rd year in and I was in my Environmental Science class. I knew most of the people in the class did drugs, but I knew I was above all that.

I guess things change when you want to try new things. This guy I knew always had pills on him and just gave them to people for free and didn’t really care too much about it. I decided, “What could a Xanax hurt me?”

I found out. It can get you addicted to the good feeling and have you begging for more and more as time goes by. Each day I would ask if he had more with him. He always gave me more, and more, and more. I was hooked in almost 2 weeks and couldn’t live without the mellow feeling.

Soon enough I was spending all the money I could get in order to buy almost every pill in the book, a sure sign of drug addiction. I loved Xanax and every other downer out there.

I remember once I had a prescription bottle at school my Senior year and it had at least 15 different types of pills in it, full to the top. I had to have taken at least 10 different pills that day in my math class. The period was almost over, and I remember standing by the door waiting for the bell. I felt so out of it and loopy, more than I knew was normal. My friend was standing by me and I barely had time to say “I am going to pass out” before I actually hit the floor.

When I woke up, I remember the class standing around me in a big circle just staring at me. I guess they thought I was dead. I went to the nurse’s office in a wheelchair and I had to flush my precious bottle of pills down the toilet, bottle and all before they found it.

I got over the pills a couple years later and ended up moving to “Duster”which I had never tried before and told myself I never would. I saw my friend Rachel do it and after she did, she just stared at me like a zombie. After she inhaled it, she fell back onto the bed and started throwing up, but the vomit was orange colored and it freaked me out.

Probably a week later, I went ahead and tried it and was hooked right away. I saw myself go from being a pretty good kid to stealing 2 cans a day from Wal-Mart at whatever cost. Once I did it right in the store. There were people everywhere and even an employee in the next isle, but I didn’t care.

he worst part was putting my Mom through everything I did, when I was addicted to drugs. Come on, Mothers are not stupid and they know what is happening. She said at first she didn’t, but she caught on. I remember so well when she tried to take the can from me once. I told her I would stab her and then I pushed her out of my room. Even thinking about doing it makes me sick to my stomach.

I overdosed twice and went to the ER for it 2 times as well. I don’t remember either time. One of the times, as I am always reminded, my Mom found me in my room naked on my bed and I was cold as a fish and my eyes were rolled back into my head. She told me it took at least 2 tries before they could revive me.

Why I am still alive I don’t know. I know people have much worse addictions, but anyone’s addiction can be just as terrifying as the next.

The last thing I gave up was Marijuana. I had an addiction to marijuana for about 2 years. Everyday, all day, I had to smoke. If I had to steal to get the money, that is what I did. Luckily, I got in trouble a few times for it and it slapped me into reality and opened my eyes to the fact that it was time to stop drug addiction.

I have been clean for almost 2 years now from everything. Having addictions to drugs or the sauce seems like it is taking over people my age nowadays, and addictions are demons. God knows I went through Hell and back, overcoming addictions. Losing almost 60 pounds and becoming borderline underweight.

I am glad I went through this stuff though. Overcoming addiction made me a much stronger person and gave me a much better appreciation for life and little things. I wouldn’t trade anything to go back to those days. I paid the price for what I chose to do. I paid the price for a very long time. Now I just have to start the hardest part of recovery for addicts which is mending the relationships I almost completely destroyed and make stronger the ones that got stronger through it all.