Author's Note: Once again, this article deals with adult themes. if you are worried, please ask a parent to read it over first.
"Once you've had it, there isn't even life without drugs" - Go Ask Alice
I never said it out loud, but I distinctly remember a time when I thought doing drugs was no big deal.
In elementary school, every year we had many presentations about drugs, smoking, alcohol, and how bad it was for you, how it could ruin your life. Up to 6th grade, I lived in fear of drugs, and the world that came along with it. I wasn't even told that much, but it was enough to keep me away from doing any of it.
I don't think any little educational programs about drugs and alcohol they come up with could really show how bad the real thing is.
Looking back on my middle school years, when drugs first came up and slapped me in the face, it's scary. It literally scares me thinking back about it. I don't recall being scared at all at the time, when my friends were doing marijuana in the empty lot behind the car dealership. I don't remember being scared when I first started throwing up after having vodka at a party. I just remember thinking of myself as so "cool."
That's what terrifies me the most right now. Thinking I was cool.
It's like the first time you see someone snap their fingers through the flame in a lighter. You're fascinated, but are too scared to actually do it. In reality, the flame is so small, and your fingers pass through it so quick, you can't even feel it. Pretty soon, you're showing it to all of you're friends.
It's kind of that way with drugs. You see people lighting up in alleyways, and you always think, "How stupid are those people?" Pretty soon, it's your friends. They tell you it's not a big deal, look I'm doing it, I've been your friend since like what, 5th grade?
That's how it starts.
I was talking to my sister Lauren, who's 13, about this the other day, and she kind of laughs at some part of the story I'm telling her and says "What do you know? You've haven't done any hardcore drugs." What would I say in response to that? "I know a lot more than you think?" So I didn't say anything. I couldn't let her learn the hard way, but I couldn't just tell her a bunch of stuff and expect her to stay out of trouble. It didn't work for me. So why should it work for her?
I can't even explain how twisted a life of drugs is. It's disgusting, and like my sister said, I didn't even get that submersed in them. I didn't deal, I didn't even do some of the really bad drugs. But I know enough to write this article.
It was about a month ago. I was on Whyville, checking out the new Times when I got a phone call. It was my aunt. I hadn't talked to her in awhile, so I wandered into the living room with the phone, catching up. Something caught my eye. I peered out into the dark beyond the window, and I saw something. Somebody. There was a figure sitting on the stone wall of my porch.
I don't know how I got the courage to go out there, but I did. I hung up with my aunt and looked out the front door. The figure was still sitting there, staring listlessly into the street. Only when I recognized Keanu's grey jacket did my heart calm down. I wandered outside and sat next to him. "May I ask what you're doing here?" I had asked. But he didn't answer me. His eyes were dark and they didn't look at me when he finally spoke a few minutes later. "I need to get to Dakota's," he said, his voice low. He was totally wasted. As I shoved him into my car, he immediately fell against the window and stayed there until I walked him up to his cousin Dakota's house.
Keanu wasn't like this. He was never like this. Keanu was the lightest, funniest, most entertaining guy I knew, and I knew he smoked with his brothers but it was never like this.
It was weird, I still can't describe what it was like to be with a person so vacant, when they are usually so bright. Dakota didn't say anything as Keanu stumbled inside his house. I never talked to Keanu about it. I don't know if I should.
The thing I remember most about that night was driving home thinking, "This is sick, this isn't right. How can something so horrible exist, something that can change a person to be like that. And it gets so much worse than my expierence."
My brother Dansun used to deal drugs. Dakota's mom is a crack addict. He hardly ever sees her. Drugs are so horrible and twisted.
And yet I wasn't afraid.
Glitsygrl
