Speak Up

My name is Jordan, I’m 18 and living in Salinas California with my father... about 8 months ago I had a group of friends I used to party with... nothing serious, we would go out to the park and smoke weed all night and joke around, we'd been doing this for about 2 years... one night one of our friends brought a bunch of the small pills, speed essentially, that’s how it all started... I took one, it was the greatest feeling I have ever felt, I was going a mile a minute, thinking I was acting totally normal, I felt amazing, I abused these things for about 2 months... after my friend ran out I started to crave any kind of speed, anything to keep the rush going, I had befriended a homeless man a few years back while working at a homeless shelter downtown, one night I was craving it bad, and this person just happened to call me asking for a couple cigarettes, knowing this person was an active meth addict I decided to go over to his camp to give him the smokes and try to buy a pill, I had no intention of buying meth when I got there... when I walked in I saw at least 4 people in tents smoking meth, injecting heroin, doing all kinds of drugs my parents told me to stay away from... after giving him his smokes I asked him if he had anything to get me up, he then introduced me to the monster... not finding any pills he handed me a 10 sack of meth, I handed him the money and we walked to a motel in the bad side of town, he then proceeded to empty the sack on his cell phone and crush it with his ID, I then saw him pull out his "tooter" (device to snort meth, in this case it was a broken pen) he stuck it up his nose and did a line, my line was right in front of me, it was shiny, white, and pretty, he handed me his tooter and told me to do the whole line, he told me it was going to burn, I would gag a little bit and my eyes would water, it was off... the line was gone in front of me and up my nose... it burned like a hell.. My eyes watered and I gagged a bit, it was the worst tasting stuff I had ever had... I thought I was going to vomit... moments later I was in heaven... I felt amazing, I couldn't stop talking, nor did I want to, I walked all night long looking for shit on the street with a flashlight with my homeless friend... it was new, exciting and I thought I was having fun when in reality I was just being high... 6am hit, the sun was coming up and I was dying... I had a couple more lines left in a small sack I hid in my boot... that first time I was up for about 3 days... feeling good... and then I ran out... oh my god the crash was horrible, I couldn't move, talk, or anything... I slept for a full day and night... and for about 2 days I was fine, I didn't want any more... until I did... I traded anything I had to get some... I asked people for money for one more sack I did anything I could to get more... it was like this for 8 months.. I didn't talk to my parents anymore, I was never home except to sleep and eat once a week probably... life was hell and I couldn't stop... I needed more all of the time... I eventually ran out of money and things I could trade and I had to stop... I made the decision after this last time to never use again... I have about 2 months clean and sober in the rooms of NA and AA... I’m happy again.. it’s very difficult but the pain of being a slave of something that wants me dead is far worse than how I’m feeling right now... this is my story... and to anyone who is thinking about trying it once... don’t... you can’t do it once... as soon as you do it you are 100% addicted... at least that’s what happened to me...