Speak Up

When I was 16 I started using meth. I was introduced to it by an older kid in my neighborhood andrew. I remember my first time. My best friend Jim, who was 15 at the time, and another neighborhood friend went to hang out with andrew and smoke some pot. He pulled out these clear rocks and said it was meth. I didnt really know anything about meth at all being so young so i said sure, ill give it a whirl. I remember taking that first line and after the pain disappeared I just remember the most euphoric feeling i had ever experienced. I instantly bought a 20 bag from him, had him show us how to smoke it so i wouldnt hurt so bad to use and jim and I went back to my house and killed that whole 20 bag in a matter of minutes really. Between the two of us we ran through about a quarter of a gram and stayed up all night of course just shootin the shit high as a kite. Next morning I got ready for school, stopped back by andrews on the way to the bus stop and bought some more so i could feel the same way i did all night, but all day during school. For a year after that didnt a day go by i didnt use. It didnt matter how we got it. Steal, whether from people at school, rob the dope man, or even crack in my parents safe and stealing thousands from them and even taking their personal items, sentimental items, and pawning them just to get high. Even breaking in cars and homes and only coming out with a bag thatd only last a few hours at that. Looking back on it, and knowing the type of person i am, i am baffled that i would succomb to stealing and harming other people just to get high. IT even got to where at 16 id rob people for guns and trade or sell the guns for meth. Putting a firearm in the hands of someone who really doesnt give a damn about anyone, completely strung out and in no way conscious of their actions. I even started distributing to other highschool kids. Even younger then me, 13-14 years old. It didnt matter, whoever had money or parents that would give them money so i could make mine out of it and stay ! high.

I went from being a straight A honor student that worked for my high school to being pretty much on the streets before turning 17. My parents house was always my home, but id be so strung i didnt wanna go back and have them see me like i was so i would sleep at other addicts houses, old abandoned homes that noone lived in or cared about. I remember even staying with two other dudes in a small ass room at the superior creek lodge. A 15 year old, a 16 year old, and 18 year old all completly strung out selling anything we could out of the hotel room to get our money to get high. Theres a lot of things i can remember from those times, just from how rotted my brain was and staying up at least a week at a time, sometimes more. The sleep deprivation was crazy, you just slowly start losing it and dont really know what reality is anymore. All you know is you gotta get high. A boy from the suburbs hanging out with prostitutes, drug dealers, crack heads, just everything you dont expect from the middle class especially at the age I was at. I somehow escaped multiple raids by not just local law enforcement but even federal. Just doing some of the craziest shit for no reason. Someone look at you wrong and your so shot out and so high you dont care about anything, so its nothing to pull out a knife and try to cut someone. Just horendous things i wish wouldve stayed out of my mind like a lot of that time in my life. It breaks my heart to know that theres still kids going through that but arent able to break the cycle like i did. Ive been clean for about 5 years now. Everyone i considered friends back then are either dead or in jail. A lot of them nobody seems to know what happened to, very few of us made it out and are at least somewhat normal now. I know im blessed to have made it out without things being worse for me. I will forever have the memories and flashbacks to some of the worse things ive ever seen. Walking in a room covered in human feces cause the dude was to paranoid to leave and would just squat and do his thing in his bedroom.

Seeing people lose it and cut themselves and just laying in puddles of blood. A 16 year old girl being passed around like a toy just fucking everything she can in order to get high. I mean having sex with 3 or 4 of the dirtiest people ever, even men that looked 45-50 years old with no teeth just to get high. It was hard seeing, I was always raised to respect woman and am very very thankful that i didnt partake in some of the things a lot of the people around me were doing to woman. As far as rape, beating em, selling them, using them just as sex slaves pretty much. No matter how bad it got, and how much i didnt agree I cant say i was any better then any of them. I watched it and let it happen, never tried to stop any of it and why? Because all i wanted was to get high. My conscious and any sense of morality just didnt matter anymore. Its disgusting what it did to me during that time, and it disgusts me to think of a lot of teens now that are going through that and getting involved in something like that. Im not sure how much ive typed, i could go on for awhile recalling all that. But i feel that is enough for now. It excites me that there is something around now to target the problem. five years ago doesnt seem like that long, but there was really nothing out to help kids like me, or in any way shape or form educate us on the truths about these drugs. The drug education program in cobb county highschools, especially kennesaw mountain hs was a joke. Even the kids who didnt really use drugs knew more then our teachers did and these so called "experts" or "specialists" that were coming in could ever tell us. And trying to learn from someone that really doesnt know is hard, it makes you not really want to listen. You got someone whos trying to teach you something is wrong that has never even experienced being high, or the lows that come with addiction. Its hard to listen to someone like that.