Speak Up

The very first use was the last time I really saw myself. I was 19 years old. I had no reasons, nothing I was running from or hiding from. It was just suggested by my best friend. Not that everything that happens from then on is his fault, none of it is. We got hi that day and I never went back to that good job, I thought only of getting hi and then getting more meth. Within a couple of short months I was shooting. I thought this was the greatest thing ever. I was absolutely not ashamed and would recommend it and push it on people. God only knows how many lives I wrecked with that move. The ripple effect can be staggering to think of. It was a very short time before I had nothing. I had lost my truck, traded anything of value I had, and was literally couch surfing. I got tired of that so I began to take on a new habit of committing crimes to try to sate my addiction. There was no bag big enough to do that. It was a totally consuming drug. I stole to get hi and had to get hi to steal. I hated myself and hated that I hated myself. Cycle after cycle passed. About a year went by and I spent a short time in jail. It was long enough to be physically clean and while in there I decided that something had to change. I would go home and begin again, clean. I barely escaped the abyss that was waiting for me when I got out. But I did and I lived just the way I wanted to for about a year. I met a girl and was raising her son as mine. Things were good. Then things went south. I relapsed for the first time of many. We lost the boy, we lost our place. We lived out of the car and got hi. We both got arrested. . . twice. I ended up in prison, she left me. She cleaned up and I am glad. I wrestle with my addiction still today, over 10 years after I could have told my best friend "no". It would have been so easy then. Looking back now, after 3 felonies, all meth related, and 2 violations, all meth related, I can say that the little bit of strength it would have taken to say no is nothing to the constant pain I have caused myself, my family and everyone who knows me. I am working on recovery now. I just had an episode and I consider myself lucky that I have a chance. A chance to live. A chance to find something. You see, meth has all these crazy effects, but the one that no one really talks about is that it puts a gigantic chasm in your soul. I knew it as soon as it opened and I tried to fill it with this drug. You can't, I tried. I got to the point that I hated everyone I knew, including myself. I don't know any of the answers about how to quit and stay that way. I do know that if I had the chance I would tell my friend "no, thank you" and I would have been on my way. Believe me when I tell you that it is easier to never have started than try to quit. So, if you have the chance, never start.