Speaking of Drugs

Addicts
(Photo by Syda Productions/Shutterstock.com)

When I was in high school it was a commonplace conversation to talk about drugs with my classmates on break times, over text, in the lunch room and whatnot. It was almost as if the idea of drugs was so normal and not an issue that it was seemingly okay to speak about. I had classmates saying how they got “so high” over the weekend or how they sold a couple of grams of MJ (marijuana) last week and bought a new phone. It was so easy for all of us to speak about it that it made it seem like doing drugs and dealing drugs was okay.

I grew up with my parents telling me that doing drugs was the worst I could do except for, of course, murder. Drugs were heavily frowned upon in my familial circles as a child. However, once I went off to school and was not around my parents, I grew to understand (or so I thought), that drugs were okay because everyone was saying so. My opinion was influenced heavily by others who did indeed believe it to be okay. Opinions, at that age, really mattered to me. I didn’t have a set lifestyle and didn’t have many friends, so I tried my best to agree with the views and opinions of others in order to make friends.

After feeling like I had no place to fit in, I decided to get involved with the group of kids who were doing, dealing and running drugs. This was ultimately what led me to do drugs myself. But what I realised, after growing up and getting clean, was that there were plenty of other people out there to be friends with and be a part of their group. But instead, I chose to go down the self-destructive, family-crushing path of drug abuse. I can tell you from personal experience that it is worth it to put in the effort to be part of a better group than literally destroy yourself.

If I had simply looked away from the people offering me drugs and the kids who thought so highly of themselves that they distributed life-threatening substances to others for some petty cash, I could have avoided all of the mistakes that cost me a lot of my life. One of my close friends had the same experience in his teens. He was around a group of people who thought it was an okay thing to do and they all took part in either selling or using. So, to fit in, he did the same thing. He sold, he used and he abused. It took a major toll on his family and his genuine friends and it took him years to repair those ties. He has now been clean for 10 years. Last week, he spoke to his brother for the first time in 8 years.

Messing around with a group of individuals involved in illegal drug use, abuse and selling, is obviously non-optimum. And once someone is addicted to drugs, they need to get help as soon as possible before the later stages of drug abuse and its mental effects begin to take hold (as covered in the article “Drugs and Violence”).

If you or someone you know is suffering from drug addiction, contact Narconon UK. Their holistic, drug-free rehabilitation program has helped thousands around the world get clean from drug abuse and yielded many successes.

AUTHOR

Devin

Devin was born and raised in East Baton Rouge, Louisiana where drug and alcohol abuse was a normal occurrence in families especially after Hurricane Katrina left hundreds of families homeless with easy access to drugs and alcohol to “relieve their pain.“ He was introduced to drugs at a young age and has now been drug-free for over 6 years.

NARCONON UNITED KINGDOM

DRUG EDUCATION AND REHABILITATION