Just say no? I couldn't
By CECILIA A. TUCKER
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 19, 2002
IT! (Private thoughts of the Indomitable Teen) is written by Cecilia Tucker under the editorial guidance of a panel of teenagers (in exchange for pizza and volunteer hours). Tucker is a licensed marriage and family therapist at the Counseling Center for New Direction in Seminole. Comments are welcome. You may write c/o: IT!, Xpress, the Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731, or e-mail Floridian@sptimes.com. If you are interested in being on the teen editorial panel, please contact Cecilia Tucker at revcecilia@msn.com.
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I have been using drugs for a while now. I started experimenting in middle school just to be cool and fit in with the in-crowd. It seemed pretty harmless to me then, and I was able to do everything everyone else was doing. My grades stayed about the same, I played several team sports and I thought I was juggling all these things really well. I knew I would never let drugs get in the way of my life.
I was in charge of my life.
Like my other friends in fifth grade, I committed to just say no and, at the time, I thought I meant it. But like I have already told you, middle school followed fifth grade very quickly and my just-say-no commitment was worthless. What was I thinking when I promised myself to stay drug-free under all the peer pressure?
I started with what people call the gateway drugs. For me, those drugs happened to be alcohol and pot. But it didn't take me long to progress to the next level of addiction. No one that I knew was an addict, so I figured it must be pretty hard to become one. I thought if I did drugs 24/7, I'd be an addict. To me, an addict was someone who was completely out of control of themselves and eventually couldn't control their environment. I thought other teenagers were pretty stupid to let themselves lose everything for an inane high. Then I somehow became one of them.
I am not exactly sure how this happened as I lost track of time when I found myself at the height of my addiction. At first, I couldn't remember weekends and those extra days we were out of school because of my addictions. Like all my other friends, we would leave school (even before we could drive), with the intent of getting drunk or high. It seemed so very harmless to me until, like I said, I couldn't recall what I did on weekends or holidays. It didn't start out that way, but it didn't take long before I was in this perpetual state of nothingness. I didn't think my life had really changed until one day I sat with my friends and we all tried to remember the fun times we had had lately. Not only could we not remember the fun times, we couldn't remember doing anything after getting high every weekend. I started to ask myself one simple question: Where am I headed? I didn't like the answer, but decided it was too late to do anything differently. I was already in with a group of friends and I didn't want to try to change them now. Anyway, people at school referred to me as a loser drug-user and wanted nothing to do with my cool friends or me. How could I hope to change that?
So, I gave into what had already happened to me. Where were my parents? Oh, they were around but they were in denial too. They sent me for help but they didn't want to believe that I was involved in anything more than normal teenage experimentation. It was like I had two different sides. Part of me wanted someone to throw me into treatment and the other part of me was so cocky and resistant that not even God could have reached me.
I then started to raise the stakes. I sought out GHB, a little meth, cocaine, ecstasy, and any other drug I could get my hands on. Mornings were a living hell for me. I woke up thinking about where my next fix would come from and how I would pay for it. I did some illegal activities to get the cash I needed for the next hit. I kept going to school, but that was a joke too. I attempted to play sports, but I really had lost interest in anything but drugs.
My life was totally out of control. I realized I was an addict. I had started all this stuff to fit in and enjoy life. In making that decision, I had no life. I didn't even enjoy doing drugs anymore because I was so anxious about how, where, and when my next high would come from and that became a never-ending worry. Had I bottomed out? No! I am still using and I am incredibly miserable. I can't ask for help because that would look weak. I can't stop on my own. I have tried with no success. I think now that the only ecstasy I will ever have in life is the drug. I hope I am wrong. Will I ever find ecstasy in life without the drug?
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