Real Teen Stories
*AMY’S STORY…
My story begins the summer before 7th grade—I was 11 years-old. My older brother, who was very popular in school and someone I looked up to, introduced me to opium. A week later, I began smoking marijuana. At first, I was only using drugs about three times a month. Then it became two times a week. By the middle of my sophomore year in high school, I was using daily and by my junior year, it was multiple times a day. After an injury that kept me from competitive gymnastics, I had to find something else to give my time to…something that could help me meet new friends.
So how did I become so addicted? It was actually very easy, thanks to my cell phone.
Yes, in 8th grade I got a cell phone. It was mine and it gave me freedom. I paid the bills in full each month so that my parents didn’t have an excuse to see the statement, and in turn, ask me about the listed phone numbers. I maintained a 3.85 GPA, coached gymnastics, was responsible and came from a normal, middle-class family. No one suspected, not even my parents.
Also, being a girl, it was relatively easy to get drugs. Often I didn’t even have to pay to get high. I dated drug dealers who offered me free drugs or gave me good deals. I kept all my drug dealers close by. In fact, I could press a couple of buttons on my cell phone, and there they were—in my address book. Whether I was at school or on vacation with my family, I always had a dealer within 10 minutes from me. With a press of a ‘detail’ button for each contact, I had all the information I needed—what types of drugs they sold, where they lived, and how to get a hold of them. Normally, I’d call or text message a dealer around 2:00 during the school day and by the end of classes, I was hooked up.
The first time my parents took my cell phone away to punish me, I figured out I had to change all my drug dealers’ names to something generic, like ‘John’ and ‘George.’ Even after my parents had taken my phone away from me a few times, they still didn’t know about my drug addiction. I’d throw out comments like, “Yeah, I tried marijuana last week with some friends, but didn’t like it. Don’t worry…I’ll never do that again.” That type of stuff threw them off, but not for long. They eventually caught on.
Sophomore year is when my mom and dad started suspecting. I was dating my brother’s best friend, who was well-known among the local police as a cocaine dealer. Well, the cops showed up at my parents’ front door and gave them the lowdown on my boyfriend. But it wasn’t until Junior year that I got caught at school with drug paraphernalia. I was sent to an alternative school, and eventually put into a drug treatment facility.
I’m now 17 and am 8 months into my journey back to recovery. The hardest thing for me is remembering what life was like before I started using drugs. If there is any advice I could give parents to help keep their kid safe from drugs is don’t assume that just because your kid is an A student, involved in sports and extracurricular activities, that they are exempt from becoming a druggie. Pay a least half the cell phone bill so you have an excuse to see it. And if your kid pitches a fit when you take the cell phone away or never invites her friends to the house, let those be red flags.
*As told to TheAntiDrug.com by Amy
*CHEYENNE’S STORY…
I’m 14 years-old right now, so you can only imagine how young I was when I started drinking alcohol and using drugs. I was 8 years-old when I had my first drink with my dad. He was going to jail the next day and thought it would be “one last hoorah” to get me drunk. From that point until I was 12, my drug of choice was alcohol. I had a certain negative perception of drug addicts, and therefore had no interest in doing drugs.
What changed? Well, I met an older guy—a “druggie,” who asked me if I wanted to get high one day. So I did. We hung out regularly, and as you’d expect, my drug use became more frequent. Pot replaced alcohol as my drug of choice.
At the time, I was visiting a lot of chat rooms, meeting druggie guys, and they would IM me asking if I drank or got high. I didn’t think too much about giving them my cell phone number. We would end up meeting to drink, get high or mess around with prescription drugs.
When I wasn’t hanging out in chat rooms, I was posting stuff to my MySpace profile. I lied about my age and posted pretty seductive pictures to attract guys. Most were between 16-25 years-old. Of course, I attracted the “druggie” types because my profile page was filled with talk about smoking and drinking. I dug the attention and acceptance! But the drugs really took a toll. I was rushed to the hospital three times for drug and alcohol abuse. I couldn’t stop, though. I would skip school for fear of missing out on something. I equated fun with drugs, and drugs with meeting people. And I loved meeting new people!
I started buying drugs online and would have them delivered to my home mailbox. In 2005, I switched schools and heard about a Web site from other students where drug users posted messages talking big about getting high the night before. I got on the site, lied about my age again and began making drug deals online.
Because my mom was working all the time and my dad was out of the picture, it was pretty easy to get away with a lot of the stuff. It wasn’t until I refused to go to school that my mom put me in treatment. I’m 7 months into it and glad to be recovering.
If I had anything to share with parents, especially if they are divorced or separated, it would be this. Be on the same page about your kid, even if you hate each other. I used my parents against each other all the time, making it easier for me to get in trouble. Check in with your kid often, and sneak around if you suspect something. Learn how to check a computer history log. If my mom knew how to do that, she would have discovered my problem a lot earlier. Fact is, I never erased it. And think to yourself, “something is up,” if you keep seeing blank screens every time you walk by your kid’s computer or get a lot of “nothing” type responses when you ask “what are you up to?”
*As told to TheAntiDrug.com by Cheyenne
*SEAN’S STORY…
Many kids have their first encounter with drugs and alcohol through someone in their family or a close friend. That’s how I got started. I was 12 and hanging out with some older cousins during a family vacation. I wanted to be cool like them, so when they offered me a hit of marijuana, I took it. For about 3 years, I only smoked pot when I was with my cousins. But then I started high school and found myself smoking pot everyday. I could make a simple cell phone call and instantly have access to drugs.
My parents didn’t have a hard time figuring out I was regularly smoking weed…my clothes, my hair, my room all wreaked of it. They immediately had me meeting with counselors and often screened me for drugs. It was when the screening began that I started going to the Internet to find ways to pass a drug test. Guess what? If you type in “how to beat a drug test” into Google, you can get a ton of Web sites!
From that point on, the Internet became my first source of drug information. I found out about ‘smoking herbs’, how to grow marijuana, make crack, recipes for LSD, how to make pot more potent, you name it—I found it! I stumbled onto a site called Erowid.com through a Google search. It was a mecca for pro-drug information! Eventually, I linked my IM to the site so my friends could access the information, too. We would order drugs online, even prescription drugs. All we needed was a credit card or billing address. Pretty easy. I had a MySpace profile, but didn’t really visit it regularly. Of course, everything that was in my profile was about getting high. My friends and I would post pictures from parties—one friend even had instructions on how to make drug paraphernalia.
So, how did I keep circumventing my parents? We had four computers in the house and I had a personal laptop. Because of my drug habit, I also had messed up sleep patterns, so I’d log-on when everyone else was asleep. During the day hours, anytime my mom walked by me, I’d close out all my screens or have a new game of Solitaire up. While I was buying drugs online, my mom was on the Internet looking up ways to help me with my suspected addiction. But she hadn’t learned how to monitor where I was going online.
Now I’m 17 years-old and four months into treatment. I’m doing much better now and getting my life back in order. If I had any advice to share with parents, it would be to not give up and don’t turn a blind eye to a suspected problem. Another thing you might want to keep an eye out for is if your teen has a part time job, but never has any money. That was me. Also, get to know ALL your kid’s friends. I only brought a select, good few home, but never my drug buddies. Beyond the more obvious signs of drug use, these are some subtle things to be looking out for.
*As told to TheAntiDrug.com by Sean
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