When All Hope Is Lost

 

I was 17 years old when I tried my first drug.

I was leading a normal teenage life. My school days were like everyone else’s and I grew up following the rules laid down by my family on how to behave inside and outside the home. But deep down I always felt sensitive and fragile. I took things more personally than other people and the behavior of others and what they said affected my emotions.

So I created a defense mechanism which, to be honest, did not help me find happiness. I felt trapped long before drugs came into my life.

I will never forget the first day that a friend offered me my first dose. Anyone who has used, or is still using drugs, never forgets that first time. There is an unconscious desire to relive the first moment that welcomes addiction into our lives—it was the same for me. I felt liberated, reborn, free from all those “voices” that were holding me back from experiencing life as I wanted to. I had a fake reality, but I only realized that later when it was too late.

In a short while, I made the jump to “hard” drugs, as some call them—specifically heroin, acid and cocaine.

If we are honest and confront the problem, we should not categorize drugs as being “hard” or “soft”. This allows young people to rationalize and keep taking them, instead of avoiding them. Drugs are drugs and all of them can kill you, mentally, emotionally, and in the end, physically. This includes alcohol.

I lost 17 years of my life and I can’t even remember most of this period. It’s an empty spot, a blank space in my life that feels like a hole inside me. I started taking drugs for fun in an attempt to “be myself” only to end up losing myself and everything else. I was barely holding onto my life with no hope that I could make it.

Then I finally got help.

“I have found happiness and I’m now the one who helps people get out of the nightmare that I used to be in.”

I was a drug addict and I caused a lot of pain to myself and everyone around me. Today, thanks to the Narconon Program and my hard work, I have my life back and almost everything I dreamed of having. I have found happiness and I’m now the one who helps people get out of the nightmare that I used to be in.