This is my story and I hope it helps at least one person out there.

Every teenager hears the warnings about drugs, what it does, how many it kills, how it effects everyone around you when you do them. I heard all of the warnings but when you are young you feel invincible, nothing will happen to you. How can it? Who cares about some egg frying in a pan, its lunch
not your brain! Good grief how dumb can you get!?! I am not going to get hurt, my friends all do it and they are perfectly fine. Now I wished I would have listened to all those warnings.

I started doing marijuana when I was 15. Boy was it fun. Those were the fun times, at least what I am able to remember of it. I vowed I would never touch any other drug. But once you start any drug its never confined to just that one. I wanted to find a better and longer lasting drug.

One December 5, 1997, 2 days before my 17th birthday, I was talking to a friend of mine. Sarah and I were talking about something goofy when out of the blue I blurted "I want to try crank!!" She just blew it off and I felt kinda stupid for saying anything because she doesn’t do drugs like that. About 5 minutes later Sarah asked me if I really wanted to try it. I said yep. I had no clue, none whatsoever that she even did crank much less bring it to work with her. We went to the bathroom to do some. I was shaky and thought maybe this wasn’t a great idea after all. I came that far I might as well try it. I was shaking and nervous but I was able to sniff up a good amount of it. The results were amazing! I felt energized, awake, talkative and all round good.

My birthday party was the next day and Sarah was invited, she was to spend the night. The rest of my friends were pretty preppy and didn’t do any drugs, not even marijuana. Sarah came early and we sniffed a bunch, my friends arrived and I was ready to party. I was happy and lively for the first 3 hours or so but I started to get really touchy anytime someone did something dumb. I started snapping at them, getting them all into a muddle. When it was time for them to go home I shoved them out the door, literally. No joke. I pushed them on there way. all I wanted to do was get more crank and drink beer with Sarah. We stayed up all night. After that I started to buy crank regularly. When I was high I was so high I felt like I was soaring like an eagle in the sky. But when I was coming off of my high I was so very low. The more I used crank the lower I got coming off of my highs. So in turn I bought more and more. I used it 7 times, at least, everyday.

My parents began to get on my nerves. We were at war anytime I was home. I hated to be with them because they had gotten so picky and rude. They
were being mean whenever they had the chance. They spent so much time making sure my brother got everything he needed while I felt like I was loosing it. My grades were all F’s and I started to skip school as often as I could. More and more I felt like I was alone. No one cared about me. I started to give things away that meant so much to me. I took all my earrings out, which were my most prized piece of me. My friends at school said I was acting weird, so I blew up at them for suggesting such a thing.

Christmas came and passed. Life at home became more and more difficult. No one was there for me. I never had any money, I spent it all on drugs. The habit got bigger and bigger. It was a must that I had my crank. I stole money to get more when I ran out.

On January 2, 1998, less than a month of doing crank, I came to a point that nothing mattered. I got my paycheck that day. I cashed it and bought enough crank to last me 4 days, marijuana and a bottle of 750 Ibuprofen. I took it all in the same setting. It was about 4:00pm and I got home at 6:00pm. I puked in my living room, no one saw me so I covered it up, grabbed the phone and went upstairs. I barely made it to my room and puked again. I talked on the phone till about 8:00pm. Finally I passed out. My parents found me at 9:30pm, laying in my vomit hardly breathing.

I got to the hospital around 10:00pm. They pumped my stomach and took tons of tests. I was released a couple days later. Someone had been watching
over me that day. After 6 hours of having that many drugs in my body, nothing was wrong with me. My liver was fine, my kidneys were fine, my stomach was fine. Nothing had hurt me. The doctors were amazed.

I have been going to a psychiatrist regularly sense then. I am still tempted by drugs, but I have managed to stay clean. I discovered that the drugs had made me see everything differently. It changed my mood dramatically. I was angry at the world. No one was there for me. But in reality everyone was there for me, reaching out to me. Everyone cared about me. How could something effect you so much? I hadn’t even been on drugs all that long and it messed me up.

I wish that I would have listened, I made it safe and sound but many others will die from drugs. If I could just stop one person from even starting I would be happy. Drugs take there toll and they take them fast or just keep you forever.