One Day At A Time

“D.R.U.G.S = Don’t Recycle Useless Generic Situations.” @NikkiWickked8

First and foremost, I am NOT glorifying the stories I about to tell you. I am simply speaking the truth of my life. These stories are real and in most, if not all cases, I was VERY stupid and careless. Definitely nothing to be proud of. I will go in order here. This could also fall into the “Your Own Outside Perspective” blog that I wrote.

Alcohol:

Some people joke about this but I can honestly say I’ve been drinking since birth. My mom was drunk the night I was born. She let me drink wine coolers in elementary school which I enjoyed. By 11 years old, my grandpa upgraded me to rum and coke. I never got drunk or a buzz but still. I first got drunk when I was 13 years old on New Year’s Eve 1995. As a teenager I drank too much. I literally chugged half a bottle of Tequila on my 16th birthday. As years went by I saw how alcohol affected my family. Dad was an alcoholic. He has since recovered. My brother and mom began drinking too much. I swore to never be like them so I stopped drinking for a while. I still do but not as much as before. I can control myself with it now. Sometimes it’s the wrong people who inspire you to go down the right trail.

Marijuana:

I first smoked weed when I was 14 years old. I don’t believe marijuana is a gateway drug. I believe the drug dealers are the real gateway to drugs. Now I won’t get into the debate of should it be legal or not. I smoked pounds and pounds as I got older. Is it harmless? Not 100% harmless, no. I got busted with it on a Monday. The Monday after my prom date got her dress. The Monday before I was going to get my tuxedo. I was placed in an Alternative school and missed my prom. She never talked to me again and rightfully so. As I said, it is not 100% harmless by any means. I came back with 1 week left until I graduated.

Cocaine:

My brother had did coke for a year or so and never let me do it. One day he was out sick from school. A friend on my school bus gave me a little line to snort. I did and it didn’t burn like I thought it would. This moment was the first of many, many other moments of flurries up the nose. Now if you have never tried this drug, PERFECT! I am glad but allow me to give you an idea how this drug works and why so many are easily addicted to it. Imagine your favorite meal or even drink. Imagine this meal in the largest edible form possible being placed in front of you. Now, imagine whoever made this for you will not allow you to eat it all. Instead they cut you a piece off of it and tell you to pay for each bite. So you shell out $20.00 here. Guess what? You love how it tastes so you shell out another $20.00.

Now that $20.00 piece is no longer satisfying so you shell out $40.00 here, $60.00 there, and even in the hundreds! That’s exactly how it works. My nose is literally crooked on the inside(not visible). It numbs you up in the literal sense. My mouth was so numb one day, I woke up with dry blood between my teeth. I did so much of this that it is a miracle I am still alive. More on this drug later.

LSD (aka Acid):

As with coke, my brother did not want me to do acid. So as usual, I tried it for the first time at school on a day he was out. I can say I had only ONE bad experience with it. In the course of two years I took over 100 hits. They say you are legally insane when you take more than 7 hits in your life time. I don’t know about that. I have seen people freak out under the influence of this drug so I was fortunate. One scenario I am not proud of with this drug goes as follows. I wanted a hit so badly. This girl gave it to me as long as I paid her the next day. I agreed and since I had not been paid yet I took $7.00 from my 2 year old nieces piggy bank. Yes. I did that. When I got paid I gave her $10.00 back. Now that does NOT make up for it. That was so pathetic. I “borrowed” money from my two year old niece to buy drugs. My own outside perspective makes me see the pathetic bastard that I was during that time.

Others:

During this era of my life, Acid and Coke were my drugs of choice. I did however do dumber things than those two. I was always on the search for the ultimate high. I was so bad that all someone had to do was give me a pill and say it will get me high and I would take it or snort it. Once I took an over the counter medication because my “friend” told me how high it got me. I took 8 one morning. *Grossness Alert* I would vomit before the buzz kicked in. I did this 5 different times, knowing I had to vomit first before I could get my high. I once snorted a pill that was used to keep people from killing themselves. All it made me do was make me want to kill myself. Not a joke or anything, I am serious. It was that bad.

This will sound weird and lame but I can say I accidentally snorted heroin once. This “friend” of ours got us what we thought was just cocaine. When I did it, I felt uncomfortable and not well. Turns out it was cocaine mixed with heroine which is called a Speed Ball. Again to give you a better idea, imagine taking a caffeine pill and a sleeping pill at once. We kicked his ass out of the car and bailed. We never wanted to do heroin. He didn’t tell us until after we did it. If we knew that it had heroin we never would have paid for it.

Many people have died using this combination of drugs. Thankfully I am still here. I saw one person overdose on heroin when I was 15. He was in his 20s and I was the only one helping him. Nobody seemed to care that this dude was pale and unconscious. He came to and I made him a sandwich and he calmed down. I’ve seen people begging me to give them cocaine because the heroin they just did is slowing their heart rate down! I am traumatized by that day. I really am. The image of this guy running from his apartment to the parking lot, clenching his heart still makes me cringe.

So all these experiences happened before the age of 18. I kid you not when I tell you I planned on being dead at 18. I lost one of my good friends who wanted to avoid me and this lifestyle. I don’t blame her at all either. I remember my reputation went to other schools. “Angel? That guy who does drugs?” I had girls reject me by saying they thought I would die on them. Seriously. I didn’t have a life plan because I seriously thought I would be dead before graduation. The fact that I am still here is not luck. It is a miracle.

How did I beat it? Rehab? No. Intervention? No. How did I? I have no clue.

I was 19 and had about $100.00 worth of cocaine on me. I was doing line after line in the bathroom so I didn’t have to share with anyone. I lined up 4 lines after having done 6. I was wired and ready. Then I stopped and looked at it. I don’t know what came over me. I said and excuse the language: “I don’t want to do this shit anymore.” Now anyone who has done cocaine will tell you that it is near impossible to have it in front of you and NOT do it. Me? I swept it off the counter top and tossed it in the toilet with the baggies that still had enough to get me wired for a few days. I flushed it and that was the last I ever did such stupidity.

You may be thinking that I just flushed $100.00 down the drain. True. Think of all the drugs I bought prior to this. You can say I was flushing my money away on drugs for years! I don’t know how I was able to do this since I was so weak when it came to drugs. 17 years, I have been clean of all that nastiness. I wish I could tell you how I defeated it but I did.

One bit of advice if you are trying to quit drugs, drinking or maybe just avoiding unhealthy foods/drinks.

It will sound cliché but trust me it is true. Take it one day at a time.

No matter how old you are, if you were to say you will never touch the “stuff” again is good. But it can be a set up for failure. To say you will not do something for the rest of your life, 50 years, 20 years, 60 years, seems like an impossibility. It seems unobtainable. However, if you wake up and say, “I can go today without (Insert poison here). I can do that.” I used that train of thought for years. Whatever works for you but that is what works for me.

There is a future in drugs. It’s one that is of dependence and bleak. I was never arrested for anything but again, I was so fortunate. I hope this can reach some of you with addiction or know someone with addictions. If neither, then you just got to know me on a much deeper level than before. There is hope no matter how far gone you are. I am proof with a pulse that it can happen.

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Angel Daemon

Contributor of Story Maker Media