Born into a world full of drugs

 Addiction has been a part of my life, in one form or another since the moment a shot of meth sent my mother to the hospital, where she found out she was pregnant with me. As for my dad, he went to rehab for his coke problem when I was just a baby, but not before a dealer he and my uncle porky robbed came looking for them at the house my mom and I were at.

One of my uncle's, my mom and porkys older brother, was friends with the guy porkys and my dad robbed and managed to convince them not to kill them. He even managed to get the guy back most of his weed and his coke.

I met the dealer they robbed when I was about 20, and my cousin took me over to his house to get some weed. He was actually a really cool guy who had been friends with my mom and her family for over twenty years. I'm sad to say that he died a few years ago while I was sitting in county jail.

My own drug use began when I was 13. I had moved in with my dad due to my mom's new boyfriend and the drunken abuse I was subjected to since he had moved in.

I had a lot of anger and found an escape when a song on a "Dave Mirra freestyle BMX" videogame introduced me to punk rock. Being into punk and bmx/skateboarding made me kind of a misfit at school, and a lot of the other outcast kids I hung out with smoked weed. I knew my dad and most of my uncle's smoked and had been curious about it for a long time, so I decided to try it after school one day with a couple of my friends.

I loved it, loved the way I felt, and I knew that I would smoke it every chance I got. I can still remember hanging out in my friends room, talking about how awesome weed was, when my friend asked me if i'd try other drugs or if I'd stick to herb. I knew right there that I'd try any thing you put in front of me. After all if weed was this awesome then other drugs were probably just as great, maybe even better.

I smoked weed every chance I got after that first time, I used to sneak into my dad's room while he was asleep, or when he was at work and lift a couple buds out of his bag and take it to school to smoke with my friends.

A few months later, just before summer break, I was at hanging out at my friend Alvis's house and we wanted to smoke but didn't have any bud. We knew his older brother sold weed, and Alvis knew where he kept his stash. Since his brother was out with his girlfriend we figured we'd go jack a bowl or two from him.

When we opened the cigar box he kept his stuff in we found not only his weed, but a bag full of powder and shards that kind of looked like pieces of glass. Neither one of us was entirely sure what it was. I mean we'd heard of ice, and glass when they did drug awareness at school, as well as things we'd seen on tv, but that was about it.  

Based upon what we knew we were pretty sure that what we found in the box was ice, and we were both curious about it and decided to try a little. We knew most people smoked it or injected it, but that it could also be snorted, so we figured we'd do it that way. We each snorted a line about and inch long, and after we'd snorted it both of us made a face from the burn and the chemical taste.

It hit us pretty fast and we both started/ to sweat. We also began talking. A lot. As we talked it felt like we were seeing things more clearly than ever, and like the bond of our friendship was deeper than before. After a while we did another line and Alvis gave me a small chunk to take home.

Alvis and I never got into his brothers stash again, but my love affair with stimulants, amphetamines in particular was far from over. Around that same time, my cousin Amy got released from the psych hospital/group home she was in and came to stay with us. We started getting stoned together, and she offered to give me some of her adderall. At the time I didn't realize that adderall was basically just a mild pharmaceutical version of meth. She told me that I'd feel it faster if I crushed it up and snorted it so that was what I did. Soon she was giving me her whole prescription, 60 pills a month, and I was doing them every day.

That summer I stayed with my cousin Jimmy and my grandma. Jimmy started taking me to bars with him and his friends. He knew a lot of bartenders and bar owners, that would let me in and pretend not to notice that he was giving me drinks as long as he at least pretended to hide it. One of his friends we were hanging out with sold coke, and one day when it was just me and Jimmy driving around Denver he offered me some.

I found it similar to ice, or Amy's pills, but it didn't last as long. Even so I liked it. So I spent the summer before my 14th birthday and my first year of high school hanging out in bars with my cousin, getting drunk and snorting coke.