A Sad Story: An Old Friend In Need

Published by editor | Filed under Addiction

Once upon a time, long ago way back when I was in high school, Senior year to be exact, there was this kid who had come across very introverted with a quiet type of personality and was extremely soft spoken. Surprisingly, he was in three of my classes that year but it wasn’t until weight training class that I got to know him a little bit more. One day he was acting extremely distant and standoffish from me and everyone else around him, so I decided to go up to him and asked him if everything was okay. I’ll never forget, he looked at me and said with a ghostly look on his face that he had just found one of his older brothers dead on his bedroom floor from a drug overdose the night before…gulp…How mortifying I thought! I really felt bad for him and his family.

I thought because of such a devastating tragedy that he definitely could use a friend, and so I decided to befriend him. Little did I know that he had bit of an addiction problem him self. It turns out that he was in the beginning stages of his own drug using habits. He told me that he started out smoking marijuana and then occasionally used cocaine and then every once and a while tried meth. He said that he would pretty much use anything that he could get his hands on. I thought to myself that this is serious and pretty soon he’s going to end up just like his brother.

I tried to be the friend that was the little angel on his left shoulder and be a good influence on him but he was unmovable, unshakable in his mindset and there was nothing anyone could do or say that would stop him from proceeding with this destructive behavior. He said that he had been to alcohol rehab before and that didn’t help him at all. He said he couldn’t wait to get out of there so he could go and get another drink! Wow, this guy needs some help, I thought. Believe it or not, after a few months down the road his other brother passed away from what appeared to be heart failure. My goodness, I thought this guy’s situation was unlike anyone I had ever encountered and now another death. This was either going to make his drug habits worse or it could make him think twice about what he is doing to his body.

However, this did only make things worse and he became a full blown meth addict. I was witnessing his body deteriorating right before my eyes. I stressed to him the importance of getting checked into a drug rehab center but no matter how hard I tried, I could not persuade him one bit. He said that drug rehab wasn’t for him because he didn’t want to quit and that he didn’t care about life anymore. He thought that God was punishing him for whatever reason, I don’t know what for. I never met anyone like this guy before. It was sad because he was a really nice person and had a great sense of humor but deep down was a hurting little child in a lot of pain.

All the encouragement and advice that I gave him did absolutely no good. It was like speaking to a wax dummy. I could not be around this guy anymore because he was on the verge of death and there was nothing that I could do to stop it. I ended up moving away for a few years and then returning. A few weeks after being back home I had found out from another friend who knew him as well, that he had gotten kicked out of his Mom and Dad’s house because he was stealing from them to satisfy his fix, and is now homeless. Five years have gone by now and I haven’t seen him once since before I left town. So I honestly don’t even know if he’s alive, in jail or if he ever even considered receiving any addiction treatment.

To this day, I still wonder if he’s okay or not. The route he was going, it was only a matter of time before he was to end up like his brothers. If I do ever see him again, I will do whatever I can to help him out. I do hope that he comes to the conclusion that he does have control of his life and that he can change and things can get better for him. A good rehab center would be his best source for recovery. The sad thing about this story is that he was not willing to make a change in his life and that was his own decision. Although, the great news is, is that the solution is out there and you do have the option to seek it out, only if you want to. The choice is yours to receive help if you so desire it. Life is too precious to waist my friends. It’s never too late to make a change.

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