somewhere between drugs and jesus

The last time I saw my parents was two years ago. Since then I have been up and down: drugs and Jesus, alcohol and the Buddha. When I was fifteen, my parents were in a car accident and they both died. After that it was just me and my brother in the house. My grades slipped and I quit everything I knew: ice hockey, student council, and trying. The only person that was there for me was Tony. Every day following my parent's death, Tony had smoked me up behind the school gym. Tony had been at this stuff since seventh grade and he had all the hooks and connections and everything. He taught me everything I knew and it was the only time in my life that I thought knew who I was.

I'd been such an overachiever since I could remember and I knew the rest of my youth years I would be making up for that with my new habit. Marijuana was just the start. As the inspiring Bob Marley once said, "the herb reveals you to yourself." My life became all about this. With the emptiness of my parents being gone and the lack of activities in my day, I had a new identity. To others I may have been a stoner, junkie, druggie, pothead, or burnout, but to myself I was someone completely different. Of course I was like a bird flying high above everyone else most of the time, but other times I was simply an inspiration to myself. I came up with life changing ideas that only made sense to me, yet my life was changed.

The first time I got caught was sixth months after the accident. Of course my brother had known what I was up to all that time, but that was the first time he had found evidence of it when I left a doobie in the ashtray with all his cigarette butts. He tried to ground me, but there's always a bullshit excuse to get out of the house. And that’s when I got into other drugs.

Getting tutored by the new class president- great excuse right? And that’s when I tried MDMA for the first time. Tony took me to a rave in a sketchy-ass town neighboring ours and his friend hooked us up with the drugs. MDMA, Ecstasy, E, Molly, whatever you prefer, it was like nothing before. I couldn’t stop dancing and it was the first time I had been happy since the accident and most likely the first time I had smiled too. Yet this smile was like no other, and it was plastered to my face for the whole night. I thought it may have been the answer to life while I was on it, but coming down from it was brutal. I contemplated whether the hangover was worth it, but that didn’t stop me from doing it again. And again.

Next was drinking. More of a typical teenage activity, but not the way I did it. For many people it’s a social thing, but for me it became an addiction. I knew deep inside, but I struggled with admitting the truth to myself. Once again, Tony was there, and he was the one who got me into it. He was like the brother I never had, like someone who was born to be in my life. And for a while he got to play that role until my brother caught me again. I’d snuck out one night and walked to Tony’s house where we drank, and drank. Once I’d had a few shots, I lost track of how much I’d had and I was out of control. We both passed out on his couch and when we woke up in the morning at six o’clock, I knew I had to get home soon or my brother would catch me.

It wasn’t a long walk, but after all I’d drank was two steps forward and one step back. Luckily I wasn’t hung-over, but that was only because I was still drunk. I was home thirty minutes later and I tried my best to quietly climb back in my window, but it was no use. I hadn’t sobered up much and I loudly stumbled into the bathroom to puke some more. My brother woke up, heard me, and he came to check on me. Despite how hard I tried to act sober, he could tell I’d been drinking. He put me to bed like a child and told me we’d talk in the morning. As always, the suspense of what would come when I woke up killed me, but it didn’t stop me from sleeping, considering the amount of alcohol I’d consumed.

When I finally got up, hours later, I made my way to the dining room to see my brother going through the texts on my phone. He knew everything now: who I’d been with, what I was doing, where I was. It was all over. I took a deep breath and walked into the room. My brother wasn’t as strict as my parents were, but he had been down the wrong path and back, and he knew that the stuff I was getting into was bad. He wanted to help me “get better” and get on the right track, but I wasn’t interested. Though I made this evident, he didn’t give me much of a choice. I was on lockdown for a month. Unfortunately it was summer, which meant no chance of even seeing my friends at school. I had no phone no computer and no TV. Tony tried hard to come rescue me or bring me something to cheer me up, but it was no use with my brother around. I didn’t know how he had the time to babysit me 24/7 but apparently I really needed it and “its what Mom and Dad would have done.”

It made me realize some things about the choices I made, but they weren’t all necessarily regrets. I admit those were the best few months of my life. I didn’t have to live in reality, and I had a best friend to go off to that far away place with. And now I was stuck in hell. It amazed me how amazing and genuine my life had been since my parents had died and how quickly that dream I had been living came crashing down. I knew that trying again to do those things would be dumb and risky, but as always, that didn’t stop me from trying new things whether it was a drink, a drug, or a religion. They say, “When in Rome, do like the Romans do,” and with the world being the messed up way it was, I did what the Romans did, and kept on that path that took me through unimaginable worlds.