My first drug

Living around drug addicts I became all too familiar with their stories of how they got hooked on drugs. Everyone's story was different and yet they were all the same in the sense that all it took was one time. I found myself more and more curious about their lifestyle and I became less concerned with the dangers of being involved. I thought i was strong enough to not get sucked into it but the longer I stayed the weaker I became.

I began feeling like an outsider. I had very little in common with these people. I knew of a world full of fun and excitement. My past weekends included doing things like going to bars, going to see a movie, having cookouts with family or friends, taking my kids to the park, camping, fishing, or going shopping. Not once did anyone there make plans to go do anything outside of Empire. They all lived each day looking for a way to get high, or a way to make a quick dollar so that they could get high.

I wanted so badly to have something in common with D, with this lifestyle, so that giving up my life with my kids would be somewhat worth it. Toward the end of my four month stay I was not the same strong person I started out as. I had been pressured to try every drug you could possibly name and even though i was able to turn them down, there was one drug that I decided was not a big deal to try.

I smoked pot for my first time as a teenager. It made me dizzy, sick to my stomach and made me pass out. On three different occasions I tried to smoke pot when I was 16. That was the only drug I had ever done and I didn't plan on doing anything ever again, until living in Empire that is. Marijuana was everywhere, cheap and everyone smoked it. I came to a point of wanting something in common with these people and this was the only thing I could see myself doing and told myself it wasn't a big deal. 

The first few times it made me sick just the same way as when I was a teenager. Many people laughed about how it made me feel and poked fun at me for not being able to handle it.  Even though it made me sick, I kept smoking it. It took me about 7 times of smoking pot before I started to feel "high" like everyone else. When I say I smoked pot, it wasn't like your thinking. I never smoked more than two hits off a joint and only one hit from a blunt. I could smoke one puff and get stoned while everyone else would smoke an entire joint or blunt. Joints are like a rolled up cigarette and blunts are like a cigar.

The first time I got high it scared me to death. I thought I was going to die. My heart was beating heavily in my chest and I felt like a brick was on my chest making it hard for me to breathe. My face was numb, i couldn't hold my eyes open very wide and I couldn't talk. I could hear everyone around me laughing and talking about me but I couldn't respond. At one point I elbowed David and told him I wasn't feeling right and he reassured me that I was just stoned. This feeling lasted about 30 minutes. When I finally came around to my self I said I wouldn't ever smoke again, yet just days later I did. I smoked pot 6 days in a row, every afternoon, telling myself it was to help me sleep, which it did.

 Looking back, that makes me sick knowing that I changed what I believe in for someone else. I was living a lifestyle that went against every belief I had. My morals and my faith were tested heavily. With each passing day I failed, as a mother and as a christian.