My name is Andrew Tyler; I am a 17 year old boy living in Melbourne, Florida, and I was a user of marijuana, oxycontin and Valium. This decision made me momentarily happy in the short term, but eventually it cost me everything - my friends, the trust of my family, the respect of my mother, and more. I also have to work hard to be able to continue my education, and I have been to court to face punishment for my crimes. These are things that I regret, and that I wish I could completely take back. However, since I cannot, the only recourse for me is to now attempt to retrace my steps, figure out what led me to this point in my life, and figure out how to make the best of it.
Two years before that was when I started becoming friends with a new group of people. For the sake of this story, their names are Jeffrey, Tyler and Gordon. I was introduced to them one day freshman year of high school, when I took a different way getting home than I normally do. I saw them out by the far corner of the school, over by the bushes, smoking something that looked like a cigarette. I walked past them, intending to mind my own business - I didn't think they would even deign to talk to me. However, upon my passing Jeffrey matched my gaze, turned to face me and said, "Hey Andrew, what's up?" I stopped for a second, turned around and casually replied, "Not much." The conversation went on for about another minute, relating small talk, until he glanced at his cigarette, looked at me, and asked, "Want some?"
I took a draw from it; it tasted good, but I knew that it wasn't what a cigarette tasted like - it was different. So, instead of walking right home, I stayed there for another half hour talking with them and smoking pot with them. That was the beginning of it all - soon, I started hanging out with them two, three times a week, all varying which house we'd go to, smoking pot and watching movies. Sometimes we'd play video games, sometimes we'd just listen to music, but I thought it was all quite fun. They also got me started on pills; Gordon's dad had a prescription that he never used, so he took it and gave us some oxycontin and Valium on occasion. I had a new group of friends, we would spend a lot of time together, and I liked getting high. Gordon would even manage to get us beer a few times, and we'd get a little drunk while we smoked.
While I was doing this, however, I had no idea of the impact it was having on my grades and on my relationships with my other friends and family. Before I started hanging out with Jeffrey and his group, my best friend, who we'll call Ryan, noticed that I wasn't really returning his calls or coming over to hang out anymore. Instead of coming home early to get my homework done so I could hang out with my family, I would just hang out and get high all day. Soon, I wouldn't even hang out with Jeffrey and the gang; with my own supply of weed and a few pills, I would just hang out in my room and smoke all day. My parents were both out of the house during the day, so they would trust me to find my own way to school. However, I would just pretend that I was getting ready to go out the door; once they left, I would just stay at home and pretend I was sick.
My parents took this dramatic change in my behavior hardest of all. There were many fights and arguments between us about why my grades were slipping - in four weeks, I went from an A student to a C- student because I simply was too high to feel like doing my homework. When my parents would come home, I would lie to them and say that I had my homework done. However, they soon knew to ask to see my homework, in which case I would try an increasing array of lies to get them to leave me alone. It never really worked, and they would just tell me to go to my room and not come out until my homework was done. Of course, they didn't know that I would just smoke instead of do my homework; I thought homework was for the uncool, and that I didn't need to know this information. I only thought I needed more pills. I started stocking up on air fresheners and desk fans, to waft and mask the smell of marijuana coming from my room. My window was perpetually cracked open, even when it rained.
This was the lifestyle I started to get used to as I started to sequester myself from the rest of the world, effectively creating my own little world where all that mattered was TV and marijuana. I would sometimes just sit in bed all day and smoke, only coming out for dinners, which were held in silence. My mother would occasionally come in to yell at me - my room was always filthy as I never cleaned it up - but I was always careful to hide my stuff just in time. I thought I was so cool for doing something illegal right under my parent's nose. I thought I knew better than everyone else, and that nothing could get to me.
However, that all changed one day when my mom decided to go into my room. Basically, she was worried about me and my changes in behavior lately, so with the pretense of "picking up laundry" she searched through my room. Looking in the right places, she came out with a half pill of oxycontin and Valium apiece, which were stashed in my room; my mother was furious, and she simply didn't know what to do with me. This was one of the few days I actually went to school, so when I came back I received an earful from my mom. There were tears in her eyes from the first time I saw her, and there were tears in mine by the time we stopped talking. I couldn't believe how much I had let her down.
A few weeks later, I went to court; in lieu of prison time, I was sentenced to a year of probation and 50 hours of community service. While I was angry about that sentencing at that time, now I am supremely grateful; it successfully scared me straight and made me understand the error of my ways. I know now that risking criminal punishment is not worth it to feel cool or to try something that is illegal and likely dangerous; whether or not it is bad for your health, it is most certainly bad for your grades, your state of mind and your motivation. I forgot about all my hopes and dreams once I made weed a significant part of my life; no longer did I work hard or cultivate good relationships with my family. My mother in particular still won't talk to me; it will take some time to really get through to her and make peace with what has happened between us.
The community service has helped me greatly in understanding what it takes to be a part of a community; learning how to help people has been a tremendous experience, and one I will not soon forget. Knowing that I am doing this to make up for what I've done is helping me to move on from this dark time in my life and make the best of the road ahead. Drugs definitely took their impact on my life in a very negative way; if I could do it all over again, when Jeffrey asked me if I wanted to have some weed, I would have said, "No, thanks." Those two words would have saved me a lot of trouble, with the law and with my family - most of all, with myself.
