For people who don't work with "at risk" kids it is valuable to understand a couple of things, first what many of them go through, and second, and most important they have tremendous capacity to get better. Here is another personal story.
I grew up in a very dysfunctional family. My brother was a pot head, mother was suicidal, and my dad was a drug addict drug dealer. As a child, I was abused verbally and sexually by family members. All my life my dad was never there. He was always working. First he was in the military then worked nights. Then he started to truck drive, where he began getting back into drugs. After doing drugs awhile he realized he could make money doing this. So he started dealing for “men on bikes”. I was to young to realize what was going on but I knew something was wrong with my dad. He would fight with my mom and brother and neglect us. Spent our money and we lost everything. Lost our home, cars, and most importantly, I lost my father. My parents split up multiple times. My mom was so scared of him she would lock the doors at night and put the alarm system on. Because of my dad, I have had cops with drug dogs come through my house, and my house broken into and robbed. We’ve moved lots of times and had to get our number changed because his “people” would always call looking for him. He was the person I feared the most. I first tried pot and drinking in grade nine. It started off as just a weekend thing. It gradually grew to the point where I needed to get high every day. I thought I was ok because my marks were honour roll marks. After awhile I started getting involved with the wrong people. I started dating a very abusive person who controlled my life for two years. He told me what not to wear when he wasn’t around, I had to ask permission to do things, could not hang out with certain people, or talk to some people, and if I didn’t put out, he questioned if I loved him and would start a fight. He may not see how he abused me, but he certainly did. I have gone to cops about him, almost charged him several times. And somehow he always seemed to get me back. He would guilt me and yell at me and threatened me just to get me back. And somehow I thought this was all normal. Seeing my parent’s relationship my whole life made me think my abusive relationship was normal. It got to the point where the last time I seen him in person I hit him and he pushed me and we had it out. Lots of people used me for my hook ups and friends, mainly for my girl friends and sex. I did a lot of things the sober me would never do. I would steal from stores and my parents. I’d lie to my parents about where I was going and who with. For example, my first real party, I went out to a friend’s then out to a cathedral party. It was your average hood party. I was very high and drunk, having a good time till we heard screams from down stairs. I ran down the stairs to see someone on the ground bleeding. He apparently got stabbed. The whole party turned into a riot. Everyone was fighting and me and two friends were shoved in a closet for protection. I got hit and smashed my face into a wall and had a nose bleed. By the time we left, I was balling and having an anxiety attack. It was minus 40 and we walked for a good hour or two to a friend’s house down town. When we got there we were smoking more joints, and people railing ecstasy in the bathroom with the mom of the house. I had the rankest munchies but the house had an empty fridge that wasn’t even turned on, no money, no smokes, in a house with mice and bed bugs. That night I had one hour of sleep. Around eleven in the morning I bussed downtown and stole food from a store. By the time I got back to my friend’s house, my mom was pulling into the driveway. Somehow I never got caught. She couldn’t smell the strongest scent of weed alcohol and smokes on me. Second semester of grade nine I started smoking weed on a regular basis. I would come to school ripped or get high at school. At night I needed to get high just to go to bed so I would tell my mom I’m going to go on the trampoline, when I’d just lay on it and smoke a joint and stare at the sky. My mom slowly caught on but when she did she started buying drug tests. I found out I had PCP, Meth, and Cocaine in my system along with weed. My parents were slowly giving up all hope for me. It got to the point where the wanted to send me away to get me out of the drug scene. I fought with my parents daily and my brother. I had no relationship with them at all and was constantly grounded. The longest was being grounded for six months. Things with my family were not good. Grade ten was by far the worst year. I gave up sports, and was very depressed and my dad started getting physically abusive. He knocked me out and tried choking me.
I tried killing myself multiple times and would plan it out. When my my friend died I started getting into drugs even harder. On March 27th I was walking home drunk and a man stopped me to ask for a smoke. I told him I had none and kept walking. He told me I was a liar and saw the smoke in my hand and seen me pull my pack out. As I was reaching in my back pack to give him a smoke when he grabbed me and pushed my face in his chest and told me , “if you make one sound, I will kill you. Right here, right now.” I was in such shock I could not move or talk or even breathe. I was dragged to a SUV where I was thrown into the back. He drove me out to the Courtney Field where he began to rape me. I had a knife to my throat and when he was done he spat at me, called me a slut, told me I liked it, and lastly, that he would be back. He threw me out of the SUV, where I scrapped my hip on something and have a tiny scar, and drove off. I started running and putting my clothes on. When I got home it was almost 3 in the morning. My parents were too passed out to realize I was 3 hours late. I ran to my basement where I made myself a noose. I tried to hang myself that night. It was a month later when I finally told the person I was dating at the time what happened. And of course, he didn’t believe me. He later dumped me telling me I was immature and was an attention seeker. I told my mom and she insisted I get checked out. Turns out I got an STD from this person. But lucky for me, it was curable. It took four months, but it finally went away, and will not come back. I quit drugs multiple times and it never worked. Until April 15th, I finally quit. On October 2nd, another friend died. That was the hardest thing I have ever gone through. Since I wasn’t using I didn’t know how cope. I have almost relapsed many times but I have been successfully seven months clean. But since his death was caused by over-dose, it has kept my will to stay sober even better. Right now, I can finally say I’m happy. At least a lot happier then I have ever been. I still struggle with daily drama, and daily stresses like school, work and relationships. I’m learning how to cop and live day by day by counsellors, NA and AA meetings. I started taking step classes where I am learning the 12 steps of recovery. I am still on my first step, but I am getting there. I also am learning how to make my own decisions that are good for me and picking better friends. I have learnt who my real friends are. They are the ones I thought were the bad friends back when I was an addict. Who criticized me and told me what I needed to do. They were the ones that tried to help me when I needed it most, and still help me now. I still need to learn how to handle my emotions and not be a big rage machine. But as for my home, I can finally say that we are a family. My dad has been clean for one year, and my mom is very happy. My brother no longer does drugs and we all have a very special relationship. I no longer need to lie to my parents about where I’m going and what I am doing. I can go home without the fear of being yelled at or being hit. I have somewhere I can happily call home. People may not think drinking and pot can ruin some-one's life, but it ruined mine.
