A Living Hell

To Hell And Back…

“My goal in life wasn’t living…it was getting high. I was falling in a downward spiral towards a point of no return. Over the years, I turned to cocaine, marijuana and alcohol under a false belief it would allow me to escape my problems. It just made things worse. I had everything, a good job, money, a loving family, yet I felt so empty inside. As if I had nothing. Over 20 years of using, I kept saying to myself, I’m going to stop permanently after using this last time. It never happened. There were even moments I had thought of giving up on life.”
— John
“It started with the weed, then the pills (Ecstasy) and acid, making cocktails of all sorts of drugs, even overdosing to make the rushes last longer. I took copious amounts of these chemicals every day for as long as two years until I had a bad trip one night and went into toxic psychosis. I prayed and cried for this feeling to go away, I had voices in my head, had the shakes and couldn’t leave home for 6 months. I became very withdrawn and thought everyone was watching me. I couldn’t walk in public places. Man! I couldn’t even drive.

“I ended up homeless and on the streets, living and sleeping in a cardboard box, begging and struggling to find ways to get my next meal.

“I asked myself if this is rock bottom and I believe that it was. While observing these homeless people, I decided that I had had enough. Yes, I wanted drugs but I realized that I could want life more.”
— B.K.
“Crystal meth was my drug of choice, but there were others too — cheap, easy to get, easy to become addicted to and, of course, easy to use. I tried it once and BOOM! I was addicted. One of the main things that this affected was my music career. I had a great band and played great music and had great members who weren’t only band members but best friends. That all changed when I started using meth.”
— Brad

Crystal Meth

“My life spun out of control after a simple ‘girls night out’ to alleviate boredom. After being introduced for the first time at age 40, within 3 years I was shooting meth. I left my husband and three children (10, 12 and 15) and ended up living on the street.”
— Marie

“Welfare money was not enough to pay for our meth habit and support our son, so we turned our rented home into a meth lab. We stored the toxic chemicals in our refrigerator not knowing that the toxins would permeate [go into] the other food in the icebox.

“When I gave my three-year-old son some cheese to eat – I did not know that I was giving him poisoned food. I was too stoned on meth to notice, until 12 hours later, that my son was deathly ill. But then I was so stoned it took me two hours to figure out how to get him to the hospital five miles away. By the time I got to my emergency room my boy was pronounced dead of a lethal dose of ammonia hydroxide — one of the chemicals used to make meth.”
— Melanie

Ecstasy

“At a rave party, I saw a guy who had stuffed himself with Ecstasy repeat for hours, ‘I am an orange, don’t peel me, I am an orange, don’t peel me.’ Another guy thought he was a fly and wouldn’t stop hitting his head against a window.”
— Liz

“Rave parties are okay so long as you don’t take Ecstasy. But as soon as you start, you think people who advise you to stop are idiots. You start to believe you have found something great and others must not try to tell you the contrary. When you start liking Ecstasy, it’s too late, you’re sunk.”
— Pat

“Luckily, I am alive, but I’m left with the days, months and years after the trauma. I have to deal with what it’s done to me for my whole life… I’ve been experiencing everything, you name it. Depression, anxiety, stress, [recurring] nightmares of the night, and bad headaches were a few things that affected me after I took Ecstasy. I almost died. It only took me one night, a few [Ecstasy] pills, and drinking alcohol. This drug is very fatal, and I’m so thankful I’m alive. I can’t describe how hard it is coping with these nightmares all the time. I wake up in a sweat just thanking God, and being so thankful it’s just another nightmare. I pray in time the nightmares will fade away…

“No drug is worth the roll or high.”
— Liz

“I hear a lot of people talking about Ecstasy, calling it a fun, harmless drug. All I can think is, ‘If they only knew.’

“In five months, I went from living somewhat responsibly while pursuing my dream, to be a person who didn’t care about a thing – and the higher I got, the deeper I sank into a dark, lonely place. When I did sleep, I had nightmares and the shakes. I had pasty skin, a throbbing head, and the beginnings of feeling paranoid, but ignored it all thinking it was normal. Until the night I thought I was dying.

“Ecstasy took my strength, my motivation, my dreams, my friends, my apartment, my money, and most of all, my sanity. I worry about my future and my health every day. I have many mountains ahead of me, but I plan to keep climbing because I’m one of the lucky ones.”
— Lynn

“Ecstasy made me crazy.
One day I bit glass, just like I would have bitten an apple. I had to have my mouth full of pieces of glass to realize what was happening to me. Another time, I tore rags with my teeth for an hour.”
— Ann

Marijuana

“I started using on a lark, a dare from a best friend who said that I was too chicken to smoke a joint and drink a quart of beer. I was fourteen at that time. After seven years of using and drinking I found myself at the end of the road with addiction. I was no longer using to feel euphoria, I was just using to feel some semblance of normality.

“Then I started having negative feelings about myself and my own abilities. I hated the paranoia. I hated looking over my shoulder all the time. I really hated not trusting my friends. I became so paranoid that I successfully drove everyone away and found myself in the terrible place no one wants to be in — I was alone. I’d wake up in the morning and start using and keep using throughout the day.”
— Paul

“I was given my rst joint in the playground of my school. I’m a heroin addict now, and I’ve just nished my eighth treatment for drug addiction.”
— Christian, 23 years old

“The teacher in the school I went to would smoke three or four joints a day. He got lots of students to start smoking joints, me included. His dealer then pushed me to start using heroin, which I did without resisting. By that time, it was as if my conscience was already dead.”
— Veronique, 19

Crack Cocaine

“I lived with a crack addict for nearly a year. I loved that addict, who was my boyfriend, with all my heart but I couldn’t stick [with] it any more.

“The police stopped and searched me; we were raided at 6 a.m. My ex stole incessantly and couldn’t tear himself away from his pipe.

“I think crack is more evil than heroin — one pipe can be all it takes to turn you into an immoral monster.”
— A.C.
“I had acquired a $2,000-per-week crack cocaine habit and desperately wanted to be free from the chains.”
— Jennifer
“The only thing on my mind was crack cocaine. And if somebody offers you any of it, you’ll jump at it and take it. It’s like offering a starving man a loaf of bread if he walks for miles….

“Things came to a head for me when I’d been smoking constantly for a couple of weeks. One day I just decided I’d had enough — I couldn’t live like this any more. And I tried to commit suicide.

“I’m going to have to try and ght…. I hope my survival instincts kick in.”
— J.W.
“In sixty years I had never done drugs and drank only socially but never to excess. I retired as a successful corporate exec who had put two daughters through college and had earned my retirement. My retirement party was however the beginning of ve years of hell. That was when I was introduced to crack cocaine for the rst time. Over the next ve years, I would lose my home, my wife, all my nancial resources, my health and almost my life. I also spent two years in prison.”
— William
“I was introduced to smoking crack cocaine, and that is when everything stopped functioning. I was out with some people who at that time I considered real close friends. You know, it is true what they say about crack: when you take that rst hit, that high you will never get again…. It ruined me completely. It took total control over me.

“Crack cocaine has ruined my reputation, my self-worth and my self-respect.”
— D.J.

Cocaine

“You believe that coke will increase your perceptions, that it will allow you to surpass yourself, that you will be able to control things. It’s bloody nonsense. After a while you don’t pay your bills anymore, you don’t wash yourself anymore, you give up your friends, your family. You will become defenseless and alone.” – Nigel

“With coke, you are like a moth stuck on a light. It attracts you more and more and you can’t stop it. It’s not physical. It’s in your head. The more you have it, the more you take it. I have injected it in myself every 10 minutes. I borrowed money from the bank to buy it. One day I became unemployed. It was worse. I used to shoot up all the time. This thing made me insane. I knew it, but I continued. I became a total failure.“
— Marilyn

“My friend was on drugs for four years, three of which were on hard drugs such as cocaine, LSD, morphine and many antidepressants and painkillers. Actually anything he could get his hands on. He complained all the time of terrible pains in his body and he just got worse and worse till he nally went to see a doctor.

“The doctor told him that there was nothing that could be done for him and that due to the deterioration of his body, he would not live much longer. Within days — he was dead.”
— Wayne

“I had no more future. I did not see how I could escape my cocaine dependence. I was lost. I was ‘exploding’ and unable to stop myself from continuing to seriously abuse cocaine. I had hallucinations that animals were crawling under my skin. I felt them each time I shot up and scraped myself with the point of my syringe until I started bleeding in order to make them leave. I was once bleeding so heavily from this I had to be taken to the hospital.”
— Susan

“Don’t touch cocaine. I spent two years in jail because of this drug. And when I got out, life was so hard I started taking the drug again. I know 10 girls who became prostitutes because of coke. It’s much more extreme and degrading than we believe. At the time we don’t realize to what degree it destroys us.“
— Shawne

Kiddie Cocaine (Ritalin)

“The symptoms of almost an overdose kick in. The person gets very hyper, hyper-sensitive, hyper-alert, with very intense mood swings. It’s crazy.”
— A former user

“I rst tried Ritalin when I was in 7th grade. It was prescribed to me, they thought I had slight ADD [attention decit disorder], because I pretended to, so I could have an excuse for not doing well in school (I was just lazy). I never realized that I was getting myself addicted, and then I was no different than any other habitual drug user.

“I took about 40 mg a day and I felt it put me at the top of my game. I would stay up for days in a row, to the point I suffered a severe psychotic episode. It was terrifying! Everything seemed to be melting and morphing and I was terried.”
— Andrea

“Now, I have built up a tolerance to taking two to three 20 mg pills to get the high. I recognize my dependence…. I have become ‘cracked-out’ or zombie-like.”
— Anonymous teenage user

“I ended up doing a lot of stronger amphetamines that brought me down pretty quick, and I don’t know if I would have gotten interested in them if I hadn’t started using Ritalin.”
— Andy

Painkillers

“At the age of 20, I became an addict to a narcotic which began with a prescription following a surgery. In the weeks that followed [the operation] in addition to orally abusing the tablet, crushing it up enabled me to destroy the controlled release mechanism and to swallow or snort the drug. It can also be injected to produce a feeling identical to shooting heroin. The physical withdrawal from the drug is nothing short of agonizing pain.”
— James

“I am addicted to prescription pain medication. I first started taking prescription painkillers [some] years ago when my doctor prescribed them to treat post-surgical pain following spinal surgery…. Over the past several years I have tried to break my dependence on pain pills and, in fact, twice checked myself into medical facilities in an attempt to do so. [I have] recently agreed with my physician about the next steps.”
— Excerpted from radio commentator Rush Limbaugh’s on-air statement,
Friday, Oct. 10, 2003, according to Premiere Radio, his broadcaster.

“I didn’t think I had a ‘drug’ problem — I was buying the tablets at the chemist [drug store]. It didn’t affect my work. I would feel a bit tired in the mornings, but nothing more. The fact that I had a problem came to a head when I took an overdose of about 40 tablets and found myself in the hospital. I spent 12 weeks in the clinic conquering my addiction.”
— Alex

“Pretty much as long as I can remember I’ve had highs and lows. I would get easily upset by the littlest things, I would have anger outbursts, or hate someone for no reason at all. For a long while I had thought I was bipolar. I started using drugs last October to help me with my unwanted feelings. But believe it or not, it just made stuff worse! I had to now deal with my addiction and my emotional problems.”
— Thomas

“I realized after about a year I was addicted. When I decided to quit, I went through withdrawals physically, psychologically, and emotionally. I thought when I was on the pills full time up to 4 a day I could do anything. They actually seemed to keep my mood steady and balanced…. Ever since I have been off the pills, I feel more alive, alert and more capable of walking through life with confidence. I did not realize I had kept myself in an illusion or haze with the pills of false happiness.”
— J.B.

Heroin

“Heroin cut me off from the rest of the world. My parents kicked me out. My friends and my brothers didn’t want to see me anymore. I was all alone.”
— Suzanne, Drug Addict

“From the day I started using, I never stopped. Within one week I had gone from snorting heroin to shooting it. Within one month I was addicted and going through all my money. I sold everything of value that I owned and eventually everything that my mother owned. Within one year, I had lost everything.

“I sold my car, lost my job, was kicked out of my mother’s house, was $25,000 in credit card debt, and living on the streets of Camden, New Jersey. I lied, I stole, I cheated.

“I was raped, beaten, mugged, robbed, arrested, homeless, sick and desperate. I knew that nobody could sustain a lifestyle like that very long and I knew that death was imminent. If anything, death was better than a life as a junkie.”
— A.C.

“Drugs equal death. If you do nothing to get out, you end up dying. To be a drug addict is to be imprisoned. In the beginning, you think drugs are your friend (they may seem to help you escape the things or feelings that bother you). But soon, you will nd you get up in the morning thinking only about drugs.

“Your whole day is spent nding or taking drugs. You get high all afternoon. At night, you put yourself to sleep with heroin. And you live only for that. You are in a prison. You beat your head against a wall, nonstop, but you don’t get anywhere. In the end, your prison becomes your tomb.”
— Sabrina

LSD

“At the age of 16 I was introduced to a drug that I abused for over three years — LSD. What I was unaware of was the fact that LSD is the most potent hallucinogen known to man.

“The drug came on a small piece of paper no bigger than my index finger, called a blotter. Fifteen minutes after putting the paper on my tongue my entire body got hot and I began to sweat.

“Some other reactions that I experienced while on the drug included dilated pupils, nausea and ‘goose bumps.’ While high on LSD I felt like there was a huge distortion both in my mind and body. The visual changes as well as the extreme changes in mood were like some strange scary trip — one in which I felt like I had no control over my mind and body.”
— E.C.

“I would stay up for days at a time binging. Eventually I had lost a lot of weight; I looked like walking death and was a disgrace to everyone who loved me.”
— T.C

“At 13 years of age I took my first drink and soon after was introduced to marijuana. Then LSD quickly fell into my hands and I became addicted, eating it like candy.

“One night during one of my binges I blacked out and awoke with blood all over my face and vomit coming out of my mouth. By some miracle I pulled myself awake and cleaned myself up. I got into the car, shaking, drove to my parent’s house. I climbed into bed with my mom and cried.

“By the age of 21, I checked into my first rehab.”
— Donna

“I started drinking at the age of 15. Then I progressed to taking Ecstasy, speed, cocaine and LSD.

“I found it difficult to hold down a job and became depressed and thought I would never overcome my obsession with drugs. I attempted suicide twice by overdosing on pills. I was put under psychiatrists who gave me even more drugs, anti-depressants and tranquilizers, which just made matters worse.

“… as an outlet for my feelings… I turned to self-harm — I started cutting and burning myself.”
— Justin

“The days following my LSD use, I was filled with anxiety and extreme depression. Following my first ‘trip’ on LSD, I would eat it frequently, sometimes up to four or five times per week for an extended period. Each time I would take the drug, mentally, I was drifting more and more out of reality. The eventual effect was the inability to feel normal in my own skin.”
— Andrea