Gave me back my ability to create my future

When I was probably thirteen, it started with weed. After that, probably in my sophomore year in high school, just kind of became a pothead big time. And, that was just our thing we did on the weekend—we would go to our friend’s house and, you know, smoke.

And then the pills—Adderall and painkillers really started in my freshman year in college. Seemed like everyone had Adderall—seemed like there was always someone who was prescribed Adderall. And then in the Greek fraternity system, it’s really easy to get it. They are essentially amphetamines.

And when taken in large enough quantities, you get as high as if you were doing meth, essentially. So there’s Adderall, Vyvance, Concerta, Focalin and I could very easily find someone with them who was selling their prescription.

I would take large, large doses of this and crush it up and snort it and use it in that way just to get high.

I ended my freshman year probably with like a 1.78 GPA, a really bad GPA. And then my senior year I found a hookup with my friend for painkillers and he had just moved into an area and he was like, “Hey, you know, I got these OxyContin.” I felt like a zombie when I was on those things. You really don’t have a personality anymore. I would steal from my family. If they had any prescription medication, that would get swapped up. If there was liquor, that would get drunk and put water in to make it look like nothing was taken.

The breaking point was when I had stolen some checks from my parents. I was writing them out to get these things, they were like eighty dollars per pill. And I didn’t have a job or anything, so I was doing that to get it.

My mom saw a payment on the computer and I was like, “Okay, I gotta get some help.” That was literally the day I had my mom call Narconon.

When I did the sauna [New Life Detox] program at Narconon I remember sitting in the sauna and just being like, “Thank God, I am here,” because I could feel this stuff coming out. I felt like I had been in like this bucket for a long time, this pail, and I was coming up over the edge and going, “Oh, okay.” So I’m getting an idea of what it’s like to be sober and clear and stable again.

At the end I was a person again. I was me again, essentially. And it gave me back my ability to create my future, because that was lost completely. My stability now is at a point where I am just certain I would never go back to that anymore. I feel too good to do that and I’m out of the—I’m out of the nightmare and I’m into living again and that’s just invaluable.