Growing up with everything a kid could ever want. I never would have predicted I would become a teen drug addict and a teen alcoholic. I came from a good family and a sheltered environment. When things got rough at an early age I didn’t know how to deal with life. I turned to the one thing I promised myself I would never do, drugs. Some of my friends experimented with drugs and could stop. I was different. I couldn’t stop and I knew I had a problem. My problem rapidly began to tear me and my family apart and my parents sent me to teen rehab. They told me I was a drug addict. I didn’t believe it fit my criteria. I thought a drug addict had to be old or homeless. I was wrong. I learned what an addict was and I was told that I had to get sober, free of all substances. As a teenager I thought I was too young. All of my friends that were my age could take a sip of alcohol at a party and be fine, I couldn’t. This was devastating to me. At first I didn’t want to deal with having a different lifestyle than people my age, never being able to party again. But what I didn’t realize was that there was a large community of people my age doing the same thing. Hundreds of young people who were drug addicts and alcoholics getting sober, some of them had been thru teen drug treatment. All of us getting back on track and doing it together. At first it was hard and at times it still is. But, getting sober was the best thing I could have ever done for myself. I know I have endless opportunities ahead of me. Im the same as every other young person, I just don’t drink and use drugs.
Maggie F.
