Drug Me Up

Long pants and closed toe shoes; that’s what my grandmother has dressed us in. She is taking us to visit my uncle who is in prison. He’s one of my cool uncles, and he has just been busted for trafficking and other drug charges.

 

 

I guess that’s the end of the 100 dollar bills for me. He was locked up…

I grew up around hustlers…and everybody was trying to make a dollar. My uncle was somewhat like Pablo Escobar to me. He had the money, the cars, and the women…I didn’t know until I was older that it was because of drugs.

 

 

I’m 10 years old walking through my grandmother’s living room. My uncle walks by me, and he hands me a 100 dollar bill. I know it is money, but I lay it down somewhere for my alcoholic grandfather to pick it up. My grandfather is addicted to liquor and lottery scratch offs; always asking us to pick numbers for his PowerBall sheet. I always gave him random numbers, and he never won.

Any who, my uncle has a brand new truck and a brand new girlfriend; she’s my new “Aunt”. I could care less about her though. I’m interested in my uncle’s new tattoo on his neck…it reads, “MOE”. It stands for “Money over Everything”, and he most definitely has the money.

 

The police have raided my uncle’s “stash house”, and they’ve found the drugs and his money. He had it all hidden in his wall. The police smashed his wall in, found the drugs and money, and they took everything…including my uncle.

…I’m walking back towards my uncle’s visitation table. I’m pissed because the vending machine has taken my hamburger. He goes to handle it…shaking the vending machine violently, but he gets my burger =) I begin to smile, and he tells me to buy more things from the vending machine; he plans on hustling the food off to other inmates inside the prison.

So much had changed! …Another uncle was in prison, and it meant no more 20, 50, nor 100 dollar bills for me.

My uncle is finally out of prison, and I’m 16 years old. YES!!! I’m excited, and that means we don’t have to make the long drive every Sunday to visit him.

I’m sitting on the couch over one of my uncle’s girlfriend’s house. My uncle comes into the room with a handful of things. He sits a scale on the table, takes out a bag of weed, and throws some cigarillos on the table. He begins to ask me if I know what it is. Well, of course I do. All the dudes I dated and hung around smoked weed; it just wasn’t my preference. I thought it was disgusting! Smoking? Ewwww! I would never smoke weed…I thought.

 

 

He begins to break the cigarillo down, and proceeded to put the tobacco to the side. “You’re going to see it one day, so you might as well see it with me”. I was learning how to roll my first blunt, and my uncle was teaching me.

Before you knew it I was on cloud nine.

My friend and I are about to go out to have some fun. I ask her if she wants to stop by my uncle’s house to smoke first; I know he has some weed…he’s a drug dealer.

We’re over at my uncle’s house now, and I begin to roll up some weed to smoke. My uncle tells me to try some juice; I then ask him what kind of juice. He tells me to go look in the refrigerator and grab the Pure Juice bottle that’s labeled “DON’T TOUCH!” I asked my aunt why the juice was labeled “Don’t touch” …she tells me that it will just make me sleepy, but don’t drink it. My uncle begins to encourage me to drink some of the juice. I mean, he hasn’t gotten me into trouble yet, so why not? I begin to drink the juice…right along with a cup of New Amsterdam mixed with some flavored juice.

 

My uncle, my friend, and I begin to take shots of liquor.

I’m high and whatever is in my drink is beginning to kick in. I ask my uncle what was in my drink, and he replied, “It’s lean and bars”. Lean is a type of prescription cough syrup and bars are prescription Xanax pills that could be used for depression. I was on a high like no other…and soon I was knocked out…cold!

 

 

That was my first time experiencing any type of drug besides weed, and my uncle was the one to encourage me to do it. My uncle claimed that I would have seen it one day, so I might as well see it for the first time with him. What he said was partially true.

When I came to college I noticed that a lot of students around my age had never experienced weed, pills, or any type of drug. To be honest, those were the kids that wanted to experiment, and went wild and crazy. Some of them even dropped out of college.

…But I wish my uncle wouldn’t have exposed me to that side of “that” world. I was so young, and when I became older and more stressed…that’s how I would take the stress away, and I became addicted. Prescription medications can become very addictive, and can also alter your personality. Prescription drugs can also make you black out to the point that you do not remember things; this allows anyone to be able take advantage of you.

MY ADVICE: If your name is not on the prescription, then do not take it =) It’s not worth your health, your life, nor your mind…because trust me, a drug can control your mind and your actions. If someone is trying to pressure you into drugs, then make your own decision. And make sure that your decision is ethical AND legal! =)

 

 

I know how it feels to be stressed, down, and depressed, but I can truly say that there are better options than doing drugs to relieve the pain…such as journaling and blogging =)

Know your worth! We all have a purpose!

-Justice

“Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error of judgment.” - Philip K. Dick