At the beginning of my sophomore year of high school, a close family friend passed away. The day of the wake, I went to school and informed my friend that I was feeling extremely anxious about having to go to one for the first time.
That friend handed me two pills, telling me that they would help me get through it.
This was the day I met the love of my life, opiates.
I can remember the feeling I got from taking those two small pills: it was a feeling of complete elation. All of the anxiety that normally consumed me disappeared.
It was as if I was having an out-of-body experience and I somehow morphed into a different person, one who no longer cared about anything. This was a feeling I wanted to feel for the rest of my life. The next day I remember waking up wondering where I could find more of these pills.
When somebody makes the decision to take a drug, they do not intend to become an addict. Still, it wasn’t long before I was skimming through the medicine cabinets of every residence I entered to see if they had any narcotic pain medications.
Getting high became more of a priority to me than going to school, and I started leaving after I checked into homeroom. Since I managed to make up all of my missed school assignments, my teachers passed me.
By the end of my senior year, in order to make it through the school day, I would have to stand my textbook up on my desk so I could hide behind it and take pills without being noticed.
When high school ended, finding and using drugs became my main focus. I decided that college would have to wait. Continue reading
- Alisha Choquette is a 2015 graduate of the Community College of Rhode Island where she obtained an associated degree in substance abuse.