For some reason the lifestyle fascinated me.
And... I guess because I thought it was going to be "fun."
You think it might be innocent or just using it once or just using it to have fun.
It does look like all fun and party and happy times.
But drugs are the 100% complete opposite.
It took me -- it was literally that quick.
I let my guard down, I tried it and that was it. That was the end of it.
I just happened to do the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Once you start using, it's not just, "Oh, it's going to stay recreational forever."
It's not that way. It progresses, it gets worse.
It's definitely a dangerous, a dangerous road to go down.
It's like playing Russian roulette with your life.
You have no idea what you're getting yourself into.
It might seem like it's cool and you escape reality or whatever,
but all you're doing is postponing the inevitable.
You're just masking your problems rather than handling them.
The drug becomes the fix, and what happens is, you know, after weeks, months, years
of living that sort of life style, is the problems just stack up.
You may be angry at people in your life, and maybe that's why you started using drugs.
But when they're gone, you realize how lonely it can be.
If I would have known some of the things that were going to happen due to my drug use,
I probably never would have surrounded myself with the people that I did.
I probably would have been a lot smarter about it.
I would have made much better decision and choices.
If I had all the information, I probably wouldn't have started doing it.
If I knew then what I knew now, I would...
I would never touch it. I wouldn't even think about it.
Seeing what they have done in my life and other people's lives --
I don't want no one to use ever -- you know what I'm saying?
And I get -- my heart gets full when I think about someone thinking about using it.
Now, what's the one thing in this world that you know that you would never do --
that you would never do to somebody?
Would you steal from a friend? No. No, you wouldn't. Okay.
This will make you do that. This will make you do that.
I had goals, I had dreams.
I had aspirations to do a lot.
And I just put my life on hold for 11 years.
The things that you lose -- a lot of time you can never get those back.
I have that question today -- the "what if's." What if I had chosen to do this or that?
You see in the movies or something -- you go into the time machine and you change one thing,
everything changes? That's exactly what it does.
If you would have changed that one hit, that one joint you smoked,
I'm sure everything else would have been different.
That's the truth. That's the truth about drugs.
The Foundation for a Drug-free World would like to extend its sincere thanks
to all who shared their personal stories.