By the time you realize that you've started doing it pretty frequently,
you're going to be physically addicted,
and then you're at a point where you can't stop, even if you want to.
Every prescription drug has an effect on you. That's why doctors give them to people.
Some people think that because drugs come from a doctor, they're safe.
But taking them for recreational use to get high
can be just as dangerous and addictive as taking street drugs.
A pill can have a totally different reaction on you than the person it was prescribed for.
So a drug that's okay for somebody else could be dangerous for you.
Because of potential for abuse and addiction, the DEA puts many prescription drugs
in the same category as opium and cocaine.
They're made, obviously, by pharmaceutical companies.
basically 4 different categories: depressants, opiates and morphine derivatives,
stimulants and antidepressants.
They come in capsules, tablets and liquids.
A lot of people think that taking a prescription medication is okay
because it's not illegal.
But the truth is that taking a prescription drug or giving a prescription drug
is a form of using drugs or drug dealing.
The first time I ever took Xanax was with friends. They just had some and I was curious.
I was curious. I had a friend that just told me about it, and I wanted to try it and I tried it.
It was in high school, I remember. One of my friends had gotten a tooth pulled, I think it was;
and got a prescription of them.
He had an entire bottle and he was just telling me what it was
and if I wanted to try it. And I just went for it.
I was introduced to it by a friend of mine that actually was going to see a psychiatrist to get it.
I was hearing all of these good things, or these fun things,
"It's like you're drunk and you don't have to drink."
"Oh, they must be great. I'll try one."
It was like, "Okay, well, here take these, you'll have a great night."
"You're going to feel really good, and it's going to be totally fine."
My best friend at high school, she gave me one, because her boyfriend used to take them.
And she thought that they made her more comfortable around him and more secure about herself.
And so she was like, "Hey, try one", you know.
I'd try anything that anybody had, just to test out different prescriptions.
And it just kept moving up.
I wasn't picky about what kind I took, whether it was Klonopin or Xanax or Valium.
So many of my friends were getting it prescribed from psychiatrists,
and they were going to 2 or 3 different ones a month, so we had a pretty steady flow of it.
I started going to doctors and telling them a lie about trying to get Xanax's.
Telling them that I couldn't concentrate at school or I was just nervous or...
not comfortable around anybody. Then I would start to get prescriptions.
Being that they are prescribed, it was easy to justify to myself that
I was probably the kind of guy who needed this kind of thing, and then it was okay.
At school, I didn't really remember the day, or it made the day go by really quickly.
So I got them as often as I could, and I took them as often as I could.
They tend to blur reality quite a bit, and the days sort of run into one another.
Days turn into weeks, that turn into months - you don't realize, it just sort of slips away from you.
I wasn't experiencing anything that I cared about in life.
I didn't have any feelings, I didn't have any emotions.
I kind of like lulled myself into a false sense of security feeling --
I was getting away with stuff, even though I'd still have to deal with it when I came down.
You're constantly high, so you're not yourself,
you're not the person that anyone in your life knew you as.
You're some stranger to them, and -- you're mean.
I would steal from my mom, I would steal from my brother,
I would act out at family functions. I'd make a fool of myself, I would embarrass them.
I would tell them things that I didn't mean, be very hateful.
And it got to the point where my family kicked me out of the house
and weren't willing to have me around when I was taking it, because of how violent I would get.
Within 24 hours you're starting to come down, and you crash off of it.
Feeling like the worst cases of flu -- can't move, can't think. Just don't feel like yourself at all.
Feel yourself starting to get depressed, being less happy with everything around you.
I was very depressed. My panic attacks and anxiety was at a high, very high point.
I would be very emotional. I would start crying, angry.
When you're in that position, when you're feeling
really physically ill and you know that you can get rid of it
-- it can be gone in 20 minutes -- it's all too easy to reach over and grab some more.
By the time somebody has been addicted for so long,
they don't have enough strength left in them
to actually try and do that. So it's easier to stay high.
I would have blacked out, and you're like, "Okay, what happened for the last two days?"
You'd piece things together. You couldn't remember it one bit -- totally black.
When I would black out, I was completely awake, but I have no recollection of what happened.
On my way home from the party, I got into 3 different car accidents
because I was blacked out and I had no idea what I was doing.
Got to my mom's house, and the cops were coming -- I knew they were coming.
And my only solution was -- my plan was
to blow up my car in my mom's driveway. So I went out and I set my car on fire.
I passed out at a party. I woke up. The next thing I knew I was at a hospital.
And my friend that I was at the party with told me what happened
and said that I took about 20 Xanax's that night.
They called an ambulance, took me to the emergency room,
and they had to pump my stomach.
They thought I was trying to kill myself, but I was just trying to get high.
I was drinking with a guy, and he kept on encouraging me to drink more.
And I didn't understand. I just didn't really question it -- I think I was 16.
And then about a few hours later, I woke up in his bed and we were having sex.
And I started crying and I pushed him off of me.
I don't know how he thought that was okay, I don't know how I didn't say no.
I don't remember, so I assume that I did. But maybe I didn't.
You just don't know. When you use Rohypnol and you're forgetting everything,
you have no idea what you really did.
A guy that I used to know is on Death Row now in Arizona,
because he was on Rohypnol.
He took a lot of them and ended up killing somebody.
A buddy of mine continued to go in and out of the bathroom using Ritalin.
And he managed to put himself in a state of unconsciousness and jump off a 6-story balcony.
And when he hit the ground, he was immediately dead.
I nodded out in a bedroom and woke up to find my friend --
he was laid out on the floor; he had overdosed and
passed away and had been laying there for two days.
And my friend, this other girl, she was sitting in a chair right where I had left her, slumped over blue.
I actually had to crawl over two dead friends to get out the door.
Even when you come off of it, you're still cloudy in a way.
Can't comprehend, short-term memory loss.
Things don't seem to be as clear in my mind.
Things don't seem to connect as quickly in my mind.
I don't remember any of the times that I was blacked out.
Everything that I know from when I was blacked out comes from third party.
So there's definitely chunks of my life that I'm missing
and I don't know that I'll ever get them back.
There's weeks of time that I have no idea what was going on.
The people who want you to buy these drugs --
they don't care, they really don't care about what happens to you.
They want the money and that's really what it comes down to. Otherwise they just wouldn't do it.
They wouldn't make it sound so good, they wouldn't make it sound so interesting
and they wouldn't make it sound like this thing that, "It's going to be this one-time fun thing."
If I knew what the side effects and the consequences,
and if I knew that I was going to be the way I was,
there would be no way that I would have ever taken Xanax's.
Because still to this day, I have a lot of regrets.
The biggest danger of it is -- seriously, though -- word of mouth, people talk about it.
And always talk good about it, because they think it's okay and it's not going to hurt you.
But it's just as hard on you as cocaine would be.
Eventually it gets to where it grabs hold of you and sucks you in.
Just because it's readily available or just because you can get it from your doctor,
just because your mom has it in the medicine cabinet or whatever,
doesn't make it okay, and it doesn't mean that it's safe.
I remember when I was little, you got TV saying, "Just say no."
I'm like, "Okay, just say no. Whatever."
But nobody ever says, "This is going to kill you, this is going to take your life away,"
"this is going to make your family hate you, it's going to make your girlfriend hate you,"
"it's going to make life a living hell."
I probably would have listened to them.