It was around when I was 13 or 14,
and you kind of find yourself trying to pick and choose your friends.
And also at the same time, you're not really worried about
what you want to accomplish at that time, but what people you want to hang out with.
-- I wanted to fit in. -- I wasn't a popular kid in school, and it made me forget about all that.
You know, "Oh yeah, everybody else is doing it, so I'm going to do it."
-- Friends were doing it. -- You just want to jump right in and have fun.
I did drugs because it seemed like it was fun.
-- It was the cool thing to do. -- The cool thing to do was to get high, go to parties.
Growing up, you're struggling,
-- Couldn't deal with life. -- So I didn't have to deal with life.
-- I wouldn't listen to anyone. -- I was stubborn.
-- It was a rebellious thing. -- This is what the rebel kids were doing.
-- I just wanted to see what it was like. -- I started experimenting with it.
-- Experimenting with friends. -- I first tried it because I was bored.
I was always up to trying something new.
When I was growing up we had this program that was, "Just say no, just say no."
People are just saying no, but they're not saying why.
It's like telling a person no, and then they go do it.
Sparked my interest on drugs.
I knew that they were bad and I always heard about this "addiction," but I didn't know what it meant.
That's probably the number-one reason why I did drugs in the first place. I just didn't know.
Drugs are everywhere. They're in magazines, movies,
TV shows, billboards, they're all over the place.
In the movies, they make it look cool, but in real life it's not cool, it's...
It's a serious problem.
And a lot of times they try to glamorize drugs --
like, make drug dealers or getting high look cool.
But that's only in the movies. In real life, it's a whole different story.
All drugs, whether we're talking about alcohol, marijuana, LSD,
these are all essentially poisons.
It would depend on the amount that you take.
A lesser amount would just speed you up, make you feel really active.
A stronger amount or a stronger dosage would act as a sedative --
make you slow, sluggish, tired.
And even more amounts would kill you -- you'd have an overdose.
Every drug works in these stages. It's only, really, the amount needed to make the effect
that's the difference from drug to drug.
A person who is taking drugs, whether for physical pain,
or just to try and block off any sensations they don't want to feel --
those sensations are actually just being pushed away and getting worse and worse.
You're going to be totally numb and just not be able to feel anything.
When you take drugs, the drug goes through your bloodstream.
And later on in your life, that drug can...
come back up into a flashback when you use the drug.
You could have taken LSD one day, and a year down the road,
it could come back into effect and you can start hallucinating again.
And it's not just LSD, it's every drug.
So you can get hit with the effects of a drug
even a long time after you've stopped taking them.
Drugs definitely affect the mind.
Everything you see around you is different than what's really going on.
You can't hear correctly, see correctly -- all of your senses are totally thrown off.
Your perception is definitely distorted.
Makes it dangerous for you and others, because you don't know what's going on.
You can't handle things the way they're supposed to be handled.
Drugs affect your memory so much.
It doesn't matter if you're taking them for a long time or just a short period of time.
I know when I first got like -- tried studying and stuff more,
I really couldn't concentrate, I couldn't pay attention.
I went from a straight-A student to a B-minus student, C student.
Then I quit going to school. I would get really frustrated.
It's like your brain won't function.
You can't think straight. Everything is messed up.
I never got anything done. I would start on something and then I wouldn't finish it.
It just didn't happen.
It was just unbearable. I couldn't deal with life at all.
I couldn't get a job, because I was just out of it completely.
My decisions were based off of what this drug is telling me to do, rather than what I want to do.
-- I got them from friends in school. -- Two friends.
-- A friend of mine. -- My older brother's friends.
-- A bunch of girlfriends. -- Boyfriend.
-- Ex-boyfriend. -- An older guy.
-- My dad. -- My cousin. -- My brother.
-- My older sister. -- Older kids.
My buddy said, "You know, you can do it every once in a while, it will be no problem."
Told us it was going to be the best thing we've ever done.
-- "You can do it once. You'll be fine." -- "It's not going to hurt you, really."
"Just a little pick-me-up. You can't get addicted to it."
They said, "It's not something that you're going to be taking every day."
"It's just something that you can take when you want to have fun."
-- "Oh, this is going to be a fun time." -- "It's a fun drug to be on."
-- "Makes you -- easier to talk to girls." -- And they said, "It will bring you up."
"It's going to make you feel different. It's going to -- you're going to like it. You're going to feel good."
It's all in your face that that's -- "That's the thing to do."
All it is, is taking a drug dealer's word for it.
When you're trying to get someone hooked, you'll say whatever you can to get a customer.
You're lying for them to believe you, so you can make money.
I would tell people, "It's fun, makes you energetic,"
"makes you more likable, it's something people want to be around."
I'd tell them whatever they wanted to hear in order to pick that first one up.
When I was 12 years old, I didn't say, "Hey, I want to be 24 in rehab."
I never said that to myself. But that's what became true.
I had never thought about it when I was 13 years old and I started smoking pot.
I was that kid that started out with marijuana
and played around with certain party drugs, whatnot.
And I told myself specifically that I would never do certain things -- cocaine, heroin.
And it only took a short time for me to finally accept it and be like, "Okay, I'll try that."
I had no idea where it would lead me -- to almost dying, to stealing,
lying, cheating, ruining relationships. It didn't matter.
I didn't get into sports, I didn't get into the clubs, I didn't even go to prom.
It left me with living on the streets without a family.
Is that what I set out to be? No. I just set out to have a good time at college parties.
The drugs robbed me of all the pleasure of life.
The drugs took away my family. The drugs took away my girlfriend, my friends.
I looked back on 5, 6 years of my life and saw that all I had done is -- absolutely just ruined
incredible opportunities that I had to have success, and hurt all the people around me.
It's not just something that's going to affect tomorrow -- it's going to affect forever.
You don't have to find out everything for yourself.
You don't have to find out what a car-accident experience is like.
Do yourself a favor. Don't fall into the same footsteps as so many other people have.
And realize that you could be the guy living under the bridge, shooting heroin.
You might think you won't get like that. None of us ever did -- and we wound up in those same shoes.
What I would tell people is just -- I would give them my story.
-- I would tell them my exact story. -- I would tell them my story.
-- A story like mine. -- The insanity of my story.
Well, ultimately it comes down to their own decision-making.
-- You have to get the facts. -- Check the statistics.
-- Find out for yourself. -- Find out for yourself.
Find out the actual truth of what these are and what they're going to do to your life.
I would just say to anybody, "If you're going to do something, if you're really going to do something,"
"go educate yourself on it beforehand." I think there's a lot of truth in that.