Scholarship winner
What Drives People To Try Drugs
?
ABUSE Magazine wants to congratulate Kadie Ellner, a senior at Red Bud High School in Red Bud, Illinois. ABUSE Magazine and our staff wants to congratulate her for winning the ABUSE Scholarship and we encourage her to pursuit her academic goals. We also would like to encourage future seniors to participate in our essay contest.
Drug abuse is most common among young adults who are eighteen to twenty-five years old. I always wonder what drives people to try drugs or even turn to a lifestyle of drug abuse. To be honest though, I do not think it is something that I will ever be able to comprehend. What I do know is that the drug scene and that type of lifestyle is not for me.
In 2008, I went through a time in my life where I had to make a decision to change my family and my life forever or leave it be. My parents were involved with the drug marijuana, also known as“ mary jane” or“ grass”. I had grown up around it for far too long, I decided, that I was not going to let my younger sisters go through the same situation. One day during seventh grade I asked to talk to a teacher about something that was going on at home. I finally pushed myself to tell somebody about my parents’ drug use. After endless talks with the cops and my teachers something was finally going to change.
As soon as my little sister, in fourth grade at the time, stepped foot off the bus the cops were at my house. When my sister and I had reached the house, I knew what I had done was not going to end well. My sister kept asking me where our mommy was. My heart was breaking. Why did I do this? When I walked in, my house was a wreck from cops searching it. An officer told me that my grandmother was on her way to come get my sister and me. Seeing my mom handcuffed in the back of a police car is an image that will be burned in my mind forever. My dad was on his way home from work, so they had not talked to him yet. I did not see my parents for the next two days. Those were two of the longest days of my entire life. I felt as though my whole world was crashing down on me. I had made one of the biggest mistakes. My parents were not there, but my sisters were. Together we were a team. I knew I had to be strong not only for myself, but for them. That alone was enough to keep me from breaking down.
I could not tell you how I felt after basically being the primary reason my parents were in jail, and the unhappiness of the family. I never wanted the things that happened with my parents to ever happen the way it had. All I ever wanted was for the drugs to not be a part of our lives. I just wanted my
sisters to have a better life than I was ever given the chance to have.
This experience, at the time, was horrible and I always felt as though it was my fault that my parents were so unhappy and that people looked at them differently. Going through everything I did in 2008 has motivated me to not involve myself with drugs or put anyone that I am close to through it either. It is not worth loosing almost all you have and making people disappointed in you.
I can without a doubt say that I have gained a lot from this experience. I have learned that even though someone has made poor choices, it does not make them a bad person. If anything it makes them a stronger person considering they have gone through so much and can still manage to move forward with their life. I have learned that things have to get really bad before they start to get better.
Even if at the time I thought it was a horrible decision, now J am glad I made it. My family is a whole again. I gained some and I lost some. That is life though is it not? One of the greatest things I learned from this experience is that with every action you make there are consequences that could make or break you.
Kadie Ellner Red Bud High School, Illinois
4 | Illinois Spring / Summer 2013 | abusemagazine. org