An Honor Student Finds the Needle

By Zoe, from Rhode Island

Growing up, I had a pretty normal childhood. I lived in a very small upper-middle class town in Rhode Island, where daily worries consisted of one of our horses getting loose or getting stuck behind a tractor on the way to work. I never went without anything growing up, and I was never exposed to alcohol or drugs in my home. To this very day, my parents rarely drink, and there have been leftover beers in our fridge since Christmas.

Although I had a normal childhood, I never really felt like I fit in anywhere. I had a ton of friends and was involved in every activity I showed interest in, but I was overweight as a kid, so I got picked on a lot. Some days I would come home crying from being teased, but by the next morning all was forgotten and everything went back to normal.


I was introduced to alcohol at a relatively young age, since all the kids in my neighborhood were older than me, but I didn’t actually like to drink. We would all sneak beers or little nips from our parents’ alcohol cabinets, and then meet in the woods where we would share our stash. I can remember pretending to sip from the bottles, or pouring out my beers behind a tree because I hated the taste of alcohol, but I still wanted it to seem like I was drinking.


I know some people say that it was love at first sip for them, but for me it was different. I could take it or leave it, really. Around my sophomore year of high school, I began to do the ‘weekend warrior’ thing, or drinking and smoking pot on the weekends. Again, I wasn’t really into it, but I did begin to drink a bit more. I began to experience blackouts, but to me it was all in the name of fun.


I went on doing the weekend warrior thing, and I never suffered any consequences from doing so. I maintained my honor roll status in school, and stayed active in all my sports teams and extracurriculars. My parents knew that I was out partying, and though they didn’t condone it, they didn’t stop me either. In our town, partying while in highschool is accepted… after all, theres not much else to do but go down to the beach, light a fire and have a few drinks. Even the cops don’t care too much, as long as things stay under control.


In my junior year of high school, I was at one of these parties. I was really excited because I had talked to an older guy earlier that day and we were supposed to meet up at the party. We met up and started talking, and we clicked instantly. He offered to drive me home from the party in my car, since he lived on my side of town, and I accepted. This guy intrigued me. He was a lot older (22, I was 17) and he sold weed. He was also the cousin of one of my good friends that was my age. So, he drove me home that night, and on the way he asked if it would be alright to stop in a nearby city, so that he could sell some weed.


I said alright, and we went to a park. He got out and met the people, and when he came back he had these little blue bags in his hand. I asked him what it was and he said coke and asked me if I wanted a line. I’d never done it before, but I wanted to impress him, so I said yes. I did the line, and about 20 minutes later I could barely keep my eyes open and was really nauseous. I told him I didn’t feel well, and he said, sorry babe that wasn’t coke. It was heroin.


I went from motified and disgusted to content in a few seconds. I figured that it was alright – I could add it onto the list of stupid shit that I’d done and it would be over with. Oh, if only that weres the case.


The boy (we’ll call him Chris) and I started seeing each other regularly, and every time we hung out he brought heroin and weed. I didn’t want him to think I was uncool or too young for him, so I smoked as much as he did and snorted as much as he did. This became our daily routine, and while I never viewed it as a problem, in the back of my mind I kenw that I shouldn’t have been doing it.


We saw each other steadily for about two months, and used every day out of those two months. Then one day we had gotten into an arguement about something (I can’t even remember now) and we broke up. It didn’t really phase me at that moment – I had more important things to do. Number one being score alcohol for a party that night. I was always the one that got the packy runs for my friends, since I had an older boyfriend and a lot of older friends. Well, since my boyfriend and I weren’t talking at the moment, I had to call someone else to get me alcohol.