They say you can always tell that a junkie is lying if his lips are moving. I wonder why that is.

Last year, my uncle died from a heroin overdose. For years he tried to break the habit. I remember being at my grandparents' house when I was six years old and watching him go through heroin withdrawal. At that point he had been using for twenty years. It was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. I sat there horrified as I watched him convulse and vomit up slime. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he looked as if he were dead. The stench was worse than that of burning flesh. It was one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen in my entire life. I was terrified.

Last Christmas Eve I was visiting some relatives up on the mountain near my city. My aunt and uncle, along with my father, are all heavy drinkers and drug users. My aunt's face was bruised and stitched from a fall in the bathroom one night in New York City when she was drunk. As the evening grew on, my mother and I began to get tired. It was Christmas and we wanted to go home. My father, who was belligerently wasted on God knows what at the time, refused to leave. So we left him, but before we did we made him promise that he would not attempt to drive home. Well, we arrived home safely and at around 12:00 am we all went to bed. At approximately 3:30 in the am, my mother and myself awoke to a series of rings at the doorbell. We answered the door, but no one was there. Thirty minutes later, the same thing. This time, when we opened the door, my father staggered inside, covered in his own blood and piss. Turns out that he had come home, slipped on a 'piece of ice' in the garage (keep in mind, we had no ice in our garage), knocked himself out, got up, went the wrong direction, slammed his head into a desk and knocked himself out again. My mother had to take him to the emergency room and left me there to clean up the blood that had dripped onto the kitchen floor and wash his urine/blood soaked clothes. He got sixty stitches and suffered from internal bleeding in his eyes.

You see, my father has a long, long history of drug use. When he was fifteen, he got strung out on amphetamines. From there, he moved to heroin, then to coke, then back to heroin, then to alcohol, and now it's a mix of alcohol and whatever else he can get his hands on. I think it's fair to say that my dad is and always will be a drug addict.

My family has a long history of drug addicts. In fact, I couldn't think of one person off the top of my head that isn't a drug addict or a recovering drug addict, except for myself and my Grandpa Bill. I don't know what it is. I guess we're just cursed. Drugs have destroyed my family and it hurts so badly when I see another person that I care about fall into the trap. Like, when my sister was 15 she overdosed on Ketamine at school. She put herself in to a massive K-Hole and her heart rate dropped down to 35 bpm. She was only fifteen years old!!! We're very fortunate that she didn't die. I was shocked when I came home from school that day and saw my sister lying on the couch, looking very pale and very dead. The only reason she had been released from the hospital so early is because my dad is a trained professional in the Drug Abuse field. Ha. Talk about irony. For the rest of the week she was so fucked up that I had to go to the bathroom with her and hold her on the toilet just to she wouldn't fall off. It is scary to see someone that close to you be in a state like that. She is 19 now and still hasn't stopped using. She has totally screwed herself over! She just violated her probation AGAIN by failing her drug test (it was her 4th offense). She's probably going to jail. It makes me sick knowing that everyone around me that I love and care about is destined to end up like this. I hate it.

My dad, my sister, and my uncle are not the only drug abusers in this family, however. The huge plethora of addicts includes all my aunts & uncles, all of my grandparents (except for one), my sister, my cousins, my step-relatives, my mother.... Well, pretty much everyone. And now, on top of the rest of them, the one person that I cared about the most. The one person that I honest to God loved with all my heart is losing himself to drugs. It's my best friend. Every single day he's messed up on something and it absolutely breaks my heart. He is such a talented and intelligent person, but he is throwing it all away. This hurts worse than seeing anyone else fall into drugs, because this is my best friend. The one person I thought I could depend on. The one person I could trust to not hurt me or themselves like that.

Recently, and by recently I mean exactly 3 months ago, he started using heroin. I had already begun to notice his mood swings and the drastic change in his personality. Then he told me he'd been using that stuff. I was crushed. Absolutely heartbroken. He had always been really into drugs, but I never knew it was this serious. Some of you would say that it isn't a big deal and that I should lighten up and just let people be, but you people haven't seen everyone that you have ever loved in your entire life lose the battle. I am not anti drugs. I am anti drug abuse. If people want to get high every now and then, I am totally cool with that. I'm not even saying that I never use drugs myself. It's just a shame when people let drugs take over their life. If you have the ability to use drugs responsibly and still keep a good head on your shoulders, then by all means, get high, but, unfortunately, I don't think most people have that ability. I'll admit, I think some drugs, like LSD, can be good for you, but that most people do not have the control to stop at just that.

Yesterday my best friend stopped by to pick up some money because he was in 'debt'. I gave him the money then asked if I could trust him not to spend it on something he shouldn't and he said yes. His lips were moving.

Exp Year: 2001	ExpID: 10402
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Nov 21, 2001	Views: 62,975
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Alcohol (61), Heroin (27) : Addiction & Habituation (10), Second Hand Report (42), Families (41), Not Applicable (38)