Link: www.drugfree.org
By Frank Smith
Frank (pictured) is a youth drug-abuse prevention motivational speaker who lives in Gloucester County.
After having a huge fight with my girlfriend one night, I decided to go out with some friends to have a good time and forget my problems. I was very drunk and high on Methamphetamine when I foolishly climbed up a tree and fell about 40 feet to the ground.
The next thing I remember is waking up from a coma eight weeks later and feeling a pain so tremendous and so severe that I could barely endure it. I had lost control of my bowel movements, could no longer perform day-to-day tasks by myself and the legs that once carried me swiftly down the football field in high school were now lifeless. I weighed less than 100 pounds and was faced with the harsh reality that at 22 years old, I would be wheelchair-bound for the rest of my life. I was lucky to just be alive, but I knew my life would never be the same again.
It has been 20 years since the stupid act I committed in a severe drug-induced state changed my life forever. But I can tell you it has been hell on earth — an existence filled with enough misery to last a lifetime.
As a kid, I was your average American teen growing up in the suburbs of New Jersey. I was a B student, had lots of friends, an out-going personality and a passion for playing sports. I was a polite,
quiet kid and part of a nice middle-class family.
When I was in sixth grade, I convinced myself that drinking beer wasn’t a big deal. \”I’ll only drink on the weekends,\” I thought, \”anyway it’s only beer, and everybody else drinks.\” My friends were all the \”jocks\” in the school and playing football and other sports was what we lived for. But yes, a lot of them were drinking beer and I wanted to do what they were doing to fit in. I didn’t want to feel left out or be the only kid who wasn’t cool. Not surprisingly, I graduated from beer to harder liquor and I continued to drink more frequently once I entered high school. The heavy drinking led me to experiment with drugs and I put my life on a direct crash course with disaster.
I started smoking Marijuana (or \”dope\” as we used call it) in 10th grade and I began losing interest in all the activities I was involved in. I even lost interest in practicing
hard for the junior varsity football team at my high school in New Jersey. Then during a game one day, I tore all the ligaments in my right leg and a doctor informed me that I would never play sports again. I was crushed. Sports had always been such an important part of my life and a way for me to release frustration. I spent my newfound free time with a new group of drug-using friends. We smoked a lot of marijuana, which led me to harder drugs like Cocaine , acid and methamphetamine.
By the time I was a senior in high school I was using heavily. Somehow, I still felt like I had everything under control. In my own mind, my freedom was rooted in the notion that I did what I wanted, when I wanted. Going out with my friends and getting wasted became more important to me then going to school. Nothing else mattered and I didn’t care about anybody or anything, except getting high.
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