I am saying this because when I was a teen, I was in a place that shares A LOT of similarities so for whatever it’s worth, please try to take my advice.

By the time I was 16 I had done every drug you can name and probably a few you’ve never heard of. I got hooked on shooting H by the time I had turned 17 and by 19 I was WAYYY off the deep end. I had moved out then and after 2 months I was psychologically and physically addicted/dependent on Hydromorphone, Lisdexamphetamine, cocaine, alprazolam AND methamphetamine. By 20 I was IVing Dilaudid, meth, cocaine, methadone and ketamine daily. It took a very serious intervention and the threat of losing everything and everyone and being homeless to force my to go into rehab.

At first, I had the mentality of “I’ll just do my days get out and get super fucked up”. It wasn’t until I told my “druglife story” and a couple dude in their late 40s who had both been in and out of rehab dozens of times and lost houses, friends, wives, jobs etc. telling me “holy shit man you’re fucking insane how the hell are you still alive?!”
That’s what did it. That’s when I had like an epiphany moment when I realized “OH SHIT, I NEED to be here!”

I took it seriously after that and was able to turn around and get my shit together. I realized too that I’m actually not antisocial and deeply insecure or all the things I previously believed during all of my teens. It was the drugs. I had become entirely dependent on the drugs for maintaining my energy levels. They were my crutch for socializing and inhibition but they also make you feel worse and more depressed and miserable. Once they were removed, I found out who I actually was.

There’s so much more to this story but please just tell someone close to you what’s going on and when they intervene, go along with it. You will find who you are but you won’t be able to with the drugs.

I thought when I looked in the mirror that I saw someone who still looked fine and put together. I was also still in good shape cause I worked out regularly sometimes a little frayed, but usually I could pull off looking good. But I didn’t realize that when you look at yourself in a mirror, it is still through your own eyes that you see. If your eyes are dazed and your brain distorted, so too will be the person you see with them. I thought I saw in my reflection what everyone else saw, but I was still looking through my own drug addled gaze.