I am a recovering drug addict. I began smoking weed when I was 14 and slowly progressed through the years, doing everything until when I was 24 I started shooting heroin. I can tell you not to do drugs because they steal your life and your identity. I used to be fun and have goals and dreams and I got so deep into drugs that nothing even mattered anymore. I stole from everyone I knew and pawned their stuff for drug money. I was failing out of school and made up outrageous lies to my teachers about family members with cancer and so forth so that they would feel bad for me and change my grades. It took me 7 years to graduate college. I became someone I didn't know and honestly someone that I hated. I spent every night at the bar and would go home with a different guy, sleep with him and then rob him after he passed out. I once had sex with a 70 year old man whom I worked for because he offered me $1000. The money was gone in less than a week. As much as I hated myself, I could not stop. Everyday I tried and failed. I was in too deep. I went to rehab three times and went to jail twice--one of the times for 86 days. I thank God everyday for my son. I got pregnant by a guy I was dating which caused me to stop everything. At 27, I am finally putting my life back together, but it is hard. Because I spent over 10 years in a drug induced haze, it's taking me a lot of time to just figure out who I am. I have hardly any friends because none of them were real friends, just people I did drugs with. I live at home with my parents because all the money I ever worked for went to drugs. Everyday I live with the horrible things that I did and I find it so hard to forgive myself. I thought I could control it. I thought that no one knew what I was doing, but I was just fooling myself. I am now in graduate school to be an addictions counselor.

Do you think you can stop yelling? You're hurting my eyes!

I will be glad to share my story but it's kind of lengthy and people on here don't like long answers. If anyone wants to know my story, they are free to email me. I will say that you cannot take "just 1" because an addict does not know when enough is enough.. YOu can take 1 to take the edge off or because you have a bad day and before you know it, it's been years and you are so far into it, you are bankrupt, you have lost family and friends and you don't give a crap..my best friend could have died and I didn't care..that's what drugs do to you. It's 100x harder to stop than it is NEVER to start in the first place.