A Slippery Slope

By Stan A. Since the first grade, my best friend was always the daring type. Getting us into trouble. It was no surprise when he started smoking marijuana, seeing as most teenagers do. But after a while it became more of an obligation than something to do for fun. I could tell he wasn’t happy and that him smoking so much was a form of self-medication. My family tried to offer him help as he started expanding to other more mentally and physically harmful drugs. His parents started kicking him out of the house when he would come home wasted and high. This was my best friend who had such potential, all his teachers at his private school said he was one of the smartest students they had when he would actually apply himself. That was until he was kicked out.  Months later he started doing ecstasy and MDMA. We used to hang out everyday and we had each other’s back regardless of what happened. Now he didn’t want to hit me up because he knew I didn’t want to smoke or pop pills. I felt like I had been left behind, thrown away by my best friend, who I’d known since early elementary school. I felt like he had chosen drugs over my friendship and support. I thought everything would maybe go back to normal after his parents admitted him to rehab, but it didn’t. Even after two months at thunder road in Oakland, where I was the only person who visited him.  He still reverted back to a lifestyle of drugs. I personally felt betrayed and lied to; after weeks of hearing how excited he was to get out and be sober, he gets home and does an 18 hour hallucinogen and a pill of MDMA. I’ve all but lost contact with him over the past few months, but just last week I heard through a friend of mine that he has been experimenting with Methamphetamine.  Hearing this made me almost sick, that my close friend who was intelligent, funny, and was loved by many was now throwing his 16-year-old life away not going to school and using crystal meth. I’ve been distancing myself from him recently, but I will always have a deep concern for him and I do want to help him get better. I just don’t know how to help him, if he won’t even help himself.