I wasn’t that heavy of a user, but I did it almost regularly for about a year. The day I smoked it in the restroom with two of my girlfriends, someone told the principal, and I got caught. I was told I had to go to rehab.

I was scared and embarrased that my parents had to be called to school, so I began to cry and I told the principal that I did it because I had a messed up childhood; even though I don’t think that’s why I did it. I actually started because I was bored and wanted to fit in with a couple girlfriends. I never went to rehab, and I did meth twice after that. Once a few weeks later, and the last time a few months later before I went to a concert.

I came home wide-eyed and weird looking and my mom immediately knew something was wrong. She confronted me and asked me what I had done. I kept denying that I did anything. But she said she recognized the look on my face because she had seen it in my dad’s face years before when he was a drug addict. She knew. She felt my heartbeat so I just admitted it. I felt so stupid for getting caught, but in retrospect, I should have felt stupid for making my mom have to worry about her 16 year old daughter being on such a horrible drug. It must have broken her heart; but she still didn’t know that I had used it for more than a year before that.

That was the last time I ever used meth. I guess I was one of those lucky people who can recover from it on my own without help, because I have a very strong and resilient personality. Especially since I had seen everything my dad went through with drugs and the pain he caused us. I was NOT going to be like that.

I’m 19 now, But I still have a problem. I have a friend who just turned 15 who is hooked on meth. He wasn’t when I met him when he was 13. I hardly see him anymore because he is with his druggie friends, who are all older than him, so he looks up to them. The last time I saw him he was high, and it broke my heart. I hate seeing him like that. I cried when he left. I feel like he’s my little brother who is killing himself.

I feel helpless but I know that he can only change if he wants to. It hurts me so much because just because I got through it, doesn’t mean that he will. I don’t know how to help him and I feel terrible because of it…but I try not to.

Is that wrong?