Waking USort Story

Waking Up
By Hannah Denny-Collins
Walking down the street isn’t such a peaceful process for me anymore.
I used to get hellos and smiles from everyone I passed, now I get dirty looks from every pair of eyes that I see and people whisper as I pass; they think I am oblivious to everything around me.
Turning down the rocky path, I feel nervous. I am definitely not ready for this but I know that I need to do it, just like everybody else knows I need to. I walk down the stairs that lead to the building that stands before me. As I approach the row of doors downstairs, it feels like they are mouths, looking at me and screaming my name. I see the door I need to go through, take some slow deep breaths, turn the handle, and walk through the door for my first Narcotics Anonymous meeting.
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Thinking back to the first time I took drugs, it was a rushed decision based on pressure by people I called my friends. It was the first time many of us had ever done illicit drugs, but none of us wanted to be left out while the others played a game called ‘Puff, Puff and Pass’. Taking in my first breath of marijuana smoke, I did not know I would fall into the drug scene, no one did.
Coughing and spluttering on my first puff, the boys laughed hysterically, as if they didn’t normally have anyone new around. As I took my second breath in, I made sure not to draw so much in, so as to not embarrass myself completely. I think they were impressed knowing it was my first time. I went along with everything then; I would do anything to fit in one place or another.
Walking away from my new friends that day, I felt free and relaxed. It was very different from what I felt at home. My parents were al...

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...d. Facing me, my mother made a comment about how everything was difficult with one daughter on drugs that wouldn’t do anything to help herself, and another who is so angry at the world that she tries to get out of it by attempting to kill herself twice.
This was a sledgehammer moment. It was definitely the start of me waking up to the fact that I was the screw up in all of this.
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After that night I started to lay low and tried to rely less on the drugs. I wanted to take my life into my own hands instead of it being ruled by something external. The people that I thought were my friends – my “drug friends” - started to question my behaviour. In the end they gave up on me. But it didn’t matter. I started to gain back the people that meant the most to me.
It took me a while to muster enough courage to go to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, until today.