By Saul Estrada
In 2017, 72,000 people died from drug overdoses; that’s about 195 people a day, according to drugabuse.gov.
Everywhere around the world people use drugs. But every person has their own reason to why they use them, such as to relieve pain, escape their problems, relax. And then there's the people who do it just for fun or to just seem “cool” in front of their friends.
My dad, Sergio, was one of these people with this struggle. He started off with just weed, but eventually he started doing harder ones like heroin, crack, acid, etc. One of his main reasons for using drugs was to escape his problems, but this just made things worse. He said, “I mainly used drugs as a way to escape my problems, even though in the future they brought me even more problems."
My dad started using drugs when he was just 16 years old. He would mainly spend his time in the streets with his best friend, Juan, who influenced my dad to do drugs. They would both always hang out in the streets, ditch class, and eventually this lead him to spend most of his time in the streets. Sometimes he wouldn't even come back home until two or three days later. They would stay in the streets with other friends just smoking weed, and eventually my dad’s curiosity lead him to the harder drugs.
At the age of 17 he already felt like some of these drugs were a necessity for his body to have. He had a very difficult time trying to quit his drug abuse. The main reason why my dad was able to change his life around was because his uncle caught him with drugs in his backpack when he came home one night at 1:00am. “When I got caught with the drugs, I was scared for my life. I wasn't sure what to do. Ever since this moment, he was always checking up on me, making sure I was staying clean and away from drugs.”
My dad told me, “Doing drugs wasn't the best thing I did in life, but I was able to learn different perspectives from people based on why they do drugs by going through the experience myself.”
This is the very first time I actually sat down with my dad and had this conversation. This conversation helped me connect with my dad more than ever because this helped me understand why he has always been constantly bugging me about not using drugs.
Every time one of my friends offer some drugs I will always remember what my dad went through.
Mac Miller, a very talented hip hop artist recently passed away due to the use of drugs. Mac Miller, like many others, had to wake up every day and fight against depression but one of his favorite ways to deal with his depression was a drink called “Lean”. Lean is a mixture of two drugs, codeine and promethazine which is mostly used to calm people down but also very harmful if too much is consumed.
Mac Miller once said in one of his interviews, “I love lean; it’s great, I was not happy and I was on lean very heavy. I was so f–ed up all the time it was bad. My friends couldn’t even look at me the same. I was lost.”
We all have our own problems in life but that doesn't mean drugs are the only way to escape these problems. Drugs are only a short term solution, but it comes with many more problems in the future like addiction. According to betterhealth.vic.gov.au, having someone to talk to about your problems can help you sort out a solution and also release your built up tension.
I once thought drugs were the solution to my problems. Drugs just created a short term solution but eventually once that high wears off all your problems rush back. Now instead of looking at drugs as my solution, I just talk it out with my friend or sit down and play some video games.
In 2017, 72,000 people died from drug overdoses; that’s about 195 people a day, according to drugabuse.gov.
Everywhere around the world people use drugs. But every person has their own reason to why they use them, such as to relieve pain, escape their problems, relax. And then there's the people who do it just for fun or to just seem “cool” in front of their friends.
My dad, Sergio, was one of these people with this struggle. He started off with just weed, but eventually he started doing harder ones like heroin, crack, acid, etc. One of his main reasons for using drugs was to escape his problems, but this just made things worse. He said, “I mainly used drugs as a way to escape my problems, even though in the future they brought me even more problems."
My dad started using drugs when he was just 16 years old. He would mainly spend his time in the streets with his best friend, Juan, who influenced my dad to do drugs. They would both always hang out in the streets, ditch class, and eventually this lead him to spend most of his time in the streets. Sometimes he wouldn't even come back home until two or three days later. They would stay in the streets with other friends just smoking weed, and eventually my dad’s curiosity lead him to the harder drugs.
At the age of 17 he already felt like some of these drugs were a necessity for his body to have. He had a very difficult time trying to quit his drug abuse. The main reason why my dad was able to change his life around was because his uncle caught him with drugs in his backpack when he came home one night at 1:00am. “When I got caught with the drugs, I was scared for my life. I wasn't sure what to do. Ever since this moment, he was always checking up on me, making sure I was staying clean and away from drugs.”
My dad told me, “Doing drugs wasn't the best thing I did in life, but I was able to learn different perspectives from people based on why they do drugs by going through the experience myself.”
This is the very first time I actually sat down with my dad and had this conversation. This conversation helped me connect with my dad more than ever because this helped me understand why he has always been constantly bugging me about not using drugs.
Every time one of my friends offer some drugs I will always remember what my dad went through.
Mac Miller, a very talented hip hop artist recently passed away due to the use of drugs. Mac Miller, like many others, had to wake up every day and fight against depression but one of his favorite ways to deal with his depression was a drink called “Lean”. Lean is a mixture of two drugs, codeine and promethazine which is mostly used to calm people down but also very harmful if too much is consumed.
Mac Miller once said in one of his interviews, “I love lean; it’s great, I was not happy and I was on lean very heavy. I was so f–ed up all the time it was bad. My friends couldn’t even look at me the same. I was lost.”
We all have our own problems in life but that doesn't mean drugs are the only way to escape these problems. Drugs are only a short term solution, but it comes with many more problems in the future like addiction. According to betterhealth.vic.gov.au, having someone to talk to about your problems can help you sort out a solution and also release your built up tension.
I once thought drugs were the solution to my problems. Drugs just created a short term solution but eventually once that high wears off all your problems rush back. Now instead of looking at drugs as my solution, I just talk it out with my friend or sit down and play some video games.