A true story of addiction by a relative of Glen Gerreyn...
"When I got to high school, a lot of kids around me, were smoking, drinking and even smoking weed. I told myself that would never happen to me. And what do you know – it happened. There was an older girl in school that I had a crush on and she smoked cigarettes. I thought that she would think that I was cool and mature enough to go out with if I smoked too...
I didn’t get the girl.
What I did get though was an addiction that I’ll have for most of my life. You tell yourself that one cigarette won’t hurt, but you never have just one. That one decision will haunt you for the rest of your life. I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to give up. Even though I cough and splutter, even though I blow close to $50 a week, I still can’t give it up.
I first started drinking because of my mates. They all did it, and seemed so happy while they were drinking. Well I never really had anything to be happy about.
But when I think about it now, I should have spoken to someone about my problems, instead of pissing my life away. It started off with just a few drinks at a party, and within a few years I was a full blown binge drinker. I’d drink whatever I could get my hands on, and I could never stop at one. Wine became my drink of choice, mainly because it was cheap and nasty. You know its getting bad when vomiting is a regular occurrence and it doesn’t seen to bother you. I spent numerous times in the hospital due to alcohol related injuries.
The admissions ranged from getting my stomach pumped, or to the fights I got into the dutch courage I felt from too much booze. After about ten years of solid drinking, I finally saw the light. And even though I haven’t had a drink for a while, not a day goes by where I do not crave one.
Smoking weed came on, just as an experiment. I though that since I was already smoking and drinking, I might as well give it a go. The first joint I had, I didn’t feel a thing, and I found out later that it’s the same for every one who first tries. That is how it traps you. I started off smoking close to $25 worth a day, and with the accompaniment, of alcohol: every day I would either vomit or pass out. And if you didn’t have any, you would do just about any thing to get it: like pawning all your stuff, stealing or even dealing drugs myself.
But no-one ever just stops at weed. I did a bit of ecstasy, acid, speed and even cocaine, but my drug of choice was always marijuana.
I know now that if I didn’t gibe them all up, I would have become like the people I used with – either in jail or dead.
So what did alcohol and drugs do for me?
It alienated me from the ones I loved.
It took all my cash.
It gave me irreversible eye damage. I am told I will be blind by 40.
And these were just the short term effects.
If I don’t give up cigarettes, I’m sure to die a painful death.
Cigarettes are the hardest to give up. People say that its easier to give up heroin than it is to give up cigarettes – and I believe them."
