On Thursday November 15 I was asked to speak at the Carlton Sr. High. I was so scared I wanted to puke, but the more I thought about it I was honored to be given that oppertunity. I was asked to speak out on addiction and where my own has taken me. I spoke to them on how at first I was tricked by the drugs and alcohol into thinking that they made me feel better then anything ever had about being me, and that people liked me so much more when I was using, but a strange thing happend one day as the meth took over I began to feel less and less like a person. I began to lose the people that truly cared about me. I lost myself when what I thouhgt I wsa doing was finding myself. I got to the point in life that the only thing that mattered to me any more was getting high. And after several years of getting high to feel good about myself I began to feel worse and worse about myself wishing daily that I would just over-dose. I tryed to kill myself several times NOT because I wanted to die, but because I felt that there was no other way out of this addiction I have created for myself. I was thinking about death daily and I seen a friend of mine that I grew up with so I said hello and she took one look at me and began to cry. I didn't speak to her untill several years latter and she said seen I was killing myself with what I was doing and the pain was to much. When she moved away she continued to check the obituaries looking for my name knowing for sure it wouldn't be long and she would see my name. I told the high school kids about how this drug made me feel like it had given me everything, but in reality it was I who had given everything to this drug. My desire to live, My family, My friends, and even my DAUGHTER WHO IS NINE NOW! This drug called meth is a lier and deciever. It disrorts your thinking and behaviors so much that after a short time you wont even recognize yourself. It leaves you empty and soul-less, with no thoughts of any thing but death and freedom from its miserable grasp. I did tell them it is possible to get help if they are the ones suffering or know some one close to them whos suffers from addiction. I told them to talk to some one they can trust to help them find help, because this disease of addiction is a killer, but it doesn't have to be! There is help available. I spoke of how I cryed and prayed for GOD to release me from my addictions, and how I went to treatment for three months and then a half-way house for two months in order to get me ready for the world with out the use of drugs. I Also said that my life has gotten so much better now that I am drug free. I have my Family, I have some friends, I finaly have hopes and dreams, and I don't live each day with the thought of death in my head. its been replaces by the thoughts of helping others who still suffer from addiction. I am in the process of becoming a youth CD consouler and a social worker inorder to help kids that have been effected by methamphetamine and other addictions.
At the end of telling my story a young man with tears in his eyes came to me from out of the group of students listening and asked if he could talk to me. He shook my hand and said thank you for coming here today I to have a problem with addiction and have been struggling with it. I havn't used in two months but it's allways there in my mind and I dont know how to deal with it. He asked if I could "SPONCER" him thats a person he can call if he feels like using. So I gave him my number and asked this young man to PLEASE CALL ME IF HE GETS THE URGE TO USE BEFORE HE USES. He said he will call before he does and I hope I he never needs to use the number to be talked out of useing, but just to say you made a diffrence thank you.
I went out of that Sr.High with a diffrent mind set than Iv have had in a long time I felt like I had made a diffrance in some ones life. And for that I thank GOD, MY LITTLE SISTER RANDI, AND CARLTON HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIVING ME THE OPPERTUNITY.
GOD BLESS ALL OF YOU WHO READ THIS AND PLEASE PASS IT ON!
Thank You, John
