DEAR STRAIGHT TALK: I was best friends with “Abby” until she got new friends and started drinking and taking drugs. It scared me because my dad was a heroin addict and I don’t see him anymore. I made a new best friend, “Suzie”, and for the first time I felt happy and fit in. Then, on school trip, Suzie, Abby and I were placed together. This prompted Abby and I to become closer again, but Suzie didn’t like Abby, so Suzie dumped me and I was so hurt I hated her for it. I doubted my friendship with Abby would survive, but I had nobody else. Sure enough, Abby lashed out at me horribly when I expressed concern for another friend, “Gina”, (who sleeps around, has a drinking problem, and has done heroin a few times). She called Gina’s lifestyle “liberating” and accused me of being “up myself”. Also, Abby kept telling me she wanted to corrupt me, which made me realize what a bad friend she was. Now I’ve separated myself from Abby and Gina and want to be friends with Suzie again. Crawling back to Suzie might not be the best choice, but she was the best friend I ever had. Trouble is, when Suzie dumped me I said mean things about her and I’m afraid Abby and Gina will tell her and ruin things. What should I do? And why did Abby want to corrupt me?
“Sarah”
DEAR SARAH: Please let every word from Rose and Kenny soak in. Advice doesn’t get better. To “observe your life patterns” as Rose so importantly suggests, I urge you to work with a counselor.
Rose, 21, Auburn, CA
First of all, stop thinking of it as “crawling back.” Everyone makes mistakes and owning up, apologizing, telling the whole truth — that is how to repair things. Before Gina and Abby beat you to it, confess to Suzie. You can’t take back the past, but this will give you another go.
Why would Abby want to corrupt you? A million reasons. Maybe she doesn’t like herself. If she makes you bad, then she’s not that bad. Or maybe she’s a bully who enjoys hurting people.
What’s more important is why you were attracted to her — twice. She probably reminds you of your dad. My mom was a drug addict and now I realize that all my boyfriends were either drug addicts or alcoholics. There is this desire to make the drug addict love you because addicts always love their drug more than you. I couldn’t get the love from my mom, (you couldn’t get it from your dad), so people like us find another addict to prove to ourselves we can get it. We figure this love will save everyone. I wish I would’ve realized this when I was younger. It just clicked for me recently, after Zach, my boyfriend of three years, died of a heroin overdose.
I can’t stress how dangerous heroin is. You need to really observe your life patterns and decide what kind of people to hang with.
Kenny, 20, Fresno, CA
Bottom line: stay away from heroin and people who use it. Don’t risk being tempted to try it. A lot of kids snort it and smoke it because they’ve snorted coke or smoked pot or cigarettes, so it seems familiar and safe. It’s easy to empty the tip of a cigarette, add a pinch of “black tar” (which is everywhere out there), and inhale — or mix it with water and snort it. Plus, in today’s pill culture, kids already use opiates: Vicodin, Codeine, Oxycontin, Percocet, so it’s not a big leap to heroin because there’s familiarity on all these levels. I have a friend who snorted it over break, then started smoking it. Within two months he was giving oral sex to the dealer to pay for the drug.
By Nick, 20, Fair Oaks CA on 12/03/2008
just thought I’d put in my two cents about heroin. I don’t really know much about it but generally on the west coast one finds “White China” and “Black Tar” they being white and black respectively. One can smoke it, snort it through a straw, or inject it both intravenously and intramuscularly.
By Graham, 15, Fair Oaks CA on 12/03/2008
Wow Sarah, sounds like you were right in the first place. Hanging out with Abby really wasn’t a good idea. I guess this just goes to show that your instincts are usually correct. I would strongly urge you to sever all contact with anyone who is doing heroin. If one of my good friends was doing heroin, I would definitely take the time to talk to them about it and listen to WHY they were inclined to do it. I think that there is usually a reason other than just “peer-pressure”, and that is commonly overlooked in the “Say No” campaigns.
By Rose, 21, Auburn CA on 12/03/2008
Also, know there are options for school if the drama gets too hard. Switching to a charter or home school isn’t considered running away, it is about bettering your life, making a change to ensure a good future. I switched to a charter school because I couldn’t take the girl/girl drama in public school, either. I read “The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to quite school and get a real life and education” by Grace Llewellyn. It’s an awesome book and it made my dad let me attend charter school, after he was initially opposed to it. Nobody should have to deal with the drama you are talking about.
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