One Man’s Story of Drug Abuse.
“To Anyone Who Will Listen”

South Vietnam – 1966

“Hey man, you go down?”, a voice whispered from across the doorway.

I was on loan to The First Air Cav, Ankay, South Vietnam from a unit that I had never reported to. It was my eighth day in country. I was a small arms specialist and the guys were told I could fix a weapon in the dark in seconds. A valuable person in this “God Forsaken Place”. I was processed in on my 21st birthday.

The voice belonged to the dude from Spanish Harlem. I had played round ball with him in a post game. He was the big dude from the other team. They never played with a street kid from Philly before. I smoked them and scored 28 points. We won by 10.

“What’s that, man?” I shot back. “You get down, man. I got some shit in town I need to pick up. You got the jeep, man.” “You need a ride?”, I said. “Yeah, man.” “Jump in, We don’t go on patrol till 700 hours tomorrow.” I went down for the first time. I struggled to drive back to post. My entire body was consumed by something I never felt before. It was 1966 and I had found a way to tolerate my predicament.

Back in the real world, 1967, I was now experienced with all kinds of drugs. I was “Hip”. I had learned how to deal with many things in the previous two years but drugs was number one.

In 1968 and the “Summer of Love”, I found myself in San Francisco, at Haight and Asbury. The scene was all drugs. It was the first time that I let a thought enter my mind that maybe this isn’t so good.

I met three fifteen year-old kids who had run away from home in Utah to be with their “brothers” in this crazy place. I wonder when they died.

“Hey man, follow me.” Another voice from across a doorway. I followed him downstairs and we sat in a small corner. He went into his pocket and pulled out tin foil. In it he pulled out several pills. “Purple barrels, man. Do one or two”. I did both.

My life went on a trip for several years. I knew there was something wrong with what I was doing but I was angry and never dealt with it. My anger, believe it or not, made me punish myself.

My first real scare was Atlantic City, 1969. I ran into a fellow who I had spent many summers with at the Jersey shore. “Hey, Larry! Dude it’s me, man”. I knew Larry as well as a family member. He turned and looked at me as if I wasn’t there. I figured he might be tripping so I’d be cool. He had his hair together, you know long and all, he looked ‘Hip’.

A person came out of a nearby store and said to me, “He doesn’t comprehend. He’s tripped out. He never came back. He was on a bad trip and he’s brain dead”. I couldn’t believe it but Larry was a vegetable. Physically he was fine. Larry was one of the greatest athletes I had ever known. Small but agile and he could do anything. Larry was now all but a vegetable mumbling at people and cars that passed.

At that point in time I had done hundreds of LSD & Mescaline trips. It shook me up. But it didn’t stop me. I continued, as I couldn’t stop. I was “Hip”. Drugs made me a very popular person I had thought.

In the next few years, I buried several best friends. Two were murdered in a drug deal. Others overdosed or simply committed suicide. By then even the hard-core drugys that I was tight with started to one by one try to lose their bad habits. I always felt I could walk away when ever I wanted to. I was wrong about that.

By now I was broke, no job, no car, no place to live and worn out my welcome at most places. My drugy friends were just as bad off. Now, I was shooting Meth-Amphetamine at least five to six times a day. I’d do Skag & Dalida just to get “straight”.

It wasn’t any fun any more. I tried speed balls. Shooting speed in one arm and smack in the other at the same time. It seemed like it would bring the fun back. I nearly died. I was rushed to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital where I met a man who turned my life around.

He looked at me and said, “Why are you so angry at yourself”? I had never thought about it. He was right. I didn’t like myself at all. As a teen, I over-drank and did the most stupid things I could find to do. I chose to travel with friends who were just like me. Angry.

Hammer, who was my favorite person to get high with, went into re-hab and told me that he couldn’t associate with me ever again. That was a shock coming from him. I just buried him recently. He got straight, thank God, but lost a battle to cancer.

My life was in a shambles and my friends were either dead or in re-habs. It was time for me to turn within. I started the long journey of recovery and getting straight.

It was the most painful and loneliest time of my life. I had no one but God Himself. All the things that made me “Hip” were wrong. All the things that I rejected for years were right. I had to face that fact.

And all the time I worked and worked to put myself back on track, I heard that voice, “Hey, man, you go down”. I had no idea what that soldier was talking about when he said that to me. I pretended I knew and ended up in a vicious circle of drugs and death. I didn’t have the courage to tell him to get lost. I wanted to be “Hip”. I would have saved myself, my family, my loved ones an enormous amount of pain.

Although I know my mind is damaged from the abuse and not what it could be, I’m proud to be healthy, straight and alive on this side of the grass. I will be fine. I now wish I had loved myself enough to say, “NO”.

By: “Somewhere “HAPPY” in the USA”.

Thank you “Happy” for sharing with Teen Health Secrets readers. ~Amy ~

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