We're all guilty of making some terrible choices back when we were younger, some more than others. I can see why as well, high school is such an awkward time in most of our lives where we're all just trying to find who we are as we make that leap from high school to college. As for myself, I've made a handful of bad decisions when I was younger but there's one that sticks out far from the rest. Now I don't know about you guys but I've been guilty of underage drinking and to make matters worse it was my first time drinking.

Looking back it honestly was the worst decision I could have made. Yes, you guessed I drank way too much that night and ended up passing out on the dance floor, which resulted in me spending a night in the hospital and getting in a ton of trouble from my parents. Believe it or not, that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was having my school press charges against me which resulted in me having to spend about a week and a half in an "alternative learning center"(ALC). Which is basically a place where kids who received "superintendent suspension" went to.

Now keep this in mind I wasn't a trouble making kid, I had good grades and I even played in the school band. So it came as a complete shock to me that I was receiving this sort of punishment from the school. What came as an even larger shock was the school itself. Now you can believe what you want but when I say an ALC is a prison for bad kids I completely mean that. There were kids in there who got in for beating up teachers, stabbing classmates, and even setting their school on fire; and what was I there for? getting drunk at a school dance. All the kids and teachers there seemed to be in just as shock as I was.

I remember we had this workshop we'd go to daily where we talked about the goals we wanted to achieve and how we were gonna do it. When you take away the crimes that these kids committed they seemed to be alright people and it was in that workshop where I realized that. Yeah sure these kids may have done bad things but their hand was pushed weather they were raised in a gang family or even had no family a lot of them wanted to change for the better and really get their lives in order and then there was me. There's never been in a moment in my life in which I felt more out of place and lucky at the same time than in that "school".

I'd have to say going to that school opened my eyes to so many things and I guess I am thankful for the learning experience it provided for me. It showed me that there were kids out there in the same city I called home who had it far worse than I could have ever imagined. A great learning experience I'd never want to go through again.