As a part of college life, drug usage is not an unknown activity to come across. The casual passing of a baggie back and forth while sitting around a table sipping beer is just a part of an average Friday night at most campuses. Due to its commonplace in this subsection of society, the damaging effects of drug usage are generally brushed over by peers. Sometimes because it would be hypocritical to speak down on something that one has been doing as well, sometimes based on the fact that the situation could be worse, and sometimes because the problems being faced by the individual are being dealt with internally and no one can see the severity of the situation.
The crux of the issue is that it is not talked about amongst peers. If there is anything I have noticed about the people I encounter on a daily basis, it's that were all dealing with shit. Its apparent in the way we talk about life, the ways we express ourselves, and the ways we recreationally use drugs. With the lack of communication comes a stagnation in the internal mentality of the drug user. If no one is outwardly acknowledging that you have a problem, do you really have a problem? Yes.
This year I lost my best friend to a heroin overdose, a habit of his kept secret from most of the world, except for a few of his friends he felt comfortable sharing with. He provided explanations for how his affinity for drugs started but never really explained to us what he was using them to cope with. Outwardly he appeared to be the happiest free spirit, always finding new ways to include strangers in his story, being the life of any party with his insatiable humor, and doing everything to make sure the people around him felt love at its highest degree. But just like many college students, he was waging a secret internal battle with drug abuse.
His drug abuse was one he didn't even consider to be a problem, it wasn't something consuming his daily life, it was something fun to do at parties or when he would get bored and no one thought much of it. He moved home to Simi Valley and would occasionally visit San Francisco to reunite with his college buds. During his last visit, it became apparent to many people that his drug usage had taken a turn for the worse when he started to show lack of respect for the boundaries put in place by his friends and former roommates. As a collective team, we held individual interventions and during my talk with him he explained how he didn't want this to be a part of who he was anymore, that his life had so much more than drugs but at a point it stops being just a recreational thing and eventually turns into an addiction, something none of us are above, as much as we can think that we are.
After that visit to SF, he dropped the level at which he was doing drugs and turned his life around. He got a job as a detective for the DMV, you should've asked the kid about it I swear the entire room would light up, and he was on his way to the police academy to continue pursuing his dreams.
The night that he bought the fatal batch of heroin, which was laced with fentanyl, he was one week away from entering the police academy, so assuming it was his last hurrah before entering a life of complete sobriety. His death is a message to us all, to talk about the things that ail us instead of self-medicating to avoid showing the world we can't always be strong. It is okay to break the persona and ask for help, you really never know what life has in store for you and the future you've always dreamed of can be right around the corner.
