There are some things that I just have to say bluntly and I honestly.

First off, someone I know just died this weekend of a heroine overdose.  He relapsed after being clean for a year.  I wasn’t close with him, but hung out with him many times and he was loved by many of my other friends.  I always thought (and still believe) he was a pretty good guy who just had some problems in life.  

I hadn’t talked to him much in a long time, but for some reason… I just started talking to him again a couple weeks before he died.  We talked about having him make a video commercial for me.  He sounded really excited about it and then I didn’t hear back from him about it for a few days.  Last time I heard from him was probably Thursday or Friday.  I wondered what the hold up was, but just figured he was busy.  I found out this morning that he died Saturday.

This is really bothering me.  I have never been strong when it comes to death.  It makes me a basket case because I have so much empathy for other people.  Even people I have never met.  But what is really burning in my brain is how people are there talking with me and making plans with me one minute, and then just like that…. they’re gone.

I know so many people that do drugs and drink a lot.  Believe me, I am no saint either, I have done my share of drugs in all honesty, but I don’t do anything now except have a few drinks occassionally.  I can’t stress enough that people have got to stay away from that stuff and start making better choices in life.  Everyone thinks it’s all a big game.  That they can play with fire and not get burned.  Everyone thinks… “oh just one night of partying won’t kill me.  I won’t get addicted.”  It could very well kill you and you probably will get addidcted.  No one is above it no matter how strong or resistant or smart they think they are.  Drugs will grab ahold of you and ruin your life.  There are so many people I have personally known who have died or somehow screwed up their lives because of drugs and alcohol.  And they all thought it couldn’t happen to them.  And not only do you hurt yourself, but you hurt everyone around you and everyone who gives a damn about you.  Not only that, but it changes who you are mentally and it’s not for the better.

I personally almost did the same things.  Nearly drove away my parents, ended up in the hospital, and am sure I nearly killed myself unintentionally a few times in my younger years.

One of my grandpa’s was an alcoholic and was mean and horribly abusive.  If I remember correctly, someone killed him.  I never knew him.

My other grandpa  was an alcoholic as well and put my family through hell from what I hear because of it.  Thankfully he straightened up when I was little and I never knew that side of him personally.  I am glad for that because he was a good man and I loved him very much.  He died at a young age because of health problems.  He had alcohol induced diabetes.

And another grandpa (second husband to my grandma after the first one was killed) was also an alcoholic.  A very good man whom I also loved very much, but his drinking killed him when I was very little.  His organs (liver) shut down.  He withered away into skin and bones.

I have other family members who have ended up in prison and/or have hurt themselves physically because of drugs/alcohol.

My hubby went to prison for 9 years because of some stupid crap he did while on drugs.

I had a friend who was drunk and drove an atv into a parked car and killed himself. 

Someone else I know was at a party and someone who was high/drunk ran him over with a car and paralized him.

An old friend in Colorado was partying with friends and drinking.  They decided to drive somewhere, wrecked, and my friend was ejected from the car on impact.  She lived, but it messed her up.

I had to go to that same friend’s house one day to help her because her sister had taken some sort of drug and was freaking out.  When I got there, her sister couldn’t comprehend who I was and thought I was there to hurt her.  She was panicking and jumped head first through a glass window in her house.  She split her face open and we had to hold her down until the ambulance got there.  They had to strap her down in the ambulance.

My friend’s mom was an alcoholic.  I watched her throw her daughter down to the garage floor and start beating her with her fists and smashing her face into the concrete simply because she woke her up.  She was drunk of course.

I was at a party once sitting around with friends and one of the friends had taken some drugs.  He seemed to be ok one second and then flipped like a light switch.  He suddenly looked at me like a crazy person.  Try to imagine someone you know looking at you… and… you don’t see them in there anymore.  You see a crazed animal.  That’s how it was.  He reached over and grabbed my arm tightly.  I knew immediately something was wrong and I was going to get hurt.  So I jumped up and ran from the room as fast as I could.  He bolted after me and I screamed through the apartment for someone to help me.  There were a lot of people there thank goodness.  I ran towards the staircase and made a sharp turn.  He ran straight into the stairs and fell all the way down to the bottom.  Everyone ran over there and tried to calm him down.  They couldn’t so they forced him outside because he was going to hurt someone.  They called the police, but before they could get there he got in his car and drove away.  Thankfully he he didn’t kill anyone and made it home, but that really could have been bad.

My friend Jesse (Diggs) just died on the 4th of July because of a drug overdose.  His organs shut down and he was in a coma for a long time.

My client just died at the end of June because she was drinking and driving her motorcycle.  Hit the back of a truck and was ran over by her friend (my other client) on his motorcycle and then ran over by a car.

I stopped in at another party one time to pick up a friend that needed a ride home.  When I got there, some guy had taken some GHB (aka “the date rape drug”).  He was ok one second and then walked straight over to the kitchen counter and smashed his head face first into it.  He did it repeatedly until someone went over and stopped him.  He then fell to the floor and hit his head again.  He was bleeding.  There was a puppy in the house and it ran over and started trying to play with him.  It grabbed ahold of his lip (playing mind you) and split it open.  The guy was so trashed that he didn’t even know what was going on and couldn’t get up off the floor.

I am not making this stuff up.  It really happened.

I personally have had alcohol poisoning and it’s the most horrible experience ever.  There comes a point when you have vomitted for so long and so often that they have to give you an injection to stop the vomitting.  It’s extremely agonizing. 

I also took ecstacy one time when I was younger that turned out to either be bad or I took too much of it.  My body began to overheat.  My skin turned fire red all over and burned.  I was sweating so bad that I looked like I had been standing out in a horrible rain storm.  I was taken to the hospital and put on IV fluids and given medications.  My temperature was dangerously high.  I could have died.

Listen, I’m no “square”.  I’ve lived the crazy fun party life.  I know how tempting it is.  It was a blast at the time for the most part.  But when I look back at it now, I was an idiot and it’s a wonder I am still alive and that my brain still works.

Yes, I know… really personal stuff.  But I don’t care.  People need to hear it.  It doesn’t touch someone until it’s right in their face.