Addiction is a fatal thing because it disguises itself as your friend. The entire time you think you are doing what YOU want to do. Maybe you are but ultimately if you knew how damaging the drugs, the sex and the wild parties really were you would never touch any of it again. Slowly, it becomes easier. The things you are participating in begin to seem harmless and innocent, like they aren't as bad as they really are. One step at a time you find yourself miles down the wrong path. You missed the caution signs. Do you turn around and go back? You can try but you will never forget how the drugs made you feel, both good and bad. The night terrors and cold sweats will come and go but the memories won't. No matter long you stay sober the addicted version of you will always be just under the surface tempting you back into old ways. As kids and even young adults they always warn you of the dangers of drugs, usually from a legal stand point or a scientific one. They tell you that you will end up dead or in jail. More often than not they forget to warn people about the ugly in between. They don't tell you how isolated from friends and family you will become from simply avoiding them to get your fix or how hard of a struggle just being sober will be after even that first time. The drug cycle, or better yet lifestyle does more than just physical and superficial damage. Empathy, like many things are stolen from you in the early stages of addiction. Suddenly, you find yourself numb, void and broken far worse than when you started using. Among old scars are fresh wounds, open and bleeding. New problems arise with less solutions. It's hard to push someone up a latter if they aren't willing to climb. Addiction does that to you, takes away your will to fight, for the right things anyways. Before you smoke that first bowl, snort that first pill or down that first drink think about all the things in life you love and cherish because after you enter the drug lifestyle all of those things you hold near and dear to your heart will become ugly and dull. Your problems will not be fixed no matter how much you think they will. Instead they will become knives in your back along with the pain of new problems. If you hate yourself now then can not even fathom the self hatred than drugs will bring into your life. This is my warning to you, a warning from one washed out, strung up, struggling teen to another, it's not worth it.