“If you’d only called your mom or dad, you’d still be
alive.”
I start to scream, I start to yell
But no one can hear me, no one can tell.
They put me in an ambulance, they take me away.
The doctor at the hospital exclaims, “DOA!”
My father’s in shock, my mother in tears,
She collapses in grief, overcome by the fear.
They take me to this house and place me in this box.
I keep asking what is happening,
But I can’t make it stop.
Everyone is crying, my family is so sad.
I wish someone would answer me,
I’m starting to get mad.
My mother leans over and kisses me good-bye,
My father pulls her away, while she is screaming, “WHY?”
They lower my body into a dirt grave,
It feels so cold, I yell to be saved.
Then I see an angel, I begin to cry.
Can you tell me what is happening?
And she tells me that I died.
I can’t be dead, I’m still so young!
I want to do so many things
Like sing and dance and run.
What about college or graduation day?
What about a wedding? Please—I want to stay.
The angel looks upon me, and with a saddened voice,
“It didn’t have to end like this, you knew you had a choice.
I’m sorry, it’s too late now, time I can’t turn back.
Your life is finished—that, my son, is fact.”
Why did this happen? I didn’t want to die!
The angel embraces me and with her words she sighs,
“Son, this is the consequence you paid to drink and drive.
I wish you made a better choice, if you did you’d be alive.
It doesn’t matter if you beg me, or plead on bended knee,
There is nothing I can do, you have to come with me.”
Looking at my family, I say my last good-bye.
“I’m sorry I disappointed you, Dad.
Mommy, please don’t cry.
I didn’t mean to hurt you, or cause you any pain.
I’m sorry all you’re left with is a grave that bears my name.
I’m sorry all your dreams for me have all been ripped away,
The plans for my future now buried in a grave.
“It was a stupid thing to do,
I wish I could take it back.
But the curtain is being lowered now.
So ends my final act.”
Lisa Teller
A Sobering Experience
When most of my classmates were starting their sophomore year of high school in 1998, I was just coming out of a coma. I’d missed the entire summer, and when I woke up, I was a fifteen-year-old with the mind of an eight-year-old.
A few months earlier, on June 12, we had just finished our last day of classes before exam week. To celebrate, I made plans to go to a party with my friend Dean. I knew my dad wouldn’t approve of me partying with Dean since he was a junior and I was a freshman, so I said we were going to a hamburger place in town. My dad agreed to let me go, but said I had to be home by 11:00 P.M.
I don’t remember most of what happened that night— a lot of what I know is pieced together from things I’ve been told. I do know that after Dean picked me up, we met up with some guys at a lake near my house. A few of them, including Dean, were smoking pot. I knew I shouldn’t drive with someone who had been doing drugs, but when it came time to get in the car with Dean, I guess I figured that if he thought he was okay to drive, he probably was. So we went to the party. My brother was there and has since told me that I spent most of the night sitting in a chair in the garage, watching what was going on. I was only fifteen, and I was surrounded by all these eighteen-, nineteen- and twenty-year-olds. I don’t remember having anything to drink, but I do remember seeing Dean drinking beer.
When it was almost 11:00, I told Dean I had to get home, and he said he’d take me. He invited a couple of friends to come with us, and we headed for the car. Again, I didn’t really think about not driving with this guy, even though he’d been drinking and getting high. You learn about all this stuff in school, but when you’re caught up in the moment, for some reason it doesn’t really click. I guess I never thought anything bad could happen to me. But on the ride home, Dean was driving really fast—maybe close to 100 mph. We were on dirt roads and he was making the car fishtail, playing it all cool like it was so fun. That’s when I realized I’d made a horrible mistake. I screamed at Dean from the passenger seat to slow down, but he didn’t. We got to the top of a steep hill, and Dean was going so fast that the car flew into the air. We landed in the wrong lane and, as Dean swerved to try to get back on the right side, he overcorrected and my side of the car crashed into four trees. My head smacked into those trees one after the other.
The guy sitting behind me in the car broke his leg, but Dean and the guy behind him were fine. For a month after the accident, it was uncertain if I would live. I was in a coma until September, and I don’t remember much until October. I had no broken bones, scratches or cuts, just one giant bruise down my chest from the seat belt. I would have gone through the windshield and died without that seat belt.
My parents lived the worst nightmare, constantly by my side, fearing I would die at any moment. When I came out of the coma, I recognized my family, but I was not the same person who got into Dean’s car before the accident. My brain had bounced around against my skull, and I suffered a traumatic brain injury. Basically, the side of my brain that sends messages to my body to tell it how to move was severely damaged. I don’t know how long it will take me to regain my motor skills entirely, or if I ever will.
Even after going through a lengthy rehabilitation in the hospital, I still walked so badly that people on the street stared and wondered what was wrong with me. It’s a miracle that I can walk at all, let alone play sports. When I was a freshman, I dreamed of playing basketball for the WNBA, but that dream died the night of the accident. Now, I’m so glad because I am playing again, and I’ve worked on getting my stride back. But I’ll never get back to the level where I used to be. My knee jerks back awkwardly when I run, and my coordination will never be the same.
The effects of the brain injury have not been just physical. When I first got back to school, I was put into a special resource room to do communication, speech, occupational and physical therapy. Eventually, I started taking regular classes again—and I will graduate on time—but the accident has messed up my memory and my ability to concentrate, and studying is really hard. I have to write myself notes to remember things, and even after a couple of years of handwriting therapy, my writing is still not very fast or clear. My speech has improved, but it’s not great. Most people don’t realize it, but all of these little things pretty much make up who you are, and when they’re gone, a piece of you is changed forever.
Then again, in some ways I’ve changed for the better since the accident. I used to think that life was all a big joke. Now I know it’s much more precious, and I think Dean knows that, too. He and I weren’t allowed to see each other when I returned to school. He never went to jail, but he had to pay a fine. My parents will always be angry with Dean, and I get angry sometimes, too. But I don’t necessarily blame him. He once said to me, “I wish I had died in that accident; I wish I hadn’t hurt you. But I did and I’m sorry.” I know I can’t change what happened, but neither can he, so we just have to let go of the things that make us sad or angry and live each day in gratitude.
Sarah Jackson
As told to Jennifer Braunschweiger
Hitting Bottom
“People don’t change that much. . . .”
“Yes, they do. They grow up and they accept responsibilities, and they realize that ‘die young, stay pretty’ isn’t exactly all it’s cracked up to be.”
Drue and Jen,
Dawson’s Creek
It began when I was eleven. My family and I had just moved to a new town. Making new friends was never difficult for me before, but I was going through an awkward stage, and I was feeling self-conscious about my appearance. I was having a hard time reaching out to meet new people. So when I saw some kids smoking, I figured if I could join them for a cigarette I could meet some potential “friends.” We hung out and smoked and continued this ritual pretty much every day. Before long I was introduced to other kids, and eventually I started drinking and getting high right along with them—it seemed the natural, easy thing to do. Soon, drugs and alcohol became my friends, too. A few years later, I was using cocaine and running away from home.
The first time I ran away I was thirteen. I had come home late one evening, and my mom was still up. She saw me sitting in a friend’s car in front of our house. She was pretty strict about me being in my friends’ cars. I was so stoned I knew at that point I couldn’t go into my house, so I left with my friend.
After that night, over the next year and a half, I ran away twenty-three times. I managed to get caught every time, but within twenty-four hours I’d leave again. I was so hooked on drugs that I was afraid if I stayed at home, I wouldn’t be able to get the drugs I wanted and needed so much.
I would stay at friends’ houses until their parents figured out what was going on. Instead of returning home, I chose to live on the streets with friends or by myself. In colder weather, basements of apartment complexes became my source for shelter.
My mom didn’t know why I was running away. I didn’t communicate with her. She obviously knew something was wrong, but she just couldn’t figure out what it was that was causing me to leave home. She tried putting me in treatment centers. Eventually, I ended up in one. During that first treatment center visit, I told her what was going on.
When I returned home from treatment I was off drugs, but after a few weeks I started using again. I continued this pattern for a while, having relapse after relapse. Finally, my mom quit her job to dedicate all of her time to helping me.
I went through three more short-term treatment programs, each one lasting only eleven to fourteen days. Each time, I was sincere about wanting to quit drugs, but I didn’t know how. I felt like I didn’t have enough time in those brief programs to learn how to live my life without drugs. By then, my self-esteem was so low that I was battling an eating disorder as well.
When I turned fourteen, I was receiving intensive counseling, and my mom decided I needed long-term treatment. In my state, at fourteen you’re allowed to legally deny medical treatment. So when my mom wanted to put me into a six- to nine-month treatment program, I refused. I was at the lowest of lows in my life at that point. I had already overdosed on peyote and, not knowing how to turn my life around, I looked at suicide as my only way out. I just didn’t see how another treatment center was going to help me.
My mom and I took our battle to court. She told the judge about my past, my drug use and that I was an addict. The next day he placed me in a treatment center. I haven’t gotten high since that day, five and a half years ago.
The treatment center was like a big family. We would go to school for half the day and then receive intensive counseling. Prior to my admittance to the center, I had been using cocaine heavily, so I went through withdrawals.
The real turning point in my recovery happened when I met someone my own age who really wanted to quit. She kept telling me, “Help me, and I’ll help you.” That moved me so much, and it still moves me when I think about it. Having a peer say, “Hey, you can do it,” made me want to do it this time.
I also met a woman in a Narcotics Anonymous meeting who had a major impact on me. She stood up and started talking about what was going on in her life. I remember watching her and thinking that she glowed. It’s hard to describe, but for some reason she just glowed. Everything about her life was okay now, even the parts she was not happy with. I remember looking at her and thinking, I just want to be a little bit shiny. I don’t need to glow, but just shine a little. That day I decided I was going to do everything in my power to live a healthy life.
Wanting something and following through with it were two completely different things for me then. After I finished treatment, we moved again. I was turning fifteen, and I knew that before long everyone at my school would find out about my past. I was going to be in the same position I was in when I was eleven, with no friends, only this time I couldn’t use drugs to help me make them.
I was so determined to stay on track that I sought help from my guidance counselor right away. I told her that I didn’t trust myself not to slip back into my old lifestyle. She surprised me by asking me to tell my story to fifth and sixth graders. I told her I had never spoken in front of people before, but she assured me that I would do just fine.
I was really scared about sharing my past with a bunch of strangers, so I asked my mom if she would join me. We sat down that evening and planned the presentation. We had our first heart-to-heart since I was ten years old.
We did two presentations at an elementary school, and it made the front page of all the local newspapers. Suddenly, schools were calling us. I was in awe. I couldn’t believe people wanted me to come to their schools and talk, that they considered me to be somebody who could help other kids.
I realized that doing these presentations helped boost my self-esteem and confirmed for me that I never wanted to do drugs again. It hit me that I might be helping to save someone’s life or preventing another kid from getting involved with drugs.
My mom and I still speak at schools and treatment centers together. Kids call me at home sometimes after our talks. Some thank me. Some share their own stories. Some even tell me that I shine—and that is the best part of all.
Jenny Hungerford
As told to Susan K. Perry
That Warm Night
I was invited to a party,
a few roads across town.
I thought I’d meet my friends there,
but they were not around.
So I hopped into my beat-up car,
ready for adventure.
My mom came racing to my door,
I was ready for my lecture.
Instead she told me softly,
to be careful that warm night.
I promised her that I’d drive safe,
that everything would be all right.
I arrived at the location,
and accepted a small drink.
I didn’t really want it,
but I didn’t stop to think.
Soon I was gulping cocktails,
feeling lighter with each sip.
And I felt so free, invincible,
as I swallowed the last drip.
The room was spinning freely,
as I danced across the floor.
And I wondered why I hadn’t ever
drank this much before.
Then, despite my happiness and fun,
my head began to ache.
I found my car keys in my purse,
’cause my brain was going to break.
I stumbled across the gardens,
unlocked my beat-up car.
Started up the engine,
headed across town once more.
But something tragic happened,
I didn’t see the light.
I didn’t see the people, either,
crossing that warm night.
As I slid across the pavement,
I knew my time had come.
My head just kept on spinning,
all this for just some fun.
The next moments were quite hazy,
as I lay mangled in the car.
Pain shooting through my body,
never thought it’d go this far.
Heard sirens in the background,
rushing to my aid.
But as I closed my tired eyes,
I knew it was too late.
As I saw the world below
me,
my heart just filled with dread.
I saw the people that I hit,
and knew that they were dead.
I cried so hard on that warm night,
as I floated through the sky.
Knowing that it was my fault,
and I never said good-bye.
Now I’m floating up to heaven,
where I really don’t belong.
Brought so much pain to others,
did something really wrong.
I killed six happy people,
four kids, a man and wife.
And I’m lying in a coffin,
because I lost my precious life.
I see my mother’s upset face,
her eyes so filled with tears.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,
this is exactly what I feared.”
I was just a normal teen,
who had too much to drink.
I had a boyfriend, did well in school,
but that night I didn’t think.
So the next time you’re invited
to a party with your friends,
Please remember this could be
the night when it could end.
I learned all this the hard way,
and made a terrible mistake.
So please don’t do what I did,
and drink as much as you can take.
I had so much before me,
a great future straight ahead.
I wanted to be an actress,
but I can’t because I’m dead.
It happened all so quickly,
didn’t even get to fight.
Didn’t know how fast my life could end,
I’ll always remember that warm night.
Sarah Woo
What She Doesn’t Know
My friend has a problem, and sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who notices her when she’s lost and she’s tormented and she’s alone in the world. And when she’s high, she comes to me and she tells me what she’s done, whether it’s speed or cocaine or something bigger and faster, something harder and louder, something else that takes the person I laugh with and depend on away.
She is ripping herself away from her truth, and the only way I can reach her is to let her know that I care about her. All I can do is listen to her babble when she’s high, and weep when she’s coming down, because I can’t fix her. All I can be is a friend to her until she realizes she has a problem, until she stops running from her daytime self to the lure of things that make her worries rest. I can’t make her stop. So it’s been hard, to have her pass out and the line go dead. To have her come to my house running on speed not to be with me, but so that she doesn’t get caught.