I spoke to two teenagers recently, who used to do drugs and stopped. Katie and Melissa have something else in common, too, like how and why they started. With more teens doing drugs, we figured we’d better tell their stories.

Katie, 14, started doing drugs a year ago. First she tried weed, then she went to acid and then cocaine. When she first started, she didn’t have a lot of friends and she felt depressed, she says. She didn’t think that drugs were going to solve her problems, but they seemed like a good escape. 

Then the real troubles began. The drugs started to take control. 

"The first time, you only need a little to get high,’’ Katie says. "But then each time you do it, you need more and more, just to get the same feeling." 

Katie started feeling uncomfortable around people who didn't do drugs. At the same time, she saw how stupid other people acted when they got high and she knew she must be acting the same way. She was spending way too much money on drugs. Then her boyfriend stopped doing drugs and encouraged her to do the same. 

Regrets  

But even with all that, Katie kept sniffing coke and dropping acid, until she made a mistake that she regrets deeply. Katie lost her virginity while she was stoned. 

That's when it hit. She had to get off drugs. She stopped hanging out with the old buds and starting hanging with a new group of drug-free friends. She found tons of support. The friends who really cared about her helped her stay clean. 

Katie's advice to other teens: "If you want to have fun, find something else to do. Don’t do drugs. It's just not worth it." 

Sliding into Addiction 

When Melissa, 16, [not her real name], started doing drugs, she had straight-edge friends and came from a solid, church-going family. But she knew a few kids who did drugs and one day, when she was hanging with them, she decided to try. 

"I wish I could blame it on someone else,’’ says Melissa, who took her first toke when she was 13. "But I can’t. I have no one to blame but myself." 

"It's starts small and gets big,’’ she adds. "People don’t just go to one thing. Me and my friends started smoking pot, then went on to pills, cocaine, and then heroin." 

What was doing drugs like? 

"Scary," says Melissa. Crack makes things talk to you, she said, remembering one time when a door knob suddenly sprouted a face, with eyes and everything, and started talking to her. Acid, speed, LSD, and angel dust also make you go crazy and see things, Melissa added. 

Things got so bad that Melissa would take almost anything to get high. 

"When I didn't have any drugs, I would take aspirin or Motrin IB, just to calm me. Just talking about it makes me never want to look at that stuff again," she says. 

After about two years of doing drugs, Melissa looked in the mirror one day and realized she was falling apart. Her friends who took drugs were a mess. She had one friend on cocaine who became pregnant and had an abortion. Another friend was sent away to a drug rehab. Worst of all, a childhood friend had to be put in a mental institution because of drugs. At this point, Melissa finally realized, "Wow, this could happen to me. I want to get off." 

But the road to recovery was tough.

"Once you start, you're hooked," says Melissa. "You don’t think you are, but you are. And once you're hooked, if you go off it, you feel like something's missing, like your life is not complete. It’s like drugs are part of you. It’s stupid, but that's the way it is. " 

At times, she thought she would never be able to beat her addiction. But she asked for help and found plenty of support from her family, who had suspected that something was wrong. 

"They didn't condemn me," she remembers. "They stood by me and showed their love. One time, I was so upset. I couldn't stop crying and my family just let me know they were there and would help me get through it." 

They also connected her with a counselor who helped her cope.

"I was addicted," she adds. "I wasted part of my teenage life." 

If you are struggling with drugs, Katie and Melissa urge you to get help. They say you don't have to do it alone. If you can’t turn to family, friends, a teacher or another adult, there are plenty of organizations that can help. You can call the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence at 1-800-622-2255 (open 24 hours) or the National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information at 1-800-729-6686 (open 24 hours).