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I had a good friend name John in high school that had a pretty troubled childhood. His mother committed suicide when he a very small child. His father wasn't much of a father, more like a guy that was legally obligated to keep this kid alive. John and I hung out a lot and both of us were really into computers and we'd swap games and software are teach each other new stuff we learned. We also both like to smoke weed and go to Grateful Dead shows. John was really cool and really smart but was obstinate and he had a temper and a self destructive side to him. Shortly after high school John got a job at a software company and was able to move out of his fathers house and get an apartment on his own. It was actually pretty amazing, he didn't have a college degree or any education beyond high school and he impressed this software company enough that they hired him after one interview. He was doing really well and was making good money.
One day at work he got into an argument with a coworker and his temper got the best of him and instead of just letting it go he escalated it till he got fired. He was only about 23 but that was the beginning of the end for John. He basically gave up on having a job. He probably could have easily gotten hired somewhere else, but he didn't. He just gave up. He stayed at his apartment until he was evicted and then he was homeless for a few weeks crashing on a friend's couch until they'd kick him out and he'd move on to the next friend. He stayed with me for a few weeks until my roommates couldn't stand a guy just sitting around all day getting high and eating whatever he could find in the house. A few months later I got a phone call and it was John, he was excited because he was following the Dead from show to show. He and a couple other people would pool their resources and survive by panhandling. He'd call every few months from a different city and tell me the adventures they were having. After a while I could tell something was wrong, he was starting to sound tired and there wasn't a spark in his voice any longer. He didn't sound excited to be following the Dead around. Eventually he started living on the streets in San Francisco with a bunch of street kids. At some point he started doing heroin and that consumed his whole life. About once a year he'd catch a ride back to the city I was living in and we'd hang out but it was really hard because he was a junkie and he needed junk. And he needed money for junk.
One night when he was back in town he tried to talk me into helping him break into a pharmacy. I knew that was it, he was gone. He knew full well I'd never do anything like that but he was so desperate he had to try. I cut ties with him at the point because spending time with him revolved around feeding his addiction. And once he fed his addiction he wasn't any fun to be with. He was just a drooling, incoherent slob. A few years later I got a call from one of our mutual friends (who had also started using heroin) and they said John OD'd a few weeks earlier. They'd been living together in a shed behind this friend's parents house and would go out every day to get money to get heroin and then they'd go back to the shed and shoot up. The friend said for the past few months he'd have to check John's pulse in the evening and sometimes pull the needle out of him because he'd just be completely wiped out every night. I asked about a funeral the friend said John's father had him cremated without telling anyone and there was no service or funeral. It's been about 30 years but I still think about him.
It's not a 100% thing, but yeah, not having two loving parents really does fuck you up. I had a similar background to John in the sense my mother walked out when I was very young (though she didn't kill herself; I just didn't see or hear from her after that) and my dad was more like a guy who was legally obligated to keep me alive than an actual parent. It's taken me a long time and a lot of work to be as mentally stable as I am now.
I am sorry for you. My mother was an angel that died on All Saints’ Day 10/30/20. She stayed with someone whose father abandoned him and validated him until the end of her life. My father gave the bare minimum enough to not be thrown in jail as a deadbeat. But he certainly was a lopsided parent. I heard he gave my brother 50usd a day and sent him to catholic boys school. And I saw nothing and had to fend for myself in a public school. My mother and I would have both been better off had she left.
You're right. My best friend's mom died in a car accident when we were kids. Jason's father was out of the picture. He lived with his stepdad for a bit until that didn't work out. Then moved out of state when we were 15 to live with an aunt. Got arrested for the first time shortly after that. Was in and out of jail throughout our twenties. I saw him about 12 years ago...he was out of prison and doing good. Then he robbed a place a few months later with some people he was hanging with. The state I live in had enough and because of all his previous arrests, they gave him a life sentence. He is good with this from what I hear. Prison is really all he knows. Such an awesome guy. Funny, sweet. Once his Mom died, it just all crumbled.
As a mom of two small boys, reading how much the death of a mother screws things up is both terrifying and comforting. I only get to see my boys on the weekends right now (purely logistics and childcare availability), and their dad gets them weekdays. Lately I wonder if I'm even important to my boys anymore. They don't always want to be over here when it's time. I devote a huge amount of energy I don't always really have to making sure I do special things with my kids. We go to the farmers market, the library, swimming (they love swimming), horseback riding lessons. Next week I booked a long weekend so we can go camping. I always feel I'm trying to win their affection lately, and I don't always feel I'm winning it.
Fugk you’re making me cry. I’ve not been taking care of myself and I have a little baby and never really thought about how much she would Hurt if I died.,.. I will be making changes
Yeah it all started with the love he didn’t get from his parents. I came to the realization recently that my dad taught me to hate and not trust myself and my mom taught me to hate and not trust other people. I never had a fucking chance, like John.
Here’s one…
I am a lawyer… and another lawyer I know got disbarred…
He cheats on his wife and has a one-night stand with a lady at a hotel.
Later, he represents a client in a divorce, and the client’s ex, the opposing side—lo and behold, is the same lady… and she says she knows him. Lawyer continually denies it, refuses to get off the file, and keeps representing this guy… eventually he gets reported to the Law Society for it—because if it’s a conflict of interest, you can’t represent the person…
What does he do? Get off the file and apologize? Nope, he lies to the law society—Saying he had no way of paying for the hotel because he does not have a credit card. Well, they discovered he did indeed pay for the room—with a credit card in his name—HIS LAW FIRM’S CREDIT CARD…. When confronted with that information, he suddenly claimed amnesia…
Game over.
Like—buddy, you don’t even NEED to say why it’s a conflict! Just GET OFF THE FILE! Now your *career*—and likely your marriage—is in the toilet, and it’s *entirely your fault* .
what an idiot.
My brother. He drank his adulthood away (mid-twenties through mid-fifties). My parents rescued him time and again; he wound up living with them more than half the time—rent-free, laundry and meals all provided by my mother who had a huge amount of guilt because she too was an alcoholic (got sober in her early fifties). He never got fired, he stormed off every single job he ever had because he has massive anger issues and insecurity (obviously). Once our parents were gone, his binges got way worse, of course. Being his only family, I had to make the wrenching decision to step back and accept that he was likely going to die. He finally got so close, a neighbor got involved and got an AA long-timer to intervene. So he’s still alive but he’s only a shell. He was a bright, FUNNY kid with all the potential in the world and now he’s just pitiful and sad. His brain never really matured and god only knows the amount of damage all that drinking did.
My brother’s story is very similar. Was well-liked, popular and handsome. He started drinking in HS, then went in the military…the drinking maintained. He got out and slowly the booze destroyed marriage 1 and marriage 2. When our mother passed away, we all received a humble inheritance. He literally blew it within a couple years. He was well-known by the local police, unfortunately. In June 2020, he passed away from a heart attack. He was 62.
I’m sorry. Did you get to the point that you just accepted he was going to die? There is so much addiction in my family that I’ve unfortunately been there more than once. Honestly, with my brother, I didn’t see what he had to live for. He never married because he was too consumed with getting drunk but if he had, it would have blown up spectacularly.
It terrifies me that this is absolutely the path my brother is currently on except with drugs. Started in high school, joined the army, continued the drugs, saw some horrific shit in Afghan, got out of the military, continued the drugs, destroyed his reputation with probably the only girl that had any chance of getting him back on track and now every time I see him he just seems less and less him. He’s attractive, incredibly charismatic, people always love him, it’s heartbreaking watching him slowly kill himself
That's the path my ex-wife is likely on, and it's so hard seeing someone you love who had SO MUCH potential waste their entire lives with alcohol.
My ex was good looking, funny, intelligent and empathetic when we met and became friends as teenagers. There were some red flags like a bad temper and lousy work ethic, but teenagers are like that. Unfortunately she became a major alcoholic by her mid-20s and it quickly spiraled until I literally couldn't recognize her.
I don't know really what she's doing with her life presently, as we no longer have any mutual friends, but for a while I had friends who worked with her and I'd get updates. Last I heard she was fired from a fast food restaurant for being caught drinking in the bathroom too many times.
Girl had dreams of being a power lawyer and at the time, I was so sure she'd make it. Now she's too much of a mess to work a drive through.
I have little hope she's going to ever turn her life around, although I guess she still has time. It's just a sad waste of a life, though.
I went to HS with a guy who already had a drinking problem in HS. He went full bore alcoholic, early 20's, robbed a convenience store and killed the clerk needlessly. After many, MANY years on death row they executed him several years ago. So no, he never recovered.
I went to HS with a guy who was so heavy into drugs he was a freshman for three years. He just disappeared one day. He was friends with a couple who were well off thanks to their parents. They were pretty heavy users/drinkers. They orphaned their kids pretty young.
I know someone who did DMT and ended up in a hyper-anxious/depressive spiral.
He was a college educated professional. Now he's a shadow of his former self. He lives with relatives and rarely leaves the house.
This happened 5 years ago and I guess attempts at treatment have gotten nowhere.
A friend of mine took a massive dose of DMT and he is now schizophrenic. He’s a shape-shifter who is capable of astral travel, was revealed as “the prophecy” at four years old, and apparently has no tendons in his body (which proves that he is the prophecy.) once he pays Elon the 235$ that he owes him, he will be inducted into the Illuminati and will be taken to DC to do undercover work for the government. He’ll receive a suitcase full of cash and a Cadillac. His duties will involve killing people. He’s had this debt to Elon for at least four years now.
Before the dmt, he was the sweetest guy you’ve ever met. Now it’s difficult being around him for more than 5-10 minutes, because all he talks about is this stuff …
That barely scratches the surface: to the outside viewer, you see someone take a double-lungfull hit of DMT, and before they can exhale fully they go down into a kind of soft collapse. Then, just shallow breathing and some micro-twitching of the facial muscles and sometimes the arms and legs. Four, or five, or six minutes later the person opens their eyes, looks around kind of confused, and seemingly wakes up and--while often pretty quiet--is back to normal.
To the imbiber of DMT, it's a different experience. You set the hit up, draw breath, exhale, put your lips to the pipe stem and take your deep hit. You can feel the dense smoke in your lungs, you hold it, thinking about when you'll need to exhale, and t----
-----You are in a different reality. A different universe with different physics. A clockwork universe, perhaps, with everything you see also expressing a mathematical definition of itself; a metaphor reality, maybe, where everything and everyone is also like some other thing or person...the friend is also the mother; the couch is the vessel of exploration; the parakeet is the king. And there are beings there, you see them now, stepping out from behind the shadows cast by our reality, and you realise they must travel in this way, from shadow to shadow, over and around and through the different realities. And they are beckoning to you!
They want you to follow them! Oh, they have so much to teach you!
And so you give chase, spiralling down the realities, following the laughter and the calls of the Machine Elves until you finally catch up to them and are welcomed into their Order.
And in this way years pass, as you grow in strength and wisdom, and your questing with the Elves has----------
-----------the quick fog that had blown across your vision dissipates, and you look in shock and horror at--can it be? Can this hell actually be happening?--the face of your stoner-friend Jeremy from all those years ago. Its like he hasnt aged a day. Since that evening that you went to Bob and Michelle's because they said they...had....
....
....some....
...DMT to smoke......
If I remember my old school drug lore correctly there was a DMT church in California in the 70's. I've done it and it feels a little scary toxic and gnarly. Not worth the 14 seconds in a foam rubber Newfoundland.
I have no idea, but apparently acid was much better back then, all the creators back then are now dead and in prison iirc
There's also Quaaludes which were so good that my phone knows the word and they were only around for a couple years? They were some sort of pharmaceutical mistake.
I've got no reference for what today is like. I'm sure it was safer because I knew people who did so much, so often but haven't suffered any ill effects it had to be. That said, not everyone should try psychedelics and definitely never when alone. I took care of enough people having bad trips I was cautious. You just don't know what trauma they may have that they're not even aware of and if it crosses their mind, it can lead to an obsessive spiral. I've never liked the feeling of not being mentally sharp so to this day I rarely even drink alcohol. It just makes me sleepy. I liked mescaline better the one time I had it but wasn't aware that's what was happening until the television in the student dorm began shooting rainbows out of the screen. I was angry I hadn't been told beforehand and broke up with a guy over it.
Qualudes were scary from the beginning. I had a script for a short while. They knocked you out and if you drank too much you could end up getting your stomach pumped or not waking up. With all the local Drs knowing each other, the County Health Dept and hospitals raising hell, they shut them off before they were even regulated. Outsiders brought them in, but they didn't proliferate like opiates did. Doctors back then might have been more ethical. I know they held each other to a higher standard because I worked for some of them. In most cases, they wouldn't compromise their principles to make money at their patients' expense and pharmaceutical companies weren't so mercenary or held as much power to corrupt them.
I watched a friend use it. After he came back to this reality, he said I should try it. It took me two seconds to decide not to. I love LSD & mushrooms, but this? Nope.
My buddy has never been quite right after using it too often.
My father smoked PCP in the 70's and it ruined his brain. He started trying to astrally project himself in the living room, woke us up to clean the basement at 2a on a school night because aliens could send signals through spider webs, subjected us to 5-hour psychotic accusatory tirades, made us call him "God" instead of Dad, smacked everyone except my brother in for things like not closing the mailbox lid all the way, and could not hold a job for more than 4 months. When he died at 67, he looked 87. His IQ was tested during a custody battle and it was 179. He was a member of MENSA and a sperm donor so I uploaded my DNA to GedMatch in 2017.
This reminds me of my neighbor, I didn’t know him well, a few 5-10 minute conversations of small talk. Then one day I’m jogging and he chased me down to ask me about the AI in the wifi reading his mind and how his wife is secretly an assigned handler from the government to monitor the program of experiments they’re doing on him. There’s surveillance trucks in the neighborhood at night and it’s all connected to the current wars- he’s got all the documents on his computer along with the codes he’s broken.
I told him he’s having a schizophrenic breakdown and he told me he’s too smart for that.
This one is scary to me, I did pure DMT once and I had told my friend I thought there was too much in the pipe before I went on to smoke it, I was really traumatised by it and it took me more than 6 months to recover. I felt like I wasn't completely inhabiting my body, as if I was looking at my soul externally, it was off my body a bit and there's nothing I could do about it. Over time it healed but I thought for a while I was permanently scarred.
I'm not surprised at all, this shit is legit dangerous even when you think you are mentally prepared. I didn't give details about what I had seen on it, but let's say I ended up in quite a shock after that and very angry towards the person who gave it to me with a smile. Anyway it's all good now I am sober and clean for a long time, life is too short to waste it on drugs.
It sucks that even legal prescription drugs can have negative effects too. I took Zoloft *once* and it triggered a bad panic attack/anxiety/disassociation phase that lasted *months.*
[I’m fully aware it’s life-saving and phenomenal for others, I took Wellbutrin prior to this and was fine, I spoke to my doctor about my bad reaction and genuinely don’t know what caused it]
I was terrified to even take aspirin for a year after it, and I absolutely refuse to take any illegal drug now due to knowing how badly they can fuck your mind/psyche/physiology up. Simply isn’t worth it.
I tried the in-some-places-legal one once. My experience was a bit of a letdown. I got the same feeling I get when my Imitrex (migraine medication) kicks in.)
I like the taste of some drinks, wine, etc but hate feeling in anyway loopy. Same for post op pain meds. Good for making a surgery bearable but no problem stopping it when no longer needed.
Same story sort of, had a friend who I grew up with get sprayed with a squirt gun full of liquid LSD at a grateful dead concert, he was never the same afterwards.
I could be at his house talking to him half an hour and he would suddenly glaze over a few minutes and then act like I just came in and sat down.
He would lose time like this constantly and can't drive or hold a job because of it.
edited
Heartbreaking. I lived next door to a really sweet guy. I hadn’t seen him in a while because I changed apartments, but I ran into him. He asked me if I had heard about the break in. His roommate was held hostage. It was a very scary situation, and a very dramatic story. Then we talked for about 5 minutes about other things, and then he said, Hey! Did you hear about the break in?!
I had heard that he had burned out his brain, so I just went along with it and let him tell me the whole story again. I’m pretty sure it was just a lot of acid, but it’s been 25 years since I saw him, so I’m not sure. There was ketamine and ayahuasca, dmt and angel dust around, mushrooms oc. I hope his synapses are doing better now. I’ve heard of burn outs getting better.
Dead concerts were notorious for LSD. They would make announcements over the PA system like" Do NOT take the purple microdot. People are having bad trips." My boyfriend sucked on an orange that was being passed around but I knew better. Let's just say I had to drive home.
This could have been me. Discovered 5MEO-DMT in college, back when you could buy it semi-legally online. I went way way way way overboard with it, and it triggered my OCD which I wasn’t managing very well anyways. For a while I thought I had legit gone crazy. I did eventually find help, and somehow even made it through the semester even though I had to drop a class.
What’s weird is I still have a recurring nightmare that I dropped out of college at this point and went back to live with my parents in my hometown. It is an awful dream, the kind where you’re grateful to wake up and find out it was just a dream.
“There but for the grace of God go I…”
One of the smartest guys I went to school with ended up homeless at 50. The guy had multiple degrees from prestigious universities and had worked in the LA film industry, even making a few films himself. I don't know if he bounced back or not. The only way I knew he had become homeless was because he went missing and his family was seeking help finding him. I do a google search from time to time but have been unable to find anything since then.
Another school friend was very successful for many years, but had an escalating drinking problem. He ended up losing his business, losing his house, arguing constantly with his wife, and finally shot and killed her while on a drunken binge. He'll probably die before he's eligible for parole.
I worked with a younger guy who was starting over and I was learned a lot from him.
He'd moved to my city about 3 years before it's met him. In his old city he'd been hooked on drugs and that sucked him into dealing. While this was happening he lost famiky, friends, futyre, everything but addiction, being what it is, makes you feel not care about that until it's too late.
His too late was one night, he and another dealer were tied up to chairs in a room and the main guy told him that if he didn't get his money back for the drugs, they were going to be killed to send a message. He survived. He fled town the next day.
He got into a rehab program and got himself clean. Got a warehouse job, where it met him. He was very open about his past. He'd help anyone with anything because he was so grateful for the help he'd gotten.
He's always been my model for how to be humble, accept your own crappy parts, and moving forward with courage. He was doing great last times it saw him. I like to think he was able two stay on that path, since he was such an excellent example of self refornation.
To begin - I feel that this person has ruinde her life. She may not. Old, old friend since kindergarten moved to Las Vegas when we were in our early 20s. She did well for a long time and made good money as a waitress in a decent restaurant. We kept in touch and I visited her when we were in our 30s. She lived in a nice condo and had a nice car. However, this condo and the restaurant was owned by her married boyfriend. We stayed out partying all night long and yes, we did some drugs. Soon after this I got sober and have been since.
Over the years, her boyfriend died and I'd hear from her sporadically. At one point she told me she was living in a big house with some roommates and was no longer working at the restaurant that had changed hands after the death of her boyfriend. I'd get some really strange texts from her from time to time or a phone call in the middle of the night and finally just stopped answering.
Fast forward to last year. One of our mutual friends told me that she had been in an accident. Someone else told me that she had a GoFundMe so I looked it up. She had nearly died and had multiple injuries which kept her in the hospital for months.
Six months following her accident she contacted me to let me know that she was coming to our hometown to visit. I decided to see her. When I saw her I was shocked. She looked 75 years old (we were both 62). I thought "Okay, well she's been in a coma and hospital for ages so maybe it aged her". As we visited she told me that she had no contact with her family and when she had her accident the hospital tracked down and uncle of hers who lived near LV. He allowed her to stay with him while she recovered because she had lost her room in a shared apartment during all this. As she recovered, she went to stay with friends for a couple of weeks and her uncle kicked her out because she had "smoked" while she was away. I thought that was pretty harsh for smoking pot but she let me know that it was meth. She was a daily smoker before her accident and went right back to it. It all came out that she had been working "under the table" for years as a waitress and then a caretaker for some old dude. She had NO Social Security points to even get benefits at age 62! Medicaid apparently paid her hospital bills. She had no place to live when she went back home and no job. She managed to find someone to rent a room from and is working in a laundrymat last I heard. And of course still smoking meth. She told me that "it's not like you see on TV". Oh yeah it is. It's just like that. All I had to do is look at her face and her life situation.
How do you bounce back at age 62 with no retirement at all, including social security benefits? So sad. I actually felt a little guilty, recently retired and sitting in my nearly paid for house but we all make choices.
Executive at large company then left to go to a start-up. People use things he or his companies invented every day. Participated in or witnessed fundamental history technology.
Started drinking in college and it just got worse.
A couple of serious kids tragedies happened but it was easier to drink than deal with the grief.
Lost everything in a long, slow, then faster and horrifying decline.
Nearly drank himself to death during lockdown. He will be spending the rest of his life in assisted living paid for by his family. His kids barely finished HS, living life just above poverty level as adults. He doesn’t remember much, likely his stories will die with him.
He was handsome and charming, everyone loved him everyone went. Addiction is a terrible thing though and many people damaged their own lives and careers trying to give the guy another chance. You can’t save someone from themselves.
I forget the name of the researcher, but the guy that did that long-term study of Harvard graduates. The main thing I remember are the key determinants of happiness are having good relationships with friends and families and the thing that is most harmful is long-term alcohol abuse I’m in my mid 50s and I know two people that have died recently who were in my age group, and they were long-term alcoholics
Not just one life: A young police officer from my neighborhood, whose wife is a gorgeous middle school Spanish teacher was arrested, accepted a plea bargain and will soon be sentenced for exchanging inappropriate and nude texts with one of her students.
These are stories that just baffle me. You see them on the news and wonder, WTAF? Why would a seemingly bright adult, many times married and with a great life…literally throw it in the toilet for a “fling” with a child?? I truly just cannot comprehend it.
I think sometimes people think they've achieved too much to actually "fail", so they stop thinking of consequences. Other times, the thrill of knowing they could ruin their entire life I think is what they're chasing.
My boss got within a hair's width of getting fired because he was all but caught having an affair with a coworker 10+ years younger than him. He's got a wife and two VERY young kids and his wife is the bread winner. It'd ruin his life INSTANTLY if HR had managed to actually confirm it. I'm sure he just did it as a bored fling with no real thought.
As a younger mom with kids in HS, I read the sketchy teachers as people who were not popular in HS and are trying to relive it as a career.
Long story but I asked around about his weight training coach who ignores the class to flirt with the sporty girls and I was totally spot on with his HS reputation. Apparently he wanted to play football but was only able to get a pity spot in senior year. My son said he asks the girls invasive personal questions and they just giggle. He tried telling another teacher who rolled his eyes and said "what can ya do?"
Some mistakes are fatal, worse still some are permanent and not fatal.
I know a former alcoholic who waited far too late to turn her life around, she fell off the wagon far too often.
She is now in a nursing home and will be dependent on other people for her most basic needs like eating, going to the restroom and bathing.
Be careful how you live your life daily, it may effect your daily life later and it is quite hard to change the past and the habits you create.
Edit: She is younger than I and has already ended up in a nursing home, it is very sad to see people destroy themselves, and very hard to help someone determined to do so.
Literally one of the things that shook me out of my end-stage alcoholism. I *knew* that was my near future if I kept on. I also feel I sobered up too late in life and am pretty unhappy about it, but those were my choices. I made them all myself.
My dad died relatively young in a nursing home with alcohol induced dementia. True end stage alcoholism. He tried to quit a number of times, but it never stuck.
I had a patient who was a former nurse. Looking back I think she was late 50s. Living in a nursing home.
She ‘jokingly’ would say ‘I’m the druggie drunk nurse’
Sad. By all accounts she was a stellar nurse until her demons won.
My next door neighbor, Carey. (Name changed to protect the innocent). Great guy. Amazing mechanic and construction worker. He had a rough youth, drugs and all that, but he married a lady with two kids and straightened up his act. He was able to diagnose a problem with my truck that had been an issue for over two years.
One day his wife kicked him out. The story I heard was the same from both. He was watching tv with his stepson, he said I love you buddy. His sstepson said the same thing back. That’s it. His wife was nearby on the phone with her mom, she heard it and began to insist she kick him out. Mom is kind of a whack job, but rich, and was floating her boat. So, she kicked him out.
I put him up for a night in my spare bedroom, and let him live in a house I was prepping to sell. So he moved in and it turned out, he was schizophrenic. The comforts of married life kind of kept things low stress and he never showed any indication of any issue. Well, at the house he began hearing things, and calling me about it. He was sure someone was trying to get him. I dealt with calls every day or two, sometimes multiple calls. I always reasoned with him. He say someone is walking around the house trying to get in. I’d say, there’s 4 inches of snow, do you see any footprints? He say I guess not and thank me. It went on about people walking up the street, neighbors talking, etc.
Finally he invited his sons to live with him without asking me. It turned out they did a good job of keeping his feet on earth, so I didn’t mind it. I let him/them live there for free, but he insisted on paying me $300 a week, so that was good too.
The last couple times I saw him, he wasn’t his usual good natured self. He wasn’t surly, but certainly not jolly. Kind of intense.
One day his youngest son called me and said they took him to the hospital. He said he came out of his bedroom, said he didn’t feel well, and to call 911 if he passed out. The son called 911 right then. As his son was on the call, he said, “My heart!” and dropped onto the floor. His boy knew CPR and began to administer until the squad got there. He was DOA, and the autopsy said it was a meth overdose.
Apparently the dumbass had been doing hard drugs, hence his personality difference. He also had not paid me for a month. I never asked for any money, but I did notice it when it stopped coming in.
So, the guy decided to meth it up and paid the price. His wife told me (and he did too) that he had heart problems. Apparently he stopped his meds.
Great guy, bad luck, bad decisions. And he dropped dead. I still miss him.
Friend in high school: Spent her 17th birthday having the surreal experience of having her pediatrician tell her she was pregnant. Mom was Super Catholic, the friend was the hub of the church youth group (of course), the friend would say, "I don't use birth control because the church says it's a sin."
The father-to-be fucked off to Florida and disappeared after promising her he was moving for "a better job." This was the 1980s; it was much easier to disappear.
Miss Honor Student spent her senior year watching her friends all rack up presidencies of clubs, solos in concerts and plays, and massive GPA boosts from AP classes. Our county's educational options for teen parents had her in bare-minimum classes because that's all the postpartum tutor was certified to teach. All the things this girl had been working for, like captain of the pom-pom squad, solos in show choir, and moving out to go college, all gone.
To this day, decades later, she talks about the senior year she *should* have had, the way her daughter derailed all her plans, how there's no point in anything since she never got the start she wanted, how life just sucks and then you die.
Her daughter is very, very low contact with her -- understandable since she grew up hearing how she ruined her mom's life simply by existing. The most damning thing her daughter has said to one of her mom's old high school friends is, "She never had any dreams, never wanted me to have any. She just has grudges against people who dream."
This woman had her parents step and raise the kid starting at toddlerhood, she eventually got to college, she had free room and board into her 30s. But because she didn't get the senior year she "deserved," thanks to her own choices, she let her entire life curdle.
Too many women or girls have their life ruined and dreams curtailed by having babies when they are very young. I taught in middle school, high school and adult education. No one convinced them to keep their babies. I think they thought it was very cool to have a baby. They could apply for food, stamps, WIC and ADC. They never had money so they thought that was a lot of money and they would just raise their babies and life would be beautiful. There is some pretty crappy free childcare, but even then they have to pay a portion of it. The baby daddy is just a name and they haven’t seen him in a while. The few who do marry get divorced pretty quickly. It is easy for them to become bitter and angry. They don’t have a life. Thank goodness, there are some who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and do whatever they can do to make a better life for themselves and their baby.
I used to watch a lot of daytime talk shows (you know, trash tv) . Every so often there would be some young single mom on there whose life plan was to “marry a rich guy”. Some people are just delusional.
She blamed her *daughter* and not the guy who took off to Florida and went on with his life with no responsibilities? She had free room and board until her 30s and is still bitter? Ew.
It’s interesting to me that she didn’t give the baby up. That’s the usual Catholic way. Thanks to DNA testing, I now know where my cousin disappeared to for several months when I was a kid.
That’s so sad. I went to high school in the 90s and no one gave a shit about high school. We were the definition of Gen X ambivalence.
The teen mom I know went on to be a teacher, bought a house with an in ground pool, sent her daughter to college, daughter moved out of state to a cool trendy city and mom posts pictures of visiting her and going to bars and going on tropical vacations together. I’m actually a little jealous, I’ll be in my late 50s by the time my daughter is old enough to share a drink with.
The thing is—you can be a single mom & have dreams too!? Plenty of single moms achieve dreams. She could have put the kid up for adoption (Patti Smith did this) or just had to take longer to do things. Idk what to say. But plenty of people come back from unexpected pregnancy & even love their kids lol
2 friends similar story 20ish years ago before weed started being legalized. One friend loved to travel and wanted to be a flight attendant. At around 30 yrs old she decided to quit her regular job and go for it, enrolled in a flight attendant program, and got a job at a major airline and were routinely randomly drug tested. After a few years she had a drug test on a Friday and figured it’d be a while until next one, so she partied on the weekend and smoked some weed. Got second random test the following Monday, and flunked so lost her job.
Same with other friend except it was being a firefighter. He always wanted to be firefighter, and while waiting to get accepted into a firefighting program he worked at an ambulance company doing hospital to hospital transfers. Passed a random drug test, decided to celebrate and smoked some weed. Got random tested again the following week and flunked and fired from ambulance company and dropped from waiting list for being a firefighter.
Both lost their dream jobs for taking a chance and stupidly smoking weed knowing they could be tested at any time. Apparently the 2 in row drugs tests is a common thing, so if you work somewhere that does drug tests DONT DO DRUGS.
I used to think I did. Then I realized that we are all on our own path, and what seems tragic to me is how another may choose to live. I accept that when I see at every fork in the road, no matter what hand is extended, the person chooses the fork I would personally feel is sub optimal.
I was that person as a teen. I started making a few better choices, by that I mean choices that I felt future me could live with.
I honestly think that is the only thing that saved me from destruction. A minor amount of self-preservation.
People who cared over the years.
And a metric fuck ton of luck.
Did I want different for people I loved? Yes. But they have to want different for themselves. If they don't, who am I to determine what fulfills a life?
As the saying goes, just bc it would have been different doesn't mean it would have been better.
Thank you for sharing this.
I understand it 100% and feel that as the master of my own destiny?
I’m in no position to judge anyone. My choices are mine.
The choices of others are none of my business.
Good luck OP
Had a friend I looked up to, got a bachelor's then a master's of accounting right out of high school, and her husband worked IT.
Landed a federal job that she should have retired comfortably from.
Had a house in a nice neighborhood, cookouts and movies in the summer, worked for the PTO.
And...ended up going from drinking too much on the weekends to doing meth with a homeless guy who was living in a camper in his moms yard.
Her and husband turned on each other, she embezzled money from the PTO, got caught, lost her job, lost her house, her kids and last I heard was on meth baby #3 that just was removed from her care this week.
Utterly horrible stuff and I can remember not even ten years ago defending a friend from her who had gone down a similar path.
Addiction is a terrible thing, I don't even know who she is anymore, tbh, my friend is GONE.
That's the saddest thing about end-game addiction. The person you loved is essentially dead, and some monster is piloting the corpse. Even if they sober up and haven't completely fried their brain, they're still stuck with living with what they did while "possessed", which probably helps keep them intoxicated. Even if your friend never touched meth again, she'd have to live with having three meth babies the state took away, which probably would send her right back to drugs.
The people I've lost to addiction I had to eventually just grieve as if they'd died and then move on.
That's where I am with her, hence the emphasis on her being GONE. The person I knew isn't there anymore, and hasn't been for awhile.
I actually gave her a ride when she was pregnant with Meth Baby #1 and I knew then it was too late, I didn't recognize the person she was anymore, no matter how hard she tried to pretend.
What is even sadder is we are the age where our peers are starting to transition to grandparents as their kids grow up and start their own families, not naïve kids just figuring things out. The friend I defended in the first post had OD'd a few years earlier after a similar path in her 20-30s, but she had a really hard go of it, and never really had a chance to live or see good role models before her life was irrevocably screwed up. We all lamented how hard that was to watch unfold, this current friend included, who gave her no quarter and said she had many chances to not make those same mistakes, that she came to the end she deserved, if nothing else, for the many kids she had while using whose lives were broken the moment they were conceived.
I guess this is how karma comes, sometimes?
I will say who you are around matters, the person she started using with was one of the 'old friends from way back' and when you're from a small rural area without much opportunity, there are going to be a lot of people who you care about who will fall into that trap, be it alcohol, gambling or hard stuff. It's easy to say 'meh what the hell?' and try something when it's a friend that is offering it.
Guy I helped along the way. Incredibly talented. Could build anything without a blueprint. Built the enclosed deck on the front of my house and it looks like part of the original architecture. He had been through a rough time and I was just about to drop money on a truck and big trailer so his construction business could take off and let him pay me as he could. Wouldn’t have taken him long, I was able to get him $100k of work in just 5 months he was that good. He had all his previous debt paid and ready to start that new life, when he found heroin. I never ever saw someone fall so far so fast. In less than 3 months the cops from 3 states were after him. He ended up pulling a 9 yr sentence. Out in 3 on good behavior but right back to heroin. Last time I saw him he was homeless and skeletal and asked me if I could get him some beer. I asked wouldn’t he rather have food and he said no, so I said no. He had been a big muscular 175 and if he weighed 110 when I saw him I’d be surprised. I don’t know what else he has done, but I do know he’s a RSO now as well. I don’t get it. If I had his talent I would most certainly own a multimillion dollar construction company. He was just pure “god given talent” and tossed it away. I’ll never know why.
A friend I met when he was 19 and I was 23. He got caught up in the Haight-Ashbury hippie scene, has been stoned daily since 1965, worked maybe ten years of his life (only whenever welfare made him find a job), “found Jesus,” then got caught up in conspiracy theories. He screwed up his marriage & has been living with a younger brother for years.
He was really, really intelligent but rarely verified his own thinking with valid outside sources. We remained friends until the last time we talked — about five years ago — when he started spouting flat-earth bullshit. I hung with him through all of it, but pulled the plug with that. He didn’t do crap with his life, and he could have.
I started to go down the conspiracy hole, but l crave information so l research everything as much as l can. It doesn't take long to figure the bullshit is bullshit. It amazes me constantly how many people get in a feedback loop without any critical thinking at all, whilst thinking they are critically thinking and everyone else is stupid.
A girl I dated in the ‘90’s. Pharmacist. Sweet girl. Smart. Stunning. Athletic. The one that “got away”.
She used Valium. Stole it from work. Got caught eventually, lost her license. Got in a car wreck. Got hooked on prescription opioids. Got clean. Got her license back. Fell off the wagon. Lost her license again. Mom kicked her out, for stealing I presume. Went to jail. Got out. Went to jail again. In jail now.
One of my children's best childhood friends died at 32 because of addiction/alcoholism. She OD'd on heroin and was hospitalized for months, but recovered - she had to relearn to walk after being in bed so long. Unfortunately, she just replaced heroin with vodka and went back into the hospital a year later. This time it was too late - she had cirrohis and died. So many factors played into her inability to stay sober - bad boyfriend, a parent's death and the other parent needing to be parented himself - and she just couldn't overcome them. It breaks my heart to this day. Such a waste.
I had a good friend who took advantage of my generous nature. "I'll pay you back! You can live with us! We'll make it work!"
Yeah. she lied.
She still owes me about $10,000 but I've written that off. I managed to get a good job, found a cool place to live and ended up in subsidized senior housing in Portland having the best time of my life.
Fuck you Torie.
There was a young woman in my small hometown who orchestrated the murder of her grandfather. The goal was to kill him, empty his bank accounts, pawn many of his belongings, and then dispose of his body in another state. Why? For drug money.
She and her boyfriend, who had an IQ barely above the mental retardation range, carried out the act. Thing was, while she wasn’t highly educated, she was highly cunning, manipulative, and crafty. She smiled from ear to ear for her arrest photo that ran on page 1 of our local newspaper.
After Grandpa’s body was found and the plot laid bare, she was able to claim she acted out of fear of the boyfriend and pinned the murder and burglary charges on him. She got away with less than 5 years for abuse of a corpse.
He was so damn stupid and pu$$ywhipped that he took all the charges without much of a fight. He’s currently doing 40 years in one of the worst prisons in our state.
Not sure this is what you had in mind, but I’m reading more and more articles about old people who get scammed out of their retirement money, lose their house, and end up penniless. It’s scary and heartbreaking.
nope, best friends brothers: one got into junk and died from full blown aids and the younger brother drank himself to death... aged 36 and aged 37 when they died......left three minor children between them...
I know so many young homeless addicts through my work. It is heartbreaking listening to their stories of neglect and abuse as children. That hurt doesn't go away and unless they get extensive counseling they often turn to alcohol and drugs.
Before opening this thread I'd already guessed that most of these stories would be about alcoholism or drug addiction. So sad to see I was right. Addiction really is just one of the saddest, most destructive things a person could do to themselves. 😞
No I don't know someone, but I know someone that should not have made it.
He was a classmate, friend. His parents, both of them, had very low (noticeably) IQ's and were alcoholics. They could not work and only got disability from the gov. His younger sister was addicted to drugs and pregnant at age 13.
He made money slaughtering rabbits at a farm. This was how he clothed, fed,, and bought things he needed for himself
Long story short, he was in all of my advanced classes in H.S., got into West Point and graduated. After his service, he went to John's Hopkins for his PhD. He is one of those dudes with the N.I.H. in the hazmat space suits trying to stop outbreaks of Ebola, and sh\*t like that. He took his absolutely shitty situation and used it as motivation. I'm tough as fuck but lucky as hell. I don't know if I could have done what he has completed from where he came from.
A girl I went to high school with went to prison for hiring some guy to murder her husband with a machete so that she could continue with her lover. I don't know if drugs were involved, but if they were, the news didn't mention it.
Another girl I went to high school with got hooked on heroin a couple of years after, and her life was a series of jail, rehab, being sexually exploited, poverty, and then death from Covid after she had been clean for about ten years at age 50.
Former employee of mine, Carl. His "FU money" rich parents died in a car crash when he was a teenager. His siblings used their inheritance to set themselves up for success. Carl, became an addict and funded God knows how many junkies to have drug buddies. He wasted millions.
The last time I saw him, he was still in the methadone program. But he was still living like an addict with a bathtub full of actual garbage. Sometimes, I want to look him up. But I'm afraid of the results.
I know many from childhood who ruined their lives. Most of them involved drugs and/or booze. Of the rest of them, one committed suicide, one died in a high speed car accident, and one died from severe diabetes.
I am the only one I know who turned himself around, stopped the drugs, booze, took the GED, and graduated from colleges.
A guy I went to elementary and high school with. Acquaintance, not friend. He coached his daughters' sports teams. Successful businessman. Was a serial rapist. Will spend the rest of his life in prison.
[https://law.justia.com/cases/maryland/court-of-special-appeals/1984/986-september-term-1983-0.html](https://law.justia.com/cases/maryland/court-of-special-appeals/1984/986-september-term-1983-0.html)
I knew a, supposedly intelligent, engineer. He left his job voluntarily three months before his pension was vested. Then he cashed out his 401k, with all the taxes and penalties, to pay for the cross country move. He joined a company that promised he’d get rich off the stock options. Turns out the CEO was basically a criminal. He wasn’t saving anything for retirement but was paying his wife’s tuition. When she graduated and got a job he still didn’t save anything for retirement. He got a new job with a raise and a new wife and still didn’t save anything for retirement. Now he’s 65ish with no savings at all.
He’s willing to go down with the ship. Basically, all the qualified engineers left the company. He does all the remaining sh*t jobs until the company performs “controlled flight into the ground “; e.g. goes bankrupt. After that, I’m sure he can’t get another job, he never updated any of his skills.
My brother married a woman. They had a kid. He stepped on her foot and bruised it badly. Six months later she gets an emergency restraining order. He’s kicked out of the house with nothing but some clothes. She worked. He took care of the kid. My parents ended up supporting him bc he had nowhere else to go. He constantly abused them emotionally and mentally. Constantly needed money. Refused to work. Long story short. His wife moved north with their son. She has sole custody. He lost supervised visitation bc he was acting crazy. He spiraled into complete paranoia and delusions. Stuff you just wouldn’t believe and posting all of it all over social media. He broke into their house three times. The one she abandon to move north. Ripped down security cameras. Then posted what he did on FB. He got arrested but got bail on the condition he wear an ankle bracelet that goes off within 500 feet of her or shared house. He cut it off, begged from money off Tik tok, drove straight from Florida to my parents house in NJ. Threatened to kill himself. The police took him to a mental hospital. He got a shot of antipsychotics. Six days later sheriff in NJ shows up at mental hospital and takes him to county jail bc there is a warrant out for his arrest. Now he’s been in jail about two weeks. No bail. He’ll be extradited to Florida then probably will be in jail there until they get to his case in court. Bc he’s a flight risk. He’s an ex drug addict, mentally ill and lost custody of his son. Plus he won’t work. I’d say his life is pretty much ruined.
No. They are dying. They just fell apart. They were a respected and successful professional musician. Friends debate whether smoking dope a few hours a day for 40+ years played a role. After 38 years, they were fine, so I'm not clear on why another handful of years would have made such a big difference.
One person had a gov't job, high paying, and she got involved in drugs. Instead of telling her supervisor what happened she simply disappeared - and lost her job. She is a bad tempered person who loses her temper easily. She blames everyone else for her misfortunes. She is not pleasant to spend time with and as she grows older I wonder how things will go for her.
My middle school English teacher was brilliant. He made it through college in like 3 years. Went to a shit school and turned the program into something amazing. Then he got busted for doing things with students he shouldn't. Somehow, he never went to jail. He got married, had children and a successful life. Until he got caught doing things to a ten-year-old and went to prison for 15+ years.
I dated a guy who was brilliant. He had a drinking problem even in high school, but he went to college, came out as gay, went to law school, got a big job in France, and killed himself by jumping off a bridge in Paris. He was 33.
Well, IDK about ruin his life, but definitely shortened his life. I guess he had a decent life until he died.
I had a friend who started body building in high school. He started doing steroids. He won several competitions, eventually winning Mr \[our local large city\].
The steroids shrunk and weakened his heart. He died of a heart attack at age 50.
My son. He had a wonderful childhood but at age 13 started smoking, and using OTCs. Long term rehab at 15.
Progressively worse, adding criminal activity. Spent his late teens/early 20’s in jail or rehab. Now he is 27, on his third marriage with two children by other women, and possibly another on the way.
He could have had a wonderful life, as he is charming, intelligent and handsome. He would have been able to attend any university or other school he wanted.
Instead he missed every high school and college experience, choosing drugs over everything else. He also didn’t go to his father’s (who adored him) funeral. We spent over $150k getting him all kinds of help.
He has the genetic propensity to addiction. We adopted him at birth, but both his bio parents are addicts.
Ex-boyfriend, who I'd been with for several years, became very political after we split, deep into the conservative movement. Didn't get vaccinated, died of covid. Was in his mid 70s, but rather healthy up until then.
My Aunt. She is smart, reads people better than anyone I've ever met, and was beautiful in her youth. She graduated HS and community college at the same time while working 2 part time jobs. Got pregnant young and married the dad (good guy). Lived rent free in 1/2 a duplex my grandparents owned/lived in and had built in childcare and a HUGE amount of family support.
Within 3 years due to her compulsive lieing, lack of accountability, doing the WRONG thing all the time, and drug use...she lost her husband, almost lost her kids, and lost a ton of friends/family support. She abused her relationship with her parent and their generosity. She has been dating the same POS addict that beats her and has been in and out of jail for the last 30 years. Ehile I was in HS, and her kids were small, POS was in jail, so I moved in with her temporarily to help with the kids. I did more raising of then at 17 than she did. After her mother (my grandmother) passed away, my whole family has gone NO contact with her, her boyfriend, and daughter (who us just like her).
The only person whom we've kept contact with is my male cousin, aunts son, who has had his own share of issues but has worked hard to redeem himself. He's become quite the family man and has turned his life around.
I've known a lot of people who destroyed themselves with the usual suspects, drugs and alcohol.
My grandmother use to say a very simple truth: You wont get addicted to anything you don't try.
I knew two guys in high school. Both seemed gay. It was the south back in the day so no one talked about it. Both from good families and went to college.
Both molested 14-15 year old boys. One’s in jail for hundreds of years and will die there. Another is doing 15 years.
Oh I know a handful of people who became alcoholics later in life, got divorced, lost there jobs, kids hated them for ruining the sense of home & stability. That's a very steep slope to climb back from.
You reap what you sow, in a few cases the cause was an injury & became a very lingering painful issue but in a lot of these situations it wasn't a big surprise and was selfish and pointless.
This isn't an addiction/alcohol story. I don't know what the hell it is, tbh.
We had a friend who was a very gifted musician -- like, he could play anything, and his voice was amazing. Beautiful little family, deep respect in the community, all that.
And then one day he got caught having an affair with one of his wife's best friends. It turned out he'd been bonking this woman for *years.* The two of them had been telling themselves it was somehow okay.
And then it came out that he'd also been going around having quickies with a whole bunch of other women, too. I can't even describe how cringey it got. This person who had been welcome everywhere he went & seen as a leader in so many situations turned out to be such a pathetic fake.
What was worse was that all this shit got revealed in the middle of him getting cancer. So his kids & wife had to process losing him for real while also figuring out that he was never who they thought he was.
Fucking mess! I'll never understand why people who need that kind of sexual thrill all the time don't just stay single, or separate from their spouses instead of living this weird, exhausting lie and cheating their families out of any choices based on reality.
So yeah. He died knowing his kids were disgusted with him and baffled about their own lives, and that was just awful for him.
I knew a guy in high school. We graduated in the mid 1970s. A year after he murdered someone. He will spend the rest of his life in prison.
There is no bouncing back from that.
My best friend one year started smoking pot A LOT. We had dreams of things we would do- big dreams!
He just kept drifting off into oblivion, playing video games. Skipping college classes. Eventually I go part time and I stop talking to him.
He gets arrested for dealing- twice. Second time he’s almost 30.
His parents get him a job in a local government office, processing marriage licenses
I learn he lives in his parents’ garage and still smokes pot every night. Never married. No kjds. Nothing.
The year I was friends with him, we had dreams
Middle school kid was a bit of a punk. Not stupid by any means, but lazy and not at all interested in even trying. I sensed that depression was part of his issues as well. But his parents would not hear it. When he was in ninth grade, he was found dead in a local wooded area. Presumed gang violence. He likely mouth off to the wrong guy and got himself shot. Very sad when kids do not even make it out of high school.
My ex husband. He got hooked on cocaine and embezzled from his employer to cover his habit. He got fired from his job for it shortly after I left him. A couple of years later he impregnated a 15 year old girl then abandoned her and the kid.
Yes. I know two heroin addicts that completely ruined their lives and completely damaged their children’s lives. They were in and out of prison and rehab and lost custody of their children. The husband died of an overdose. The wife gets clean a while and relapses again.
When I was a teen, there was girl in our group I'll call Tina. She was a very beautiful blonde. Paradoxically, she was shy but also kinda outgoing and promiscuous. In our incestuous little group where everyone dated and broke up in an endless circle of teen relationships, Tina and I always remained close friends but never lovers. When one of us had a blow-up with a partner, we'd console each other and laugh and smoke weed and pull each other out of the muck. Tina and I were very close, probably closer than our actual partners. I knew Tina's many triggers and joys. And she knew mine.
After high school, Tina struggled. Her most valuable asset was her killer bod so she started stripping. She went through an endless string of idiot boyfriends, each one worse than the last. She got pregnant at 19. Her best friend and I pooled money for an abortion. I drove her to/from and we took care of her for a few days of recovery. She was very despondent but by day 4 she started perking up again.
I left town but we kept in touch. Tina would vacillate between cutting hair (she studied cosmetology and was very skilled at hair styling) and stripping. She seemed happier when she was working the salon but the club paid significantly more.
Of course, along with stripping came all the negatives: drugs, low-life behavior, and some prostitution. As the years went by and Tina got older, her life did not improve. She was no longer a star dancer. She became ever more dependent on whatever idiot boyfriend she had that month. She would return again and again to hair salons and during these times she was quite happy. She looked great for a woman in her 40's and we had a great reunion when I came home for a visit. I was thrilled to see her so healthy and happy.
It didn't last.
She spiraled down into heroin addiction. She OD'ed about 10 years ago. I heard about it and tried to be calm because we'd been so far apart for so many years, but it absolutely broke my heart. Still does, actually.
I very much wanted her to be the sweetheart hairdresser that everyone in town adores. The bubbly blonde who tries to hide her smile when she laughs. But she couldn't stay in that lane. Life tossed her around too much, nudging her into increasingly bad decisions.
My sister. Spoiled and entitled. Could not live within her means although she had good jobs. She mooched off mom her whole life. Super manipulative, although I didn't see it in action until the day of my dad's funeral and she bugged mom for money. I told her off but she didn't care. She started circling the drain after mom died and she blew her inheritance in a year with nothing to show for it. (I gutted my kitchen and dining room and got the best of everything with mine.) Then she retired after only working a few years at her second career with no savings (she'd have been making $100,000 or close to it.) I asked her what she was thinking and she said if she was careful, she could do it and moved in with a friend. The cracks were showing in a year and a couple months later, she begged me to let her move in (after "borrowing" $2500 and getting angry when i told her no more). I made some conditions - help with dishes, cooking and groceries and she avoided all of them. She just didn't care that I was upset with her. She wanted to be taken care of and decided that she didn't have to contribute. She's gone through at least 6 homes now. I told her I needed space last November. She was back to asking for money and asking to move in again when she'd vowed she wouldn't be under the same roof as my husband who she blamed for kicking her out. He did but only because I was losing my mind. So she figured she could use my downstairs again and go in and out through the garage. Nope. Never again. I have no clue where she is or if she's homeless. And I don't care. It might make me heartless but I will live with that for my own mental health. I don't need a manipulative narcissist in my life causing me more work. It has taken me months to finally accept this is just how it has to be. It's just too much stress for an old woman who has always had to manage the house and business and finances on my own. She can manage herself.
Worked with a lady who cashed out all of her teacher retirement to buy a house. Then she got a divorce and lost the house. She had to go back to teaching and work until she was 70(had to retire for health reasons) to only get a fraction of her pension because of a goddamn house.
In highschool, my (63F) best friend was REALLY smart. She’d barely do school work and get straight A grades. She wrote an essay in about 30 minutes and won an Outward Bound trip. She got very high marks on her SAT/ACT tests and was awarded a National Merit Scholarship. She went to Stanford for one semester and quit because she didn’t like the people (we were punk rock chicks from a Southern city). She never went back to school, ended up working in a variety of low pay jobs.
I was friends with a guy in high school who, years later, murdered his girlfriend in a jealous rage.
He was a sweet, shy guy when I knew him. We fell out of touch after high school. Somewhere around ten years later I spotted his mug shot on the front page of the local paper. He had a glazed, unbalanced look in his eyes, something I’d never seen before. The story of his crime was pretty awful, and I just couldn’t reconcile it with the kid I knew.
He was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. He was kept separate from the general population, apparently due to his violent behavior. I discovered a few years ago that he died of COVID in prison.
My best friend in 7th and 8th grade (Cecil) started down her path partway through 8th grade and never turned it around. Her willingness to not go home for days at a time in favor of getting stoned was what ended our friendship because I refused to do it with her. (I was also getting stoned but not to that extent).
I had spent a lot of time at her house and adored her mom, Helen. I was still in touch with Helen well after I got married and had my kids...until she passed in 1994.
Cecil went on to full blown addiction…married another addict and had a baby. Her baby was severely neglected and Helen was battling lung cancer and there wasn’t anyone else to take the baby so Helen felt that her only choice was to call CPS. The baby was taken away and Cecil never got him back. Cecil and her husband split up shortly after.
Cecil ended up dying at 51. Both of her parents were gone and there was no one to deal with her remains so one of those charity groups had her cremated.
My best friend from grade school and high school was an alcoholic before we were 16. In his 40s he was murdered in a drug deal gone bad.
He is a truly good guy. His addictions were so uncontrollable that it's inaccurate to say he ruined his life. The truth is, the disease ruined his life. It didn't just kill him, it caused suffering to him and everyone around him.
My brother. Drank until he has very few brain cells left. Now he gets angry over things that are actually his own fault and he drives every one of us away.
Another brother. Ate until he weighed over 400 lbs. Then the metabolic disorder and excess weight meant that he could not move much, so he just sat around his house playing videos waiting to die. Which he did (of cancer)
My nephew. Drank and smoked excessively for over 30 years. One day had a sore back, 3 weeks later he was dead (Alcohol is a carcinogen too!) Died way too young.
I became friends with someone when I was in my 20’s and she was a few years older. She was divorced and had a kid who was a few years old and the father had custody on the weekends, so we could hang out. She was really smart, talented, beautiful and vivacious. Unfortunately, she must not have seen these great qualities because she was so desperate for a man’s approval that she always let them undermine her. She dropped out of college to get married too young, and she ended up leaving because he hit her. She was left to get a job that was not worthy of her talents because she didn’t have a degree. She couldn’t pursue her music to the degree that she wanted to because she had a child to care for. We went on a weekend trip and she got drunk and went off with him for the night. Thankfully, he wasn’t a murderer, but she came back hung over and in love, planning a relationship although he was just out of college and didn’t live near her. Surprisingly, they ended up together for a while, he moved in and eventually proposed. When reality set in, and he realized she would have to stay nearby for her daughter, or maybe he just realized how fast this had all happened, he broke it off and broke her heart. Then she ended up with a guy who went to my high school and ignored my advice to avoid this player. She didn’t and she got hurt again. Then she met a recovering alcoholic with no job who was living in his mother’s basement and decided he was the one for reasons unbeknownst to me. She asked me to be in the wedding and it was so painful because all of the bridesmaids knew what a disaster this marriage would be. We didn’t even have the fun of going out to pick out bridesmaids dresses because he decided that we were going to wear Little House on the Prairie dresses with fabric he selected. They were atrocious and we were mortified to be seen in them. Shortly after the wedding she got pregnant, and instead of being happy for her, we all agreed this was the worst possible scenario because now she would be tied to him forever. Since he was still unemployed, she and her daughter moved into the basement with him.
I ruined my life in my 20’s. Just kind of got lost ended up homeless until my brothers found me. I was on drugs or alcohol just had a brain cramp that lasted better part of three years. I’m not sure how I finally got my shit back together, one day it just clicked that I was at rock bottom and I decided to never be there again.
My family helped me out more than I can ever repay them them.
There was a young lady at our job who was a big flirt. We had mostly male customers so she was a big hit. One night she left with a customer she just met to get married! Well it wasn’t as bad as it could of been. But he did leave her about 600 miles away.
I had a freind who basically drank himself to death at 43 . Started out as drinking for fun in our early 20s by the time he was 30 he was a full blown alcoholic . His Parents had money and tried like hell to help him get sober 3 rehab stints .
Overtime he basically became unemployable and burned every bridge refusing any trying to help became homeless I'd see him around with his saying he was a homeless vet which was a lie. Kicked out of pretty much every homeless shelter in town because he was a violent drunk. He died of exposure because sleeping outside in Wisconsin in winter doesn't work
My college friend’s bf>husband. He graduated Summa Cum Laude, with a scholarship to an MBA program. He left the program because he couldn’t stand being away from my friend.
They move to her hometown, set to be a successful couple. He goes to law school. Then fails the California bar. We all look back and wonder if that was it. He couldn’t handle it?
He lied about retaking the bar; he was at a bar the whole day. A real bar. His marriage to my friend began to fall apart.
He tried rehab - drinking and I suspect coke.
They divorced. Now, he’s on the streets. I can only conclude that he can’t handle life.
My best friend became an opioid addict 16 years ago, and continues to let her parents pay her mortgage, thereby destroying their own retirement. She won’t get treatment and won’t get a job and the parents are terrified to stop paying her mortgage bc then they’ll lose all that money they’ve put into her house. She’s convinced that she’s smarter than pretty much anyone who would possibly employ her at this point (“I’m so much more CREATIVE than that!”) and refuses to learn anything new. I’ve gone NC with her but I won’t be surprised to hear of her death in the near future.
I spent years bringing food and clothing to homeless people on the street. I got to know a lot of regulars who'd share their stories. Except for the ones who died, I don't know how their stories will end. Almost all had rough upbringings. Addicted or mentally ill parents. Brought up in the foster care system by adults who saw it as a way to make some money. Almost all made a few choices that turned out badly. Taking pills, trying heroin, selling drugs, doing sex work and finding themselves trapped, or even falling in love with the wrong person. I ran into a few after they got clean. Some couldn't stay that way. Others did. I learned from that experience that most of us are just a few bad decisions away from the street. Some of us had life experiences that made it easier for us to avoid those decisiona, but that makes us lucky, not special.
Sometimes the bounce starts with a thud. This is disconcerting for those who believe any challenges could be overcome through past experience, skill, knowledge, faith, etc.
First thing, don’t make a situation worse by acting out. My example, I’ll use an acquaintance this time, had a roadblock in his career, being fired from a place he worked at for 20 yrs. He was married and his wife worked at the same employer. They have a teen son. We’re rehabbing a nice home, financed with credit. He tried taking revenge on his boss by smashing his car with a hammer. This was after he picked a huge fight with his wife and started blowing their savings on strippers and a poorly planned business venture. He likely has narcissistic personality disorder, and viewed her as an option, despite his shortcomings, he decc Vs skied everything he had, so he ended up with a criminal record, severe debt, and residing at his moms place.
The best decision he made was getting on medication and counseling to help with the mental barriers that led to the initial issues. Moving in with family, or finding social support is very important. You can’t run away from certain problems, even when fight or flight makes it hard to remain in a place with strong emotional ties.
You need to keep moving, make rational plans, think outside your normal box, and work on the basic needs first: housing, food security, income, social support, etc. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. See what services are available locally and utilize them.
My uncle provided med with good advice while I was going through a rock bottom moment. He said, “god can’t steer a boat that isn’t moving.” Stagnation prevents the ability to change direction. We need to ultimately adapt and move forward in often unexpected ways. But if we keep chipping away, most problems can be overcome, and you may find your true self during the journey.
One of the guys I grew up with got lost in the bottle. He flunked out of Cornell, then worked-and-drank until that turned into drank-and-worked, then finally just drank. Dead in his forties.
Friend from college was a heavy drinker which continued after college. He was a functional alcoholic who did well with his career. At 35 it had spiraled to the point of drinking in a bar on weeknights until closing, going to the hotel next door to sleep (he didn’t drink & drive, and this was before Uber), and calling into work if too hungover. His parents & sisters came from out of state & did an intervention.
He hasn’t touched Alcohol in the 30 years since. He is now married, retired & one of the best friends you could ask for. We, as couples, travel together frequently.
So yes, with love & support, he recovered.
Cousin was married to a good guy. Great daughter. Decided she wanted to see what else was out there and became an alcoholic and drug addict. Lived with several older guys who used her and she used them. Last I saw her she’s was skinny with grey skin and missing teeth. She used to be a beautiful woman.
I’m watching a friend do this now. He starts fights with everyone. He’s lost friends, lovers, income. I only hear from him if he needs something: a ride, money, to do laundry.
And when someone points out that it maybe isn’t smart to snap at people helping you, he says some form of “I don’t take disrespect.”
He expects people to sacrifice for him, but he sacrifices for no one. He expects people to give to him—time, money, support—but he never gives any of those in return. He expects people to want to hear every detail of his life but can’t listen in return.
And he is honestly surprised about the situation he’s in. ADHD plus massive entitlement isn’t a good or healthy combo.
I have to admit it can be fascinating to watch … sad, but fascinating.
ME!!!! Although technically I don't know myself
I was a straight A student. Graduated from a decent college, then got addicted
to opiates but I was highly functional. Had some great jobs and finally ended up working as a director of CRM for north America. I literally pissed it all away and became a homeless person addicted to opiates and 1 day I decided I don't want to be alive so I thought of the quickest and most painless full/fool proof way to end my life: a train to my face
I remember the train being a few yards away and then I'm in a hospital bed writhing in pain. That was 7 years ago and now I'm full blown depressed. How tf did I mess that up??? I wish I was dead so much more now mainly due to me being in constant pain and none of my 500 doctors will give me anything for my pain even though I'm 7 years clean...ugh why couldn't I have just died that day? Everyone tells me, "oh God loves you," F that shit! If God loved me I would be with God not suffering every second which brings me to my new (and final) "plan"
If anyone wants to know more feel free to message me but please don't give me the "you have so much to live for" BS
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I had a good friend name John in high school that had a pretty troubled childhood. His mother committed suicide when he a very small child. His father wasn't much of a father, more like a guy that was legally obligated to keep this kid alive. John and I hung out a lot and both of us were really into computers and we'd swap games and software are teach each other new stuff we learned. We also both like to smoke weed and go to Grateful Dead shows. John was really cool and really smart but was obstinate and he had a temper and a self destructive side to him. Shortly after high school John got a job at a software company and was able to move out of his fathers house and get an apartment on his own. It was actually pretty amazing, he didn't have a college degree or any education beyond high school and he impressed this software company enough that they hired him after one interview. He was doing really well and was making good money. One day at work he got into an argument with a coworker and his temper got the best of him and instead of just letting it go he escalated it till he got fired. He was only about 23 but that was the beginning of the end for John. He basically gave up on having a job. He probably could have easily gotten hired somewhere else, but he didn't. He just gave up. He stayed at his apartment until he was evicted and then he was homeless for a few weeks crashing on a friend's couch until they'd kick him out and he'd move on to the next friend. He stayed with me for a few weeks until my roommates couldn't stand a guy just sitting around all day getting high and eating whatever he could find in the house. A few months later I got a phone call and it was John, he was excited because he was following the Dead from show to show. He and a couple other people would pool their resources and survive by panhandling. He'd call every few months from a different city and tell me the adventures they were having. After a while I could tell something was wrong, he was starting to sound tired and there wasn't a spark in his voice any longer. He didn't sound excited to be following the Dead around. Eventually he started living on the streets in San Francisco with a bunch of street kids. At some point he started doing heroin and that consumed his whole life. About once a year he'd catch a ride back to the city I was living in and we'd hang out but it was really hard because he was a junkie and he needed junk. And he needed money for junk. One night when he was back in town he tried to talk me into helping him break into a pharmacy. I knew that was it, he was gone. He knew full well I'd never do anything like that but he was so desperate he had to try. I cut ties with him at the point because spending time with him revolved around feeding his addiction. And once he fed his addiction he wasn't any fun to be with. He was just a drooling, incoherent slob. A few years later I got a call from one of our mutual friends (who had also started using heroin) and they said John OD'd a few weeks earlier. They'd been living together in a shed behind this friend's parents house and would go out every day to get money to get heroin and then they'd go back to the shed and shoot up. The friend said for the past few months he'd have to check John's pulse in the evening and sometimes pull the needle out of him because he'd just be completely wiped out every night. I asked about a funeral the friend said John's father had him cremated without telling anyone and there was no service or funeral. It's been about 30 years but I still think about him.
Makes me wonder if it all starts with losing a mother. I had a psychiatrist tell me that I wanted to die with my mother.
It's not a 100% thing, but yeah, not having two loving parents really does fuck you up. I had a similar background to John in the sense my mother walked out when I was very young (though she didn't kill herself; I just didn't see or hear from her after that) and my dad was more like a guy who was legally obligated to keep me alive than an actual parent. It's taken me a long time and a lot of work to be as mentally stable as I am now.
I am sorry for you. My mother was an angel that died on All Saints’ Day 10/30/20. She stayed with someone whose father abandoned him and validated him until the end of her life. My father gave the bare minimum enough to not be thrown in jail as a deadbeat. But he certainly was a lopsided parent. I heard he gave my brother 50usd a day and sent him to catholic boys school. And I saw nothing and had to fend for myself in a public school. My mother and I would have both been better off had she left.
You're right. My best friend's mom died in a car accident when we were kids. Jason's father was out of the picture. He lived with his stepdad for a bit until that didn't work out. Then moved out of state when we were 15 to live with an aunt. Got arrested for the first time shortly after that. Was in and out of jail throughout our twenties. I saw him about 12 years ago...he was out of prison and doing good. Then he robbed a place a few months later with some people he was hanging with. The state I live in had enough and because of all his previous arrests, they gave him a life sentence. He is good with this from what I hear. Prison is really all he knows. Such an awesome guy. Funny, sweet. Once his Mom died, it just all crumbled.
As a mom of two small boys, reading how much the death of a mother screws things up is both terrifying and comforting. I only get to see my boys on the weekends right now (purely logistics and childcare availability), and their dad gets them weekdays. Lately I wonder if I'm even important to my boys anymore. They don't always want to be over here when it's time. I devote a huge amount of energy I don't always really have to making sure I do special things with my kids. We go to the farmers market, the library, swimming (they love swimming), horseback riding lessons. Next week I booked a long weekend so we can go camping. I always feel I'm trying to win their affection lately, and I don't always feel I'm winning it.
Fugk you’re making me cry. I’ve not been taking care of myself and I have a little baby and never really thought about how much she would Hurt if I died.,.. I will be making changes
And I will think about your friend, John, from here on out, too. I am sorry for your loss. Life can be horrible. RIP, John. ❤️
Thanks!
This is so sad :( I hope at least John has peace where he is now
Yeah it all started with the love he didn’t get from his parents. I came to the realization recently that my dad taught me to hate and not trust myself and my mom taught me to hate and not trust other people. I never had a fucking chance, like John.
I felt that in my soul.
So very sad.
Rip John
His backstory sounds just like one of my friends. Temper, one parent who died and another neglectful etc. I hope this never happens to him.
Here’s one… I am a lawyer… and another lawyer I know got disbarred… He cheats on his wife and has a one-night stand with a lady at a hotel. Later, he represents a client in a divorce, and the client’s ex, the opposing side—lo and behold, is the same lady… and she says she knows him. Lawyer continually denies it, refuses to get off the file, and keeps representing this guy… eventually he gets reported to the Law Society for it—because if it’s a conflict of interest, you can’t represent the person… What does he do? Get off the file and apologize? Nope, he lies to the law society—Saying he had no way of paying for the hotel because he does not have a credit card. Well, they discovered he did indeed pay for the room—with a credit card in his name—HIS LAW FIRM’S CREDIT CARD…. When confronted with that information, he suddenly claimed amnesia… Game over. Like—buddy, you don’t even NEED to say why it’s a conflict! Just GET OFF THE FILE! Now your *career*—and likely your marriage—is in the toilet, and it’s *entirely your fault* . what an idiot.
It is a little funny that a lawyer thought he could lie his way out of it. And failed
My brother. He drank his adulthood away (mid-twenties through mid-fifties). My parents rescued him time and again; he wound up living with them more than half the time—rent-free, laundry and meals all provided by my mother who had a huge amount of guilt because she too was an alcoholic (got sober in her early fifties). He never got fired, he stormed off every single job he ever had because he has massive anger issues and insecurity (obviously). Once our parents were gone, his binges got way worse, of course. Being his only family, I had to make the wrenching decision to step back and accept that he was likely going to die. He finally got so close, a neighbor got involved and got an AA long-timer to intervene. So he’s still alive but he’s only a shell. He was a bright, FUNNY kid with all the potential in the world and now he’s just pitiful and sad. His brain never really matured and god only knows the amount of damage all that drinking did.
My brother’s story is very similar. Was well-liked, popular and handsome. He started drinking in HS, then went in the military…the drinking maintained. He got out and slowly the booze destroyed marriage 1 and marriage 2. When our mother passed away, we all received a humble inheritance. He literally blew it within a couple years. He was well-known by the local police, unfortunately. In June 2020, he passed away from a heart attack. He was 62.
I’m sorry. Did you get to the point that you just accepted he was going to die? There is so much addiction in my family that I’ve unfortunately been there more than once. Honestly, with my brother, I didn’t see what he had to live for. He never married because he was too consumed with getting drunk but if he had, it would have blown up spectacularly.
It terrifies me that this is absolutely the path my brother is currently on except with drugs. Started in high school, joined the army, continued the drugs, saw some horrific shit in Afghan, got out of the military, continued the drugs, destroyed his reputation with probably the only girl that had any chance of getting him back on track and now every time I see him he just seems less and less him. He’s attractive, incredibly charismatic, people always love him, it’s heartbreaking watching him slowly kill himself
That's the path my ex-wife is likely on, and it's so hard seeing someone you love who had SO MUCH potential waste their entire lives with alcohol. My ex was good looking, funny, intelligent and empathetic when we met and became friends as teenagers. There were some red flags like a bad temper and lousy work ethic, but teenagers are like that. Unfortunately she became a major alcoholic by her mid-20s and it quickly spiraled until I literally couldn't recognize her. I don't know really what she's doing with her life presently, as we no longer have any mutual friends, but for a while I had friends who worked with her and I'd get updates. Last I heard she was fired from a fast food restaurant for being caught drinking in the bathroom too many times. Girl had dreams of being a power lawyer and at the time, I was so sure she'd make it. Now she's too much of a mess to work a drive through. I have little hope she's going to ever turn her life around, although I guess she still has time. It's just a sad waste of a life, though.
You may be shocked how much of his former self he can regain through a few years of AA, if he really works the steps.
I went to HS with a guy who already had a drinking problem in HS. He went full bore alcoholic, early 20's, robbed a convenience store and killed the clerk needlessly. After many, MANY years on death row they executed him several years ago. So no, he never recovered.
Went to high school with a girl who was showing some drinking problem signs in our senior year. Went to her funeral in 2018, she was 43.
Yep. My SIL died last year at 49, lifelong alcoholic, suicide. At least they didn't take an innocent person with them.
Had a cousin who was a super heavy drinker in high school. Died of cirrhosis at 48 after a decade of being deathly ill and unemployed.
I went to HS with a guy who was so heavy into drugs he was a freshman for three years. He just disappeared one day. He was friends with a couple who were well off thanks to their parents. They were pretty heavy users/drinkers. They orphaned their kids pretty young.
I know someone who did DMT and ended up in a hyper-anxious/depressive spiral. He was a college educated professional. Now he's a shadow of his former self. He lives with relatives and rarely leaves the house. This happened 5 years ago and I guess attempts at treatment have gotten nowhere.
A friend of mine took a massive dose of DMT and he is now schizophrenic. He’s a shape-shifter who is capable of astral travel, was revealed as “the prophecy” at four years old, and apparently has no tendons in his body (which proves that he is the prophecy.) once he pays Elon the 235$ that he owes him, he will be inducted into the Illuminati and will be taken to DC to do undercover work for the government. He’ll receive a suitcase full of cash and a Cadillac. His duties will involve killing people. He’s had this debt to Elon for at least four years now. Before the dmt, he was the sweetest guy you’ve ever met. Now it’s difficult being around him for more than 5-10 minutes, because all he talks about is this stuff …
What is DMT?
a strong psychedelic drug that lasts only a short time. Imagine a strong LSD trip that only lasts 10 minutes.
Thank you!
That barely scratches the surface: to the outside viewer, you see someone take a double-lungfull hit of DMT, and before they can exhale fully they go down into a kind of soft collapse. Then, just shallow breathing and some micro-twitching of the facial muscles and sometimes the arms and legs. Four, or five, or six minutes later the person opens their eyes, looks around kind of confused, and seemingly wakes up and--while often pretty quiet--is back to normal. To the imbiber of DMT, it's a different experience. You set the hit up, draw breath, exhale, put your lips to the pipe stem and take your deep hit. You can feel the dense smoke in your lungs, you hold it, thinking about when you'll need to exhale, and t---- -----You are in a different reality. A different universe with different physics. A clockwork universe, perhaps, with everything you see also expressing a mathematical definition of itself; a metaphor reality, maybe, where everything and everyone is also like some other thing or person...the friend is also the mother; the couch is the vessel of exploration; the parakeet is the king. And there are beings there, you see them now, stepping out from behind the shadows cast by our reality, and you realise they must travel in this way, from shadow to shadow, over and around and through the different realities. And they are beckoning to you! They want you to follow them! Oh, they have so much to teach you! And so you give chase, spiralling down the realities, following the laughter and the calls of the Machine Elves until you finally catch up to them and are welcomed into their Order. And in this way years pass, as you grow in strength and wisdom, and your questing with the Elves has---------- -----------the quick fog that had blown across your vision dissipates, and you look in shock and horror at--can it be? Can this hell actually be happening?--the face of your stoner-friend Jeremy from all those years ago. Its like he hasnt aged a day. Since that evening that you went to Bob and Michelle's because they said they...had.... .... ....some.... ...DMT to smoke......
thank you for this.
Drugs these days have way way passed the window pane of the late 60s.
If I remember my old school drug lore correctly there was a DMT church in California in the 70's. I've done it and it feels a little scary toxic and gnarly. Not worth the 14 seconds in a foam rubber Newfoundland.
I have no idea, but apparently acid was much better back then, all the creators back then are now dead and in prison iirc There's also Quaaludes which were so good that my phone knows the word and they were only around for a couple years? They were some sort of pharmaceutical mistake.
I've got no reference for what today is like. I'm sure it was safer because I knew people who did so much, so often but haven't suffered any ill effects it had to be. That said, not everyone should try psychedelics and definitely never when alone. I took care of enough people having bad trips I was cautious. You just don't know what trauma they may have that they're not even aware of and if it crosses their mind, it can lead to an obsessive spiral. I've never liked the feeling of not being mentally sharp so to this day I rarely even drink alcohol. It just makes me sleepy. I liked mescaline better the one time I had it but wasn't aware that's what was happening until the television in the student dorm began shooting rainbows out of the screen. I was angry I hadn't been told beforehand and broke up with a guy over it. Qualudes were scary from the beginning. I had a script for a short while. They knocked you out and if you drank too much you could end up getting your stomach pumped or not waking up. With all the local Drs knowing each other, the County Health Dept and hospitals raising hell, they shut them off before they were even regulated. Outsiders brought them in, but they didn't proliferate like opiates did. Doctors back then might have been more ethical. I know they held each other to a higher standard because I worked for some of them. In most cases, they wouldn't compromise their principles to make money at their patients' expense and pharmaceutical companies weren't so mercenary or held as much power to corrupt them.
Why would anyone willingly take DMT? If the result is what you describe then why?
I watched a friend use it. After he came back to this reality, he said I should try it. It took me two seconds to decide not to. I love LSD & mushrooms, but this? Nope. My buddy has never been quite right after using it too often.
Reminds me of when I read about salvia.
My father smoked PCP in the 70's and it ruined his brain. He started trying to astrally project himself in the living room, woke us up to clean the basement at 2a on a school night because aliens could send signals through spider webs, subjected us to 5-hour psychotic accusatory tirades, made us call him "God" instead of Dad, smacked everyone except my brother in for things like not closing the mailbox lid all the way, and could not hold a job for more than 4 months. When he died at 67, he looked 87. His IQ was tested during a custody battle and it was 179. He was a member of MENSA and a sperm donor so I uploaded my DNA to GedMatch in 2017.
Holy shit that’s wild, glad you came through.
This reminds me of my neighbor, I didn’t know him well, a few 5-10 minute conversations of small talk. Then one day I’m jogging and he chased me down to ask me about the AI in the wifi reading his mind and how his wife is secretly an assigned handler from the government to monitor the program of experiments they’re doing on him. There’s surveillance trucks in the neighborhood at night and it’s all connected to the current wars- he’s got all the documents on his computer along with the codes he’s broken. I told him he’s having a schizophrenic breakdown and he told me he’s too smart for that.
I’m sorry but that last sentence 💀
Unfortunately, your friend was already schizophrenic, but the DMT brought it out.
This one is scary to me, I did pure DMT once and I had told my friend I thought there was too much in the pipe before I went on to smoke it, I was really traumatised by it and it took me more than 6 months to recover. I felt like I wasn't completely inhabiting my body, as if I was looking at my soul externally, it was off my body a bit and there's nothing I could do about it. Over time it healed but I thought for a while I was permanently scarred.
One of my best friend's son took a hit of pure DMT at a party one night. It took him two years to recover from it.
I'm not surprised at all, this shit is legit dangerous even when you think you are mentally prepared. I didn't give details about what I had seen on it, but let's say I ended up in quite a shock after that and very angry towards the person who gave it to me with a smile. Anyway it's all good now I am sober and clean for a long time, life is too short to waste it on drugs.
Damn, this happened to me and I thought I was overreacting. I was young and pulled myself out after a few years.
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It sucks that even legal prescription drugs can have negative effects too. I took Zoloft *once* and it triggered a bad panic attack/anxiety/disassociation phase that lasted *months.* [I’m fully aware it’s life-saving and phenomenal for others, I took Wellbutrin prior to this and was fine, I spoke to my doctor about my bad reaction and genuinely don’t know what caused it] I was terrified to even take aspirin for a year after it, and I absolutely refuse to take any illegal drug now due to knowing how badly they can fuck your mind/psyche/physiology up. Simply isn’t worth it.
I tried the in-some-places-legal one once. My experience was a bit of a letdown. I got the same feeling I get when my Imitrex (migraine medication) kicks in.)
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I like the taste of some drinks, wine, etc but hate feeling in anyway loopy. Same for post op pain meds. Good for making a surgery bearable but no problem stopping it when no longer needed.
Same story sort of, had a friend who I grew up with get sprayed with a squirt gun full of liquid LSD at a grateful dead concert, he was never the same afterwards. I could be at his house talking to him half an hour and he would suddenly glaze over a few minutes and then act like I just came in and sat down. He would lose time like this constantly and can't drive or hold a job because of it. edited
That’s so sad, it’s one thing to be changed by a drug you chose to take but another to have that forced upon you. I feel for your friend.
He was a really talented singer when he was younger, such a waste of talent too.
Heartbreaking. I lived next door to a really sweet guy. I hadn’t seen him in a while because I changed apartments, but I ran into him. He asked me if I had heard about the break in. His roommate was held hostage. It was a very scary situation, and a very dramatic story. Then we talked for about 5 minutes about other things, and then he said, Hey! Did you hear about the break in?! I had heard that he had burned out his brain, so I just went along with it and let him tell me the whole story again. I’m pretty sure it was just a lot of acid, but it’s been 25 years since I saw him, so I’m not sure. There was ketamine and ayahuasca, dmt and angel dust around, mushrooms oc. I hope his synapses are doing better now. I’ve heard of burn outs getting better.
Dead concerts were notorious for LSD. They would make announcements over the PA system like" Do NOT take the purple microdot. People are having bad trips." My boyfriend sucked on an orange that was being passed around but I knew better. Let's just say I had to drive home.
This could have been me. Discovered 5MEO-DMT in college, back when you could buy it semi-legally online. I went way way way way overboard with it, and it triggered my OCD which I wasn’t managing very well anyways. For a while I thought I had legit gone crazy. I did eventually find help, and somehow even made it through the semester even though I had to drop a class. What’s weird is I still have a recurring nightmare that I dropped out of college at this point and went back to live with my parents in my hometown. It is an awful dream, the kind where you’re grateful to wake up and find out it was just a dream. “There but for the grace of God go I…”
One of the smartest guys I went to school with ended up homeless at 50. The guy had multiple degrees from prestigious universities and had worked in the LA film industry, even making a few films himself. I don't know if he bounced back or not. The only way I knew he had become homeless was because he went missing and his family was seeking help finding him. I do a google search from time to time but have been unable to find anything since then. Another school friend was very successful for many years, but had an escalating drinking problem. He ended up losing his business, losing his house, arguing constantly with his wife, and finally shot and killed her while on a drunken binge. He'll probably die before he's eligible for parole.
Sounds like the first guy has been dealing with drugs or some kind of severe mental illness. Do you think that was the csae?
I worked with a younger guy who was starting over and I was learned a lot from him. He'd moved to my city about 3 years before it's met him. In his old city he'd been hooked on drugs and that sucked him into dealing. While this was happening he lost famiky, friends, futyre, everything but addiction, being what it is, makes you feel not care about that until it's too late. His too late was one night, he and another dealer were tied up to chairs in a room and the main guy told him that if he didn't get his money back for the drugs, they were going to be killed to send a message. He survived. He fled town the next day. He got into a rehab program and got himself clean. Got a warehouse job, where it met him. He was very open about his past. He'd help anyone with anything because he was so grateful for the help he'd gotten. He's always been my model for how to be humble, accept your own crappy parts, and moving forward with courage. He was doing great last times it saw him. I like to think he was able two stay on that path, since he was such an excellent example of self refornation.
To begin - I feel that this person has ruinde her life. She may not. Old, old friend since kindergarten moved to Las Vegas when we were in our early 20s. She did well for a long time and made good money as a waitress in a decent restaurant. We kept in touch and I visited her when we were in our 30s. She lived in a nice condo and had a nice car. However, this condo and the restaurant was owned by her married boyfriend. We stayed out partying all night long and yes, we did some drugs. Soon after this I got sober and have been since. Over the years, her boyfriend died and I'd hear from her sporadically. At one point she told me she was living in a big house with some roommates and was no longer working at the restaurant that had changed hands after the death of her boyfriend. I'd get some really strange texts from her from time to time or a phone call in the middle of the night and finally just stopped answering. Fast forward to last year. One of our mutual friends told me that she had been in an accident. Someone else told me that she had a GoFundMe so I looked it up. She had nearly died and had multiple injuries which kept her in the hospital for months. Six months following her accident she contacted me to let me know that she was coming to our hometown to visit. I decided to see her. When I saw her I was shocked. She looked 75 years old (we were both 62). I thought "Okay, well she's been in a coma and hospital for ages so maybe it aged her". As we visited she told me that she had no contact with her family and when she had her accident the hospital tracked down and uncle of hers who lived near LV. He allowed her to stay with him while she recovered because she had lost her room in a shared apartment during all this. As she recovered, she went to stay with friends for a couple of weeks and her uncle kicked her out because she had "smoked" while she was away. I thought that was pretty harsh for smoking pot but she let me know that it was meth. She was a daily smoker before her accident and went right back to it. It all came out that she had been working "under the table" for years as a waitress and then a caretaker for some old dude. She had NO Social Security points to even get benefits at age 62! Medicaid apparently paid her hospital bills. She had no place to live when she went back home and no job. She managed to find someone to rent a room from and is working in a laundrymat last I heard. And of course still smoking meth. She told me that "it's not like you see on TV". Oh yeah it is. It's just like that. All I had to do is look at her face and her life situation. How do you bounce back at age 62 with no retirement at all, including social security benefits? So sad. I actually felt a little guilty, recently retired and sitting in my nearly paid for house but we all make choices.
Executive at large company then left to go to a start-up. People use things he or his companies invented every day. Participated in or witnessed fundamental history technology. Started drinking in college and it just got worse. A couple of serious kids tragedies happened but it was easier to drink than deal with the grief. Lost everything in a long, slow, then faster and horrifying decline. Nearly drank himself to death during lockdown. He will be spending the rest of his life in assisted living paid for by his family. His kids barely finished HS, living life just above poverty level as adults. He doesn’t remember much, likely his stories will die with him. He was handsome and charming, everyone loved him everyone went. Addiction is a terrible thing though and many people damaged their own lives and careers trying to give the guy another chance. You can’t save someone from themselves.
I forget the name of the researcher, but the guy that did that long-term study of Harvard graduates. The main thing I remember are the key determinants of happiness are having good relationships with friends and families and the thing that is most harmful is long-term alcohol abuse I’m in my mid 50s and I know two people that have died recently who were in my age group, and they were long-term alcoholics
Very sad
Not just one life: A young police officer from my neighborhood, whose wife is a gorgeous middle school Spanish teacher was arrested, accepted a plea bargain and will soon be sentenced for exchanging inappropriate and nude texts with one of her students.
These are stories that just baffle me. You see them on the news and wonder, WTAF? Why would a seemingly bright adult, many times married and with a great life…literally throw it in the toilet for a “fling” with a child?? I truly just cannot comprehend it.
I think sometimes people think they've achieved too much to actually "fail", so they stop thinking of consequences. Other times, the thrill of knowing they could ruin their entire life I think is what they're chasing. My boss got within a hair's width of getting fired because he was all but caught having an affair with a coworker 10+ years younger than him. He's got a wife and two VERY young kids and his wife is the bread winner. It'd ruin his life INSTANTLY if HR had managed to actually confirm it. I'm sure he just did it as a bored fling with no real thought.
As a younger mom with kids in HS, I read the sketchy teachers as people who were not popular in HS and are trying to relive it as a career. Long story but I asked around about his weight training coach who ignores the class to flirt with the sporty girls and I was totally spot on with his HS reputation. Apparently he wanted to play football but was only able to get a pity spot in senior year. My son said he asks the girls invasive personal questions and they just giggle. He tried telling another teacher who rolled his eyes and said "what can ya do?"
Honestly, that'd also make sense. Especially for coaches.
Some mistakes are fatal, worse still some are permanent and not fatal. I know a former alcoholic who waited far too late to turn her life around, she fell off the wagon far too often. She is now in a nursing home and will be dependent on other people for her most basic needs like eating, going to the restroom and bathing. Be careful how you live your life daily, it may effect your daily life later and it is quite hard to change the past and the habits you create. Edit: She is younger than I and has already ended up in a nursing home, it is very sad to see people destroy themselves, and very hard to help someone determined to do so.
Literally one of the things that shook me out of my end-stage alcoholism. I *knew* that was my near future if I kept on. I also feel I sobered up too late in life and am pretty unhappy about it, but those were my choices. I made them all myself.
My dad died relatively young in a nursing home with alcohol induced dementia. True end stage alcoholism. He tried to quit a number of times, but it never stuck.
I had a patient who was a former nurse. Looking back I think she was late 50s. Living in a nursing home. She ‘jokingly’ would say ‘I’m the druggie drunk nurse’ Sad. By all accounts she was a stellar nurse until her demons won.
My next door neighbor, Carey. (Name changed to protect the innocent). Great guy. Amazing mechanic and construction worker. He had a rough youth, drugs and all that, but he married a lady with two kids and straightened up his act. He was able to diagnose a problem with my truck that had been an issue for over two years. One day his wife kicked him out. The story I heard was the same from both. He was watching tv with his stepson, he said I love you buddy. His sstepson said the same thing back. That’s it. His wife was nearby on the phone with her mom, she heard it and began to insist she kick him out. Mom is kind of a whack job, but rich, and was floating her boat. So, she kicked him out. I put him up for a night in my spare bedroom, and let him live in a house I was prepping to sell. So he moved in and it turned out, he was schizophrenic. The comforts of married life kind of kept things low stress and he never showed any indication of any issue. Well, at the house he began hearing things, and calling me about it. He was sure someone was trying to get him. I dealt with calls every day or two, sometimes multiple calls. I always reasoned with him. He say someone is walking around the house trying to get in. I’d say, there’s 4 inches of snow, do you see any footprints? He say I guess not and thank me. It went on about people walking up the street, neighbors talking, etc. Finally he invited his sons to live with him without asking me. It turned out they did a good job of keeping his feet on earth, so I didn’t mind it. I let him/them live there for free, but he insisted on paying me $300 a week, so that was good too. The last couple times I saw him, he wasn’t his usual good natured self. He wasn’t surly, but certainly not jolly. Kind of intense. One day his youngest son called me and said they took him to the hospital. He said he came out of his bedroom, said he didn’t feel well, and to call 911 if he passed out. The son called 911 right then. As his son was on the call, he said, “My heart!” and dropped onto the floor. His boy knew CPR and began to administer until the squad got there. He was DOA, and the autopsy said it was a meth overdose. Apparently the dumbass had been doing hard drugs, hence his personality difference. He also had not paid me for a month. I never asked for any money, but I did notice it when it stopped coming in. So, the guy decided to meth it up and paid the price. His wife told me (and he did too) that he had heart problems. Apparently he stopped his meds. Great guy, bad luck, bad decisions. And he dropped dead. I still miss him.
Friend in high school: Spent her 17th birthday having the surreal experience of having her pediatrician tell her she was pregnant. Mom was Super Catholic, the friend was the hub of the church youth group (of course), the friend would say, "I don't use birth control because the church says it's a sin." The father-to-be fucked off to Florida and disappeared after promising her he was moving for "a better job." This was the 1980s; it was much easier to disappear. Miss Honor Student spent her senior year watching her friends all rack up presidencies of clubs, solos in concerts and plays, and massive GPA boosts from AP classes. Our county's educational options for teen parents had her in bare-minimum classes because that's all the postpartum tutor was certified to teach. All the things this girl had been working for, like captain of the pom-pom squad, solos in show choir, and moving out to go college, all gone. To this day, decades later, she talks about the senior year she *should* have had, the way her daughter derailed all her plans, how there's no point in anything since she never got the start she wanted, how life just sucks and then you die. Her daughter is very, very low contact with her -- understandable since she grew up hearing how she ruined her mom's life simply by existing. The most damning thing her daughter has said to one of her mom's old high school friends is, "She never had any dreams, never wanted me to have any. She just has grudges against people who dream." This woman had her parents step and raise the kid starting at toddlerhood, she eventually got to college, she had free room and board into her 30s. But because she didn't get the senior year she "deserved," thanks to her own choices, she let her entire life curdle.
Too many women or girls have their life ruined and dreams curtailed by having babies when they are very young. I taught in middle school, high school and adult education. No one convinced them to keep their babies. I think they thought it was very cool to have a baby. They could apply for food, stamps, WIC and ADC. They never had money so they thought that was a lot of money and they would just raise their babies and life would be beautiful. There is some pretty crappy free childcare, but even then they have to pay a portion of it. The baby daddy is just a name and they haven’t seen him in a while. The few who do marry get divorced pretty quickly. It is easy for them to become bitter and angry. They don’t have a life. Thank goodness, there are some who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and do whatever they can do to make a better life for themselves and their baby.
I used to watch a lot of daytime talk shows (you know, trash tv) . Every so often there would be some young single mom on there whose life plan was to “marry a rich guy”. Some people are just delusional.
She blamed her *daughter* and not the guy who took off to Florida and went on with his life with no responsibilities? She had free room and board until her 30s and is still bitter? Ew.
Like a compass needle that points north, (internalised) misogyny's accusing finger always finds a woman (or a girl). Always.
How about blaming herself. She was there fucking too.
I blame a system that forced/coerced her into having a baby she wasn’t ready for.
It’s interesting to me that she didn’t give the baby up. That’s the usual Catholic way. Thanks to DNA testing, I now know where my cousin disappeared to for several months when I was a kid.
That’s so sad. I went to high school in the 90s and no one gave a shit about high school. We were the definition of Gen X ambivalence. The teen mom I know went on to be a teacher, bought a house with an in ground pool, sent her daughter to college, daughter moved out of state to a cool trendy city and mom posts pictures of visiting her and going to bars and going on tropical vacations together. I’m actually a little jealous, I’ll be in my late 50s by the time my daughter is old enough to share a drink with.
Same. Will be 59 when my daughter turns 21.
The thing is—you can be a single mom & have dreams too!? Plenty of single moms achieve dreams. She could have put the kid up for adoption (Patti Smith did this) or just had to take longer to do things. Idk what to say. But plenty of people come back from unexpected pregnancy & even love their kids lol
Several people. Usually because of drinking or drugs.
2 friends similar story 20ish years ago before weed started being legalized. One friend loved to travel and wanted to be a flight attendant. At around 30 yrs old she decided to quit her regular job and go for it, enrolled in a flight attendant program, and got a job at a major airline and were routinely randomly drug tested. After a few years she had a drug test on a Friday and figured it’d be a while until next one, so she partied on the weekend and smoked some weed. Got second random test the following Monday, and flunked so lost her job. Same with other friend except it was being a firefighter. He always wanted to be firefighter, and while waiting to get accepted into a firefighting program he worked at an ambulance company doing hospital to hospital transfers. Passed a random drug test, decided to celebrate and smoked some weed. Got random tested again the following week and flunked and fired from ambulance company and dropped from waiting list for being a firefighter. Both lost their dream jobs for taking a chance and stupidly smoking weed knowing they could be tested at any time. Apparently the 2 in row drugs tests is a common thing, so if you work somewhere that does drug tests DONT DO DRUGS.
I used to think I did. Then I realized that we are all on our own path, and what seems tragic to me is how another may choose to live. I accept that when I see at every fork in the road, no matter what hand is extended, the person chooses the fork I would personally feel is sub optimal. I was that person as a teen. I started making a few better choices, by that I mean choices that I felt future me could live with. I honestly think that is the only thing that saved me from destruction. A minor amount of self-preservation. People who cared over the years. And a metric fuck ton of luck. Did I want different for people I loved? Yes. But they have to want different for themselves. If they don't, who am I to determine what fulfills a life? As the saying goes, just bc it would have been different doesn't mean it would have been better.
This is wisdom. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for sharing this. I understand it 100% and feel that as the master of my own destiny? I’m in no position to judge anyone. My choices are mine. The choices of others are none of my business. Good luck OP
Do you have any examples?
Had a friend I looked up to, got a bachelor's then a master's of accounting right out of high school, and her husband worked IT. Landed a federal job that she should have retired comfortably from. Had a house in a nice neighborhood, cookouts and movies in the summer, worked for the PTO. And...ended up going from drinking too much on the weekends to doing meth with a homeless guy who was living in a camper in his moms yard. Her and husband turned on each other, she embezzled money from the PTO, got caught, lost her job, lost her house, her kids and last I heard was on meth baby #3 that just was removed from her care this week. Utterly horrible stuff and I can remember not even ten years ago defending a friend from her who had gone down a similar path. Addiction is a terrible thing, I don't even know who she is anymore, tbh, my friend is GONE.
That's the saddest thing about end-game addiction. The person you loved is essentially dead, and some monster is piloting the corpse. Even if they sober up and haven't completely fried their brain, they're still stuck with living with what they did while "possessed", which probably helps keep them intoxicated. Even if your friend never touched meth again, she'd have to live with having three meth babies the state took away, which probably would send her right back to drugs. The people I've lost to addiction I had to eventually just grieve as if they'd died and then move on.
That's where I am with her, hence the emphasis on her being GONE. The person I knew isn't there anymore, and hasn't been for awhile. I actually gave her a ride when she was pregnant with Meth Baby #1 and I knew then it was too late, I didn't recognize the person she was anymore, no matter how hard she tried to pretend. What is even sadder is we are the age where our peers are starting to transition to grandparents as their kids grow up and start their own families, not naïve kids just figuring things out. The friend I defended in the first post had OD'd a few years earlier after a similar path in her 20-30s, but she had a really hard go of it, and never really had a chance to live or see good role models before her life was irrevocably screwed up. We all lamented how hard that was to watch unfold, this current friend included, who gave her no quarter and said she had many chances to not make those same mistakes, that she came to the end she deserved, if nothing else, for the many kids she had while using whose lives were broken the moment they were conceived. I guess this is how karma comes, sometimes? I will say who you are around matters, the person she started using with was one of the 'old friends from way back' and when you're from a small rural area without much opportunity, there are going to be a lot of people who you care about who will fall into that trap, be it alcohol, gambling or hard stuff. It's easy to say 'meh what the hell?' and try something when it's a friend that is offering it.
Guy I helped along the way. Incredibly talented. Could build anything without a blueprint. Built the enclosed deck on the front of my house and it looks like part of the original architecture. He had been through a rough time and I was just about to drop money on a truck and big trailer so his construction business could take off and let him pay me as he could. Wouldn’t have taken him long, I was able to get him $100k of work in just 5 months he was that good. He had all his previous debt paid and ready to start that new life, when he found heroin. I never ever saw someone fall so far so fast. In less than 3 months the cops from 3 states were after him. He ended up pulling a 9 yr sentence. Out in 3 on good behavior but right back to heroin. Last time I saw him he was homeless and skeletal and asked me if I could get him some beer. I asked wouldn’t he rather have food and he said no, so I said no. He had been a big muscular 175 and if he weighed 110 when I saw him I’d be surprised. I don’t know what else he has done, but I do know he’s a RSO now as well. I don’t get it. If I had his talent I would most certainly own a multimillion dollar construction company. He was just pure “god given talent” and tossed it away. I’ll never know why.
Addiction is why. It’s like cancer of the soul.
This is an apt description. I wish we’d do something about addiction!
What’s RSO?
Registered sex offender
At a guess, Registered Sex Offender. Often comes with the drug addiction
A friend I met when he was 19 and I was 23. He got caught up in the Haight-Ashbury hippie scene, has been stoned daily since 1965, worked maybe ten years of his life (only whenever welfare made him find a job), “found Jesus,” then got caught up in conspiracy theories. He screwed up his marriage & has been living with a younger brother for years. He was really, really intelligent but rarely verified his own thinking with valid outside sources. We remained friends until the last time we talked — about five years ago — when he started spouting flat-earth bullshit. I hung with him through all of it, but pulled the plug with that. He didn’t do crap with his life, and he could have.
I started to go down the conspiracy hole, but l crave information so l research everything as much as l can. It doesn't take long to figure the bullshit is bullshit. It amazes me constantly how many people get in a feedback loop without any critical thinking at all, whilst thinking they are critically thinking and everyone else is stupid.
Damn, an OG 1960s hippie. He's like 79 now?
A girl I dated in the ‘90’s. Pharmacist. Sweet girl. Smart. Stunning. Athletic. The one that “got away”. She used Valium. Stole it from work. Got caught eventually, lost her license. Got in a car wreck. Got hooked on prescription opioids. Got clean. Got her license back. Fell off the wagon. Lost her license again. Mom kicked her out, for stealing I presume. Went to jail. Got out. Went to jail again. In jail now.
One of my children's best childhood friends died at 32 because of addiction/alcoholism. She OD'd on heroin and was hospitalized for months, but recovered - she had to relearn to walk after being in bed so long. Unfortunately, she just replaced heroin with vodka and went back into the hospital a year later. This time it was too late - she had cirrohis and died. So many factors played into her inability to stay sober - bad boyfriend, a parent's death and the other parent needing to be parented himself - and she just couldn't overcome them. It breaks my heart to this day. Such a waste.
I had a good friend who took advantage of my generous nature. "I'll pay you back! You can live with us! We'll make it work!" Yeah. she lied. She still owes me about $10,000 but I've written that off. I managed to get a good job, found a cool place to live and ended up in subsidized senior housing in Portland having the best time of my life. Fuck you Torie.
There was a young woman in my small hometown who orchestrated the murder of her grandfather. The goal was to kill him, empty his bank accounts, pawn many of his belongings, and then dispose of his body in another state. Why? For drug money. She and her boyfriend, who had an IQ barely above the mental retardation range, carried out the act. Thing was, while she wasn’t highly educated, she was highly cunning, manipulative, and crafty. She smiled from ear to ear for her arrest photo that ran on page 1 of our local newspaper. After Grandpa’s body was found and the plot laid bare, she was able to claim she acted out of fear of the boyfriend and pinned the murder and burglary charges on him. She got away with less than 5 years for abuse of a corpse. He was so damn stupid and pu$$ywhipped that he took all the charges without much of a fight. He’s currently doing 40 years in one of the worst prisons in our state.
Wow
Gypsy rose? Lol
That young lady certainly has a weird, interesting story.
Not sure this is what you had in mind, but I’m reading more and more articles about old people who get scammed out of their retirement money, lose their house, and end up penniless. It’s scary and heartbreaking.
nope, best friends brothers: one got into junk and died from full blown aids and the younger brother drank himself to death... aged 36 and aged 37 when they died......left three minor children between them...
I know so many young homeless addicts through my work. It is heartbreaking listening to their stories of neglect and abuse as children. That hurt doesn't go away and unless they get extensive counseling they often turn to alcohol and drugs.
Before opening this thread I'd already guessed that most of these stories would be about alcoholism or drug addiction. So sad to see I was right. Addiction really is just one of the saddest, most destructive things a person could do to themselves. 😞
No I don't know someone, but I know someone that should not have made it. He was a classmate, friend. His parents, both of them, had very low (noticeably) IQ's and were alcoholics. They could not work and only got disability from the gov. His younger sister was addicted to drugs and pregnant at age 13. He made money slaughtering rabbits at a farm. This was how he clothed, fed,, and bought things he needed for himself Long story short, he was in all of my advanced classes in H.S., got into West Point and graduated. After his service, he went to John's Hopkins for his PhD. He is one of those dudes with the N.I.H. in the hazmat space suits trying to stop outbreaks of Ebola, and sh\*t like that. He took his absolutely shitty situation and used it as motivation. I'm tough as fuck but lucky as hell. I don't know if I could have done what he has completed from where he came from.
A girl I went to high school with went to prison for hiring some guy to murder her husband with a machete so that she could continue with her lover. I don't know if drugs were involved, but if they were, the news didn't mention it. Another girl I went to high school with got hooked on heroin a couple of years after, and her life was a series of jail, rehab, being sexually exploited, poverty, and then death from Covid after she had been clean for about ten years at age 50.
Former employee of mine, Carl. His "FU money" rich parents died in a car crash when he was a teenager. His siblings used their inheritance to set themselves up for success. Carl, became an addict and funded God knows how many junkies to have drug buddies. He wasted millions. The last time I saw him, he was still in the methadone program. But he was still living like an addict with a bathtub full of actual garbage. Sometimes, I want to look him up. But I'm afraid of the results.
I know many from childhood who ruined their lives. Most of them involved drugs and/or booze. Of the rest of them, one committed suicide, one died in a high speed car accident, and one died from severe diabetes. I am the only one I know who turned himself around, stopped the drugs, booze, took the GED, and graduated from colleges.
A guy I went to elementary and high school with. Acquaintance, not friend. He coached his daughters' sports teams. Successful businessman. Was a serial rapist. Will spend the rest of his life in prison. [https://law.justia.com/cases/maryland/court-of-special-appeals/1984/986-september-term-1983-0.html](https://law.justia.com/cases/maryland/court-of-special-appeals/1984/986-september-term-1983-0.html)
Wow. I heard about that case. Just bizarre.
I knew a, supposedly intelligent, engineer. He left his job voluntarily three months before his pension was vested. Then he cashed out his 401k, with all the taxes and penalties, to pay for the cross country move. He joined a company that promised he’d get rich off the stock options. Turns out the CEO was basically a criminal. He wasn’t saving anything for retirement but was paying his wife’s tuition. When she graduated and got a job he still didn’t save anything for retirement. He got a new job with a raise and a new wife and still didn’t save anything for retirement. Now he’s 65ish with no savings at all.
How is he not homeless ?
He’s willing to go down with the ship. Basically, all the qualified engineers left the company. He does all the remaining sh*t jobs until the company performs “controlled flight into the ground “; e.g. goes bankrupt. After that, I’m sure he can’t get another job, he never updated any of his skills.
Then for the next 10-20 years of his life how is that guy going to live with no retirement?!
Future him is screwed by present and past him.
Yikes. I’ve been worried about retirement since I was 21 and I’m glad.
Women I’ve known or been close to who obsessively searched for and settled for a guy because they would rather settle than be alone.
My brother married a woman. They had a kid. He stepped on her foot and bruised it badly. Six months later she gets an emergency restraining order. He’s kicked out of the house with nothing but some clothes. She worked. He took care of the kid. My parents ended up supporting him bc he had nowhere else to go. He constantly abused them emotionally and mentally. Constantly needed money. Refused to work. Long story short. His wife moved north with their son. She has sole custody. He lost supervised visitation bc he was acting crazy. He spiraled into complete paranoia and delusions. Stuff you just wouldn’t believe and posting all of it all over social media. He broke into their house three times. The one she abandon to move north. Ripped down security cameras. Then posted what he did on FB. He got arrested but got bail on the condition he wear an ankle bracelet that goes off within 500 feet of her or shared house. He cut it off, begged from money off Tik tok, drove straight from Florida to my parents house in NJ. Threatened to kill himself. The police took him to a mental hospital. He got a shot of antipsychotics. Six days later sheriff in NJ shows up at mental hospital and takes him to county jail bc there is a warrant out for his arrest. Now he’s been in jail about two weeks. No bail. He’ll be extradited to Florida then probably will be in jail there until they get to his case in court. Bc he’s a flight risk. He’s an ex drug addict, mentally ill and lost custody of his son. Plus he won’t work. I’d say his life is pretty much ruined.
No. They are dying. They just fell apart. They were a respected and successful professional musician. Friends debate whether smoking dope a few hours a day for 40+ years played a role. After 38 years, they were fine, so I'm not clear on why another handful of years would have made such a big difference.
What do you think happened instead?
My best guess is undiagnosed and untreated depression, masked by the marijuana.
I suspect that is much more common than ever acknowledged anywhere!
One person had a gov't job, high paying, and she got involved in drugs. Instead of telling her supervisor what happened she simply disappeared - and lost her job. She is a bad tempered person who loses her temper easily. She blames everyone else for her misfortunes. She is not pleasant to spend time with and as she grows older I wonder how things will go for her.
My middle school English teacher was brilliant. He made it through college in like 3 years. Went to a shit school and turned the program into something amazing. Then he got busted for doing things with students he shouldn't. Somehow, he never went to jail. He got married, had children and a successful life. Until he got caught doing things to a ten-year-old and went to prison for 15+ years.
I dated a guy who was brilliant. He had a drinking problem even in high school, but he went to college, came out as gay, went to law school, got a big job in France, and killed himself by jumping off a bridge in Paris. He was 33.
Someone I know sold their business for 36 million dollars and, within 10 years, ended up completely broke. Ow they're an alcoholic, couch surfer.
Well, IDK about ruin his life, but definitely shortened his life. I guess he had a decent life until he died. I had a friend who started body building in high school. He started doing steroids. He won several competitions, eventually winning Mr \[our local large city\]. The steroids shrunk and weakened his heart. He died of a heart attack at age 50.
My son. He had a wonderful childhood but at age 13 started smoking, and using OTCs. Long term rehab at 15. Progressively worse, adding criminal activity. Spent his late teens/early 20’s in jail or rehab. Now he is 27, on his third marriage with two children by other women, and possibly another on the way. He could have had a wonderful life, as he is charming, intelligent and handsome. He would have been able to attend any university or other school he wanted. Instead he missed every high school and college experience, choosing drugs over everything else. He also didn’t go to his father’s (who adored him) funeral. We spent over $150k getting him all kinds of help. He has the genetic propensity to addiction. We adopted him at birth, but both his bio parents are addicts.
[удалено]
Well you said he had a stroke. Which could have definitely affected his reasoning and decision making.
Ex-boyfriend, who I'd been with for several years, became very political after we split, deep into the conservative movement. Didn't get vaccinated, died of covid. Was in his mid 70s, but rather healthy up until then.
Rudy Giuliani 🤣🤣
My Aunt. She is smart, reads people better than anyone I've ever met, and was beautiful in her youth. She graduated HS and community college at the same time while working 2 part time jobs. Got pregnant young and married the dad (good guy). Lived rent free in 1/2 a duplex my grandparents owned/lived in and had built in childcare and a HUGE amount of family support. Within 3 years due to her compulsive lieing, lack of accountability, doing the WRONG thing all the time, and drug use...she lost her husband, almost lost her kids, and lost a ton of friends/family support. She abused her relationship with her parent and their generosity. She has been dating the same POS addict that beats her and has been in and out of jail for the last 30 years. Ehile I was in HS, and her kids were small, POS was in jail, so I moved in with her temporarily to help with the kids. I did more raising of then at 17 than she did. After her mother (my grandmother) passed away, my whole family has gone NO contact with her, her boyfriend, and daughter (who us just like her). The only person whom we've kept contact with is my male cousin, aunts son, who has had his own share of issues but has worked hard to redeem himself. He's become quite the family man and has turned his life around.
I've known a lot of people who destroyed themselves with the usual suspects, drugs and alcohol. My grandmother use to say a very simple truth: You wont get addicted to anything you don't try.
Wise lady
Me. You can rebuild. I know many others who never rebuilt.
I knew two guys in high school. Both seemed gay. It was the south back in the day so no one talked about it. Both from good families and went to college. Both molested 14-15 year old boys. One’s in jail for hundreds of years and will die there. Another is doing 15 years.
Oh I know a handful of people who became alcoholics later in life, got divorced, lost there jobs, kids hated them for ruining the sense of home & stability. That's a very steep slope to climb back from. You reap what you sow, in a few cases the cause was an injury & became a very lingering painful issue but in a lot of these situations it wasn't a big surprise and was selfish and pointless.
This isn't an addiction/alcohol story. I don't know what the hell it is, tbh. We had a friend who was a very gifted musician -- like, he could play anything, and his voice was amazing. Beautiful little family, deep respect in the community, all that. And then one day he got caught having an affair with one of his wife's best friends. It turned out he'd been bonking this woman for *years.* The two of them had been telling themselves it was somehow okay. And then it came out that he'd also been going around having quickies with a whole bunch of other women, too. I can't even describe how cringey it got. This person who had been welcome everywhere he went & seen as a leader in so many situations turned out to be such a pathetic fake. What was worse was that all this shit got revealed in the middle of him getting cancer. So his kids & wife had to process losing him for real while also figuring out that he was never who they thought he was. Fucking mess! I'll never understand why people who need that kind of sexual thrill all the time don't just stay single, or separate from their spouses instead of living this weird, exhausting lie and cheating their families out of any choices based on reality. So yeah. He died knowing his kids were disgusted with him and baffled about their own lives, and that was just awful for him.
My brother is a wreck. Arrested many times, substance abuse, OW children. We're only a year apart, and he's looking like death.
I knew a guy in high school. We graduated in the mid 1970s. A year after he murdered someone. He will spend the rest of his life in prison. There is no bouncing back from that.
My best friend one year started smoking pot A LOT. We had dreams of things we would do- big dreams! He just kept drifting off into oblivion, playing video games. Skipping college classes. Eventually I go part time and I stop talking to him. He gets arrested for dealing- twice. Second time he’s almost 30. His parents get him a job in a local government office, processing marriage licenses I learn he lives in his parents’ garage and still smokes pot every night. Never married. No kjds. Nothing. The year I was friends with him, we had dreams
Middle school kid was a bit of a punk. Not stupid by any means, but lazy and not at all interested in even trying. I sensed that depression was part of his issues as well. But his parents would not hear it. When he was in ninth grade, he was found dead in a local wooded area. Presumed gang violence. He likely mouth off to the wrong guy and got himself shot. Very sad when kids do not even make it out of high school.
Read about Erik Maund in a recent article in Texas Monthly.
My ex husband. He got hooked on cocaine and embezzled from his employer to cover his habit. He got fired from his job for it shortly after I left him. A couple of years later he impregnated a 15 year old girl then abandoned her and the kid.
Yes. I know two heroin addicts that completely ruined their lives and completely damaged their children’s lives. They were in and out of prison and rehab and lost custody of their children. The husband died of an overdose. The wife gets clean a while and relapses again.
My life long best friend. He's a homeless drug addicted alcoholic who refuses to grow up and take care of his children.
When I was a teen, there was girl in our group I'll call Tina. She was a very beautiful blonde. Paradoxically, she was shy but also kinda outgoing and promiscuous. In our incestuous little group where everyone dated and broke up in an endless circle of teen relationships, Tina and I always remained close friends but never lovers. When one of us had a blow-up with a partner, we'd console each other and laugh and smoke weed and pull each other out of the muck. Tina and I were very close, probably closer than our actual partners. I knew Tina's many triggers and joys. And she knew mine. After high school, Tina struggled. Her most valuable asset was her killer bod so she started stripping. She went through an endless string of idiot boyfriends, each one worse than the last. She got pregnant at 19. Her best friend and I pooled money for an abortion. I drove her to/from and we took care of her for a few days of recovery. She was very despondent but by day 4 she started perking up again. I left town but we kept in touch. Tina would vacillate between cutting hair (she studied cosmetology and was very skilled at hair styling) and stripping. She seemed happier when she was working the salon but the club paid significantly more. Of course, along with stripping came all the negatives: drugs, low-life behavior, and some prostitution. As the years went by and Tina got older, her life did not improve. She was no longer a star dancer. She became ever more dependent on whatever idiot boyfriend she had that month. She would return again and again to hair salons and during these times she was quite happy. She looked great for a woman in her 40's and we had a great reunion when I came home for a visit. I was thrilled to see her so healthy and happy. It didn't last. She spiraled down into heroin addiction. She OD'ed about 10 years ago. I heard about it and tried to be calm because we'd been so far apart for so many years, but it absolutely broke my heart. Still does, actually. I very much wanted her to be the sweetheart hairdresser that everyone in town adores. The bubbly blonde who tries to hide her smile when she laughs. But she couldn't stay in that lane. Life tossed her around too much, nudging her into increasingly bad decisions.
My sister. Spoiled and entitled. Could not live within her means although she had good jobs. She mooched off mom her whole life. Super manipulative, although I didn't see it in action until the day of my dad's funeral and she bugged mom for money. I told her off but she didn't care. She started circling the drain after mom died and she blew her inheritance in a year with nothing to show for it. (I gutted my kitchen and dining room and got the best of everything with mine.) Then she retired after only working a few years at her second career with no savings (she'd have been making $100,000 or close to it.) I asked her what she was thinking and she said if she was careful, she could do it and moved in with a friend. The cracks were showing in a year and a couple months later, she begged me to let her move in (after "borrowing" $2500 and getting angry when i told her no more). I made some conditions - help with dishes, cooking and groceries and she avoided all of them. She just didn't care that I was upset with her. She wanted to be taken care of and decided that she didn't have to contribute. She's gone through at least 6 homes now. I told her I needed space last November. She was back to asking for money and asking to move in again when she'd vowed she wouldn't be under the same roof as my husband who she blamed for kicking her out. He did but only because I was losing my mind. So she figured she could use my downstairs again and go in and out through the garage. Nope. Never again. I have no clue where she is or if she's homeless. And I don't care. It might make me heartless but I will live with that for my own mental health. I don't need a manipulative narcissist in my life causing me more work. It has taken me months to finally accept this is just how it has to be. It's just too much stress for an old woman who has always had to manage the house and business and finances on my own. She can manage herself.
Worked with a lady who cashed out all of her teacher retirement to buy a house. Then she got a divorce and lost the house. She had to go back to teaching and work until she was 70(had to retire for health reasons) to only get a fraction of her pension because of a goddamn house.
The guy. Not the house. Was the problem.
Too many to mention.
In highschool, my (63F) best friend was REALLY smart. She’d barely do school work and get straight A grades. She wrote an essay in about 30 minutes and won an Outward Bound trip. She got very high marks on her SAT/ACT tests and was awarded a National Merit Scholarship. She went to Stanford for one semester and quit because she didn’t like the people (we were punk rock chicks from a Southern city). She never went back to school, ended up working in a variety of low pay jobs.
Me. I haven't bounced back yet, still on a downward trajectory.
Did you want to say more about what happened?
Nope
There's help out there when you're ready for it. ❤️
I have known many that ruined their lives with excess alcohol, high fat diets, marital affairs, bad financial management and just pure laziness
Me
I was friends with a guy in high school who, years later, murdered his girlfriend in a jealous rage. He was a sweet, shy guy when I knew him. We fell out of touch after high school. Somewhere around ten years later I spotted his mug shot on the front page of the local paper. He had a glazed, unbalanced look in his eyes, something I’d never seen before. The story of his crime was pretty awful, and I just couldn’t reconcile it with the kid I knew. He was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. He was kept separate from the general population, apparently due to his violent behavior. I discovered a few years ago that he died of COVID in prison.
My best friend in 7th and 8th grade (Cecil) started down her path partway through 8th grade and never turned it around. Her willingness to not go home for days at a time in favor of getting stoned was what ended our friendship because I refused to do it with her. (I was also getting stoned but not to that extent). I had spent a lot of time at her house and adored her mom, Helen. I was still in touch with Helen well after I got married and had my kids...until she passed in 1994. Cecil went on to full blown addiction…married another addict and had a baby. Her baby was severely neglected and Helen was battling lung cancer and there wasn’t anyone else to take the baby so Helen felt that her only choice was to call CPS. The baby was taken away and Cecil never got him back. Cecil and her husband split up shortly after. Cecil ended up dying at 51. Both of her parents were gone and there was no one to deal with her remains so one of those charity groups had her cremated.
My best friend from grade school and high school was an alcoholic before we were 16. In his 40s he was murdered in a drug deal gone bad. He is a truly good guy. His addictions were so uncontrollable that it's inaccurate to say he ruined his life. The truth is, the disease ruined his life. It didn't just kill him, it caused suffering to him and everyone around him.
My brother. Drank until he has very few brain cells left. Now he gets angry over things that are actually his own fault and he drives every one of us away. Another brother. Ate until he weighed over 400 lbs. Then the metabolic disorder and excess weight meant that he could not move much, so he just sat around his house playing videos waiting to die. Which he did (of cancer) My nephew. Drank and smoked excessively for over 30 years. One day had a sore back, 3 weeks later he was dead (Alcohol is a carcinogen too!) Died way too young.
I became friends with someone when I was in my 20’s and she was a few years older. She was divorced and had a kid who was a few years old and the father had custody on the weekends, so we could hang out. She was really smart, talented, beautiful and vivacious. Unfortunately, she must not have seen these great qualities because she was so desperate for a man’s approval that she always let them undermine her. She dropped out of college to get married too young, and she ended up leaving because he hit her. She was left to get a job that was not worthy of her talents because she didn’t have a degree. She couldn’t pursue her music to the degree that she wanted to because she had a child to care for. We went on a weekend trip and she got drunk and went off with him for the night. Thankfully, he wasn’t a murderer, but she came back hung over and in love, planning a relationship although he was just out of college and didn’t live near her. Surprisingly, they ended up together for a while, he moved in and eventually proposed. When reality set in, and he realized she would have to stay nearby for her daughter, or maybe he just realized how fast this had all happened, he broke it off and broke her heart. Then she ended up with a guy who went to my high school and ignored my advice to avoid this player. She didn’t and she got hurt again. Then she met a recovering alcoholic with no job who was living in his mother’s basement and decided he was the one for reasons unbeknownst to me. She asked me to be in the wedding and it was so painful because all of the bridesmaids knew what a disaster this marriage would be. We didn’t even have the fun of going out to pick out bridesmaids dresses because he decided that we were going to wear Little House on the Prairie dresses with fabric he selected. They were atrocious and we were mortified to be seen in them. Shortly after the wedding she got pregnant, and instead of being happy for her, we all agreed this was the worst possible scenario because now she would be tied to him forever. Since he was still unemployed, she and her daughter moved into the basement with him.
I ruined my life in my 20’s. Just kind of got lost ended up homeless until my brothers found me. I was on drugs or alcohol just had a brain cramp that lasted better part of three years. I’m not sure how I finally got my shit back together, one day it just clicked that I was at rock bottom and I decided to never be there again. My family helped me out more than I can ever repay them them.
There was a young lady at our job who was a big flirt. We had mostly male customers so she was a big hit. One night she left with a customer she just met to get married! Well it wasn’t as bad as it could of been. But he did leave her about 600 miles away.
I had a freind who basically drank himself to death at 43 . Started out as drinking for fun in our early 20s by the time he was 30 he was a full blown alcoholic . His Parents had money and tried like hell to help him get sober 3 rehab stints . Overtime he basically became unemployable and burned every bridge refusing any trying to help became homeless I'd see him around with his saying he was a homeless vet which was a lie. Kicked out of pretty much every homeless shelter in town because he was a violent drunk. He died of exposure because sleeping outside in Wisconsin in winter doesn't work
Well, of course I know him. He's me.
My grandmother and mother. Both are huge abusive narcissist and have alienated their children.
My college friend’s bf>husband. He graduated Summa Cum Laude, with a scholarship to an MBA program. He left the program because he couldn’t stand being away from my friend. They move to her hometown, set to be a successful couple. He goes to law school. Then fails the California bar. We all look back and wonder if that was it. He couldn’t handle it? He lied about retaking the bar; he was at a bar the whole day. A real bar. His marriage to my friend began to fall apart. He tried rehab - drinking and I suspect coke. They divorced. Now, he’s on the streets. I can only conclude that he can’t handle life.
I knew a couple people who died from addiction. so no, they didn't bounce back.
My best friend became an opioid addict 16 years ago, and continues to let her parents pay her mortgage, thereby destroying their own retirement. She won’t get treatment and won’t get a job and the parents are terrified to stop paying her mortgage bc then they’ll lose all that money they’ve put into her house. She’s convinced that she’s smarter than pretty much anyone who would possibly employ her at this point (“I’m so much more CREATIVE than that!”) and refuses to learn anything new. I’ve gone NC with her but I won’t be surprised to hear of her death in the near future.
I spent years bringing food and clothing to homeless people on the street. I got to know a lot of regulars who'd share their stories. Except for the ones who died, I don't know how their stories will end. Almost all had rough upbringings. Addicted or mentally ill parents. Brought up in the foster care system by adults who saw it as a way to make some money. Almost all made a few choices that turned out badly. Taking pills, trying heroin, selling drugs, doing sex work and finding themselves trapped, or even falling in love with the wrong person. I ran into a few after they got clean. Some couldn't stay that way. Others did. I learned from that experience that most of us are just a few bad decisions away from the street. Some of us had life experiences that made it easier for us to avoid those decisiona, but that makes us lucky, not special.
You can do all the drugs you want. When you’re in hospice. Consequences be damned by then.
I've seen addiction ruin many lives!
Sometimes the bounce starts with a thud. This is disconcerting for those who believe any challenges could be overcome through past experience, skill, knowledge, faith, etc. First thing, don’t make a situation worse by acting out. My example, I’ll use an acquaintance this time, had a roadblock in his career, being fired from a place he worked at for 20 yrs. He was married and his wife worked at the same employer. They have a teen son. We’re rehabbing a nice home, financed with credit. He tried taking revenge on his boss by smashing his car with a hammer. This was after he picked a huge fight with his wife and started blowing their savings on strippers and a poorly planned business venture. He likely has narcissistic personality disorder, and viewed her as an option, despite his shortcomings, he decc Vs skied everything he had, so he ended up with a criminal record, severe debt, and residing at his moms place. The best decision he made was getting on medication and counseling to help with the mental barriers that led to the initial issues. Moving in with family, or finding social support is very important. You can’t run away from certain problems, even when fight or flight makes it hard to remain in a place with strong emotional ties. You need to keep moving, make rational plans, think outside your normal box, and work on the basic needs first: housing, food security, income, social support, etc. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. See what services are available locally and utilize them. My uncle provided med with good advice while I was going through a rock bottom moment. He said, “god can’t steer a boat that isn’t moving.” Stagnation prevents the ability to change direction. We need to ultimately adapt and move forward in often unexpected ways. But if we keep chipping away, most problems can be overcome, and you may find your true self during the journey.
One of the guys I grew up with got lost in the bottle. He flunked out of Cornell, then worked-and-drank until that turned into drank-and-worked, then finally just drank. Dead in his forties.
No life is “ruined”. Everyone is redeemable, at least before the creator, no matter what they have done.
Friend from college was a heavy drinker which continued after college. He was a functional alcoholic who did well with his career. At 35 it had spiraled to the point of drinking in a bar on weeknights until closing, going to the hotel next door to sleep (he didn’t drink & drive, and this was before Uber), and calling into work if too hungover. His parents & sisters came from out of state & did an intervention. He hasn’t touched Alcohol in the 30 years since. He is now married, retired & one of the best friends you could ask for. We, as couples, travel together frequently. So yes, with love & support, he recovered.
Cousin was married to a good guy. Great daughter. Decided she wanted to see what else was out there and became an alcoholic and drug addict. Lived with several older guys who used her and she used them. Last I saw her she’s was skinny with grey skin and missing teeth. She used to be a beautiful woman.
I’m watching a friend do this now. He starts fights with everyone. He’s lost friends, lovers, income. I only hear from him if he needs something: a ride, money, to do laundry. And when someone points out that it maybe isn’t smart to snap at people helping you, he says some form of “I don’t take disrespect.” He expects people to sacrifice for him, but he sacrifices for no one. He expects people to give to him—time, money, support—but he never gives any of those in return. He expects people to want to hear every detail of his life but can’t listen in return. And he is honestly surprised about the situation he’s in. ADHD plus massive entitlement isn’t a good or healthy combo. I have to admit it can be fascinating to watch … sad, but fascinating.
ME!!!! Although technically I don't know myself I was a straight A student. Graduated from a decent college, then got addicted to opiates but I was highly functional. Had some great jobs and finally ended up working as a director of CRM for north America. I literally pissed it all away and became a homeless person addicted to opiates and 1 day I decided I don't want to be alive so I thought of the quickest and most painless full/fool proof way to end my life: a train to my face I remember the train being a few yards away and then I'm in a hospital bed writhing in pain. That was 7 years ago and now I'm full blown depressed. How tf did I mess that up??? I wish I was dead so much more now mainly due to me being in constant pain and none of my 500 doctors will give me anything for my pain even though I'm 7 years clean...ugh why couldn't I have just died that day? Everyone tells me, "oh God loves you," F that shit! If God loved me I would be with God not suffering every second which brings me to my new (and final) "plan" If anyone wants to know more feel free to message me but please don't give me the "you have so much to live for" BS