Anibal Ortiz / Roundup
From the bathroom stall at the club to children’s playgrounds, hard drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and others can be found.
“I have friends who have done drugs, friends who cultivate these drugs and also friends who deal these drugs,” said 34-year-old Spanish major Juan Beteta, who has not used any drugs despite being exposed to the drug environment since the age of 15.
With the wide availability of drugs on the streets, the fight against the temptation and addiction of drugs has become a life-long journey for some.
“Our society in general is addictive…in America it’s, ‘Hey! Party hard, live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse,'” said Drew Williams, a chemical dependency specialist and teaching assistant for the addictive studies program at Pierce College.
Williams explained how addiction works.
“We have something called neurotransmitters in our brains,” Williams said. “When you eat a piece of pizza, work out a little or have sex, you have these feel good feelings.”
Marijuana smoking started at the age of 13 for Oscar, who requested his last name not to be published. He claims to have tried an extensive line of drugs.
“I used to take mushrooms, dropped acid before, done meth and I’ve done cocaine,” said Oscar, 25. “I’ve done all that.
Like many others, Oscar was surrounded by drug use as a child.
“During high school all of my friends were big-time druggies,” said Oscar, who has younger siblings. “At that time they were heavily into cocaine and I never touched that until my 20s. (It wasn’t) until after I graduated high school I got hooked (on cocaine).”
A friend helped ease Oscar out of his hard drug use.
“When I got hooked on cocaine, one of my friends straight told me, ‘You’re getting out of control,'” he said. “I guess he saw that I was partying too much.”
Williams recommends that people wait until after the person they are trying to reach has sobered before confronting them with the issue.
“The best time may be not long after an episode happened,” Williams said.
Oscar said he has had two eye-opening incidents, one during which he was unable to sleep for two days.
“It got to the point where I kind of stopped myself and I was like, ‘What the ****?'” Oscar said. “When I was doing it in my room (by myself) I kind of literally stopped myself and I was like, ‘What are you doing? You’re letting this **** take over.’
“It’s like a feeling that you’re unwanted,” he continued. “You’re kind of like an outcast, like all eyes are on me when nobody is there.”
For 18-year-old psychology major Alie Vedroza, now two years clean, the use of drugs began with peer pressure.
“My boyfriend helped me stop,” she said.
Oscar has slowed his drug use and now only drinks alcohol and smokes marijuana.
“I have to drink a beer or liquor,” Oscar said. “I know that if I don’t, I’ll probably be doing drugs.
“Once you have some sort of poison, it’s very hard to just stop everything,” he said.
Williams explained that the process of recovery and staying off the substance is a life-long process.
“There is no such thing as a cure for the disease of addiction,” Williams said.
Eben Maglic, a 24-year-old history major, thinks that while it might be fun for people to be high, there are always repercussions.
“You are always going to feel worse than you felt before,” Maglic said. “If you get addicted to it you (will) go through that same cycle every day.”
Although Oscar hopes his younger siblings don’t fall into his same footsteps, he stands by his choices in life.
“Now I play drums (almost every day), I’ll go out and run every so often,” Oscar said. “I don’t regret it. I have had some crazy experiences.”