“You’re a drug dealer. You don’t care if I die. Give me the Percocet.”
Kevin’s Story:
Drug dealing has recently been treated as a mental health/ health issue, rather than a criminal issue. In the U.S., more than 67,000 people die each year from a drug overdose. They look for someone to blame, their parents look for someone to blame, and society looks for someone to blame: the drug dealer. People are so easy to assume that people who sell drugs are also the ones mindlessly feeding it to the addict.
Kevin grew up in a very typical “cookie cutter” household, in a suburb of Chicago. He attended a progressive high school, and was accepted to a top college for soccer. When he arrived at college he hadn’t done more than kiss a girl and drink wine at a Christmas party with his family. Fast forward, and he was kicked out of college and forced into rehab halfway through his sophomore year for selling and using Percocet, Xanax, and cocaine.
“I loved college. I mean I loved the friends I met, the fraternity I was in, the soccer team…I was doing well in school and decided to major in finance— and then fraternity hazing began. This was a way to get us to “bond” with the other members. We drank a lot, and this also was the first time we did cocaine. No one forced us to do this, but you were definitely seen as weak or maybe not a good candidate for the fraternity if you didn’t do the things they told us. I remember this one night I had to drink like fifty shots and after every shot I had to snort a line of coke. I woke up the next day and was called a “legend” because I had beaten everyone else in the game. I loved the fraternity, and I ended up quitting soccer because I wanted to be more involved in the social aspect of college.”
Kevin explains to me that his freshman year was a blur and the craziest and most fun times he had ever experienced. He met a girl and they became serious, he joined the fraternity, and he was extremely well liked.
“I remember being depressed when summer came along. I didn’t want to leave and go back to my boring life in Chicago and the finance internship my dad had connected me with. When I got back to Chicago I met up with my old friends. We decided to get coke and that’s the last thing I remember. That morning my mom was screaming at me, I had woken up 2 hours late to my internship, and I had cheated on my girlfriend from college. Apparently it had been a really fun night, so of course we did it again. At the end of the summer I found myself hanging out with my coke dealer a lot on weekends. Then it became week nights. I paid him thousands of dollars for coke that summer.”
Two weeks before Kevin went back to college, his mom got surgery. She was prescribed Percocet.
“My girlfriend had officially broken up with me. I told my friends I wanted to get hammered that night. I had heard of Percocet. I stole 2 or 3 of my moms Percocet, we got coke, and 3 handles of Jack. I remember the next day thinking ‘that night was sick’ and remembering just having the best time.”
Kevin returned to college. This year he was living in the fraternity house. They had a huge party at the beginning of the semester and the first secured party favor was cocaine.
“I texted my dealer in [anonymous city]. He got me hooked up with cocaine for the night. I bought an eight ball. I went inside to go pick it up and my dealer said he had molly. I’d never tried molly, but a lot of my friends had. I bought the molly, smoked some weed with my dealer, and headed back to the fraternity house. That night I took the molly, did all my coke, and drank a shit ton of alcohol. The next day I slept until 7 pm and felt awful. I texted my drug dealer for Xanax. He brought me 4 pills which were 2 mg each. I think I took 2 and then passed out for hours, and then took another two. I missed all my classes Monday. My drug dealer texted me that night to see if I wanted to smoke again, and I said yes.”
Kevin began hanging out with his drug dealer more frequently. He realized he was starting to do more drugs than the other guys in his fraternity. He smoked everyday, drank almost everyday, and did coke every weekend.
“One time my dealer was like ‘I have acid’ on a random Wednesday. I took it and had the worst experience. I was literally seeing dark demonic figures running towards me and I had never felt this anxious or horrible.”
Two months into Kevin’s sophomore year, he began picking up a new reputation. He had gone from soccer player to fraternity guy to druggie to the ‘hookup’ for drugs in the fraternity.
“I started getting super anxious out of no where. I felt super depressed also. I remember before Halloween I was having horrible nightmares and was taking Xanax way too much. There was this one night where I thought I had had a seizure and my friends were absolutely freaking out. Somehow I ended up walking to my dealers house and I told him I needed Xanax. He was like ‘I just got some Percocet if you want one.’ I took it. I ended up banging on my ex girlfriends door screaming and she called the police. I tried to fight the police…I was so lucky I didn’t end up in jail. It just got so bad. My friends had all given up on me. Even my drug dealer.”
November came around, and Kevin’s grades had dropped. He wasn’t allowed to go to a formal because of his drug use. He drank every single day and took Xanax to go to bed, to feel happy, and to function.
“I started getting really aggressive. I got into a huge fight and beat up a kid from a different fraternity when I was drunk. I knocked out one of my teeth, face planting. I would show up at my dealers house in a car that I’d stolen from a friend at 4 am. One time I told him I’d pay him 500$ for a Percocet and he was like ‘I think you’re good.’ I punched him and was like ‘give me the fucking Percocet. He told me I was going to die. I said; 'You’re a drug dealer. You don’t care if I die. Give me the Percocet.’ He ended up giving it to me. I woke up in the hospital the next day and my parents had flown into [anonymous city]. I had to have a meeting with the dean and was on probation. I remember feeling so low at one point that I took 4 Xanax and drank an entire fifth of Jamison. I don’t remember anything, but I knew I didn’t want to wake up or be alive.”
It was 2 weeks before Christmas break. Kevin was failing all of his classes because he only showed up a couple times every two weeks. He slept all the time, to the point where he would go days without seeing people.
“My mom cut me off from getting money other than my meal card and 50$ a week. I remember going through my roommates stuff trying to find Xanax. Then I raided other rooms until I found some. The last time I took Xanax was right before my flight back to Chicago. My parents were waiting for me inside the airport at baggage claim with another bag packed. They told me I was going to Utah for a 4-6 month rehab program. That’s pretty much when my life changed forever.”
It’s been four years since Kevin went to Utah.
“Rehab was the worst and best experience of my life. The worst part about it was the cravings and withdrawals. The first month was absolute hell. I threw up multiple times a day and couldn’t move at times.”
Kevin was released from rehab and flew back to Chicago at the end of June, 6 months later.
“I remember getting home and apologizing to my parents and crying. I tried to apologize to my ex girlfriend; she hasn’t talked to me since then. I did get back in touch with my friends but ended up going to a different school. I wasn’t in a fraternity anymore, and I had no access to drugs. Of course I relapsed a few times with alcohol, but all in all I was able to grow a lot and become significantly healthier.”
Kevin is working at a bank in Chicago right now and has a serious girlfriend. He graduated college with a degree in Finance, and a minor in psychology.
“I completely changed. I became a nicer person to my family and friends. I started going on walks and doing a lot of reflection. I am so grateful that my parents intervened when they did. Who knows where I would be right now. People can be in such denial, like I was. I was the guy that people were either scared of or needed to get drugs from. Girls wouldn’t come near me. I am a different person today. I am so thankful for my family and the way the accepted me and welcomed me after my addiction, suicide attempts, and trips to the hospital. I don’t know where I would be without that sort of support.”
I am so grateful that Kevin had the courage to reach out to me, someone younger and not a close friend. This takes so much bravery. Society has created this image that drinking alcohol is what is normal and I’ve had people react in an astonishing manor when I declined a shot or decided I didn’t want to drink wine that night: “Why not??” Hundreds of years ago the common reaction to a woman drinking alcohol would be something along the lines of: “she is not a lady. She is sinful.” It is so interesting how our perception of alcohol has changed. Although I still enjoy a glass of wine or a beer at a baseball game, I think that everyone is on their own path to recovery, and journeys look different. I have found the hard alcohol has negatively affected my mental health since I have been on my antidepressant medication. I am doing what is best for me and my mental health, just as Kevin did. These stories all look so different, but hearing and having a sense of hope is my goal for everyone in reading them.
