I often wonder if my sister’s teenage years had occurred in the 1940s or 50s, would her life have been different? Would the absence of easily available drugs have slowed her descent, offering her enough time to recognize the value in her life and emerge from her self-induced despair? Was bad timing to blame for her ultimate demise?
My sister’s march toward death claimed nearly forty years of her life but unlike someone whose physical existence is maintained by life support after being left in a vegetative state for many years, her condition didn’t stabilize or become predictable. Her body functions weren’t maintained by feeding tubes or ventilators and the choice to live or die was clearly in her hands, not family members. No machine was unplugged nor DNR order upheld. It was a journey of choices and their consequences.
Her first step in the wrong direction began as an impulsive decision made by teenager who was just trying to fit in with her peers. At least that’s what I tell myself. I don’t really know what triggered her decision to experiment with drugs or why she never experienced enough regret to change her course. Looking back now, I realize she never seemed to stumble down the wrong path, instead always running headlong into the darkness while refusing to accept the consequences of her actions. Maybe like a person who finds solace in cutting, it was the one piece of her psyche she felt in complete control of, until the drugs began controlling her. Even though I’ll never know what triggered her fateful decision, I do recognize the moment she crossed the point of no return. From that day forward it was a downhill descent with only one possible destination. Getting off the train was no longer an option.
It all began in the mid-60s and early 70s when the whole world was changing around us. Make-Love-Not-War was the favored chant of America’s youth and psychedelic drugs were sweeping the nation. The hippie-look came up from the streets in rebellion against mainstream designers. Teenagers everywhere wore suede fringed jackets and hip-hugging, bell-bottomed jeans. T-shirts were tie-dyed in kitchen sinks and peace signs adorned necklaces, cars and books. Even rural America couldn’t protect itself from the waves of change crashing onto its shores. The caste system was breaking down. Being born on the “wrong side of the tracks” no longer meant you were destined to a life of poverty or blue-collared jobs. Skin color and sexual preference were considered limitations only by your parent’s generation. The world was changing fast. Teenagers and young adults had more outside influence thrown at them than probably any generation before and they were grabbing it up by the handfuls, begging for more. The people’s revolution was in motion and there was no stopping it.
Much of the violence of those tumultuous years brought positive change to our world. Equal rights for women. Roe vs. Wade. Desegregation and the Civil Rights Movement. Unfortunately not all change was positive. As with any new adventure, these kids didn’t realize the long-term repercussions of their actions in the beginning. It’s often decades before a choice can truly be measured and deemed either good or bad, so only now is it clear which ones deserve the credit and where to place the blame. Out of all the changes that swept our lives, most would agree the worst was the devastation caused by the grip of drug use on our nation.
I doubt anyone trying drugs for the first time considered them anything more than a social recreation. No one recognized the addictive nature of a generation hungry for a life bigger than their parents or the ingenuity of America’s youth in their quest for a bigger-and-better high. The dark side of illegal drugs had yet to expose itself. The train was building up steam and no one tried to stop it.
Many of America’s children experimented with drugs during their teens and twenties but for most, it simply became a chapter in their lives. Something they would move on from, eventually becoming typical middle-aged spouses &/or parents with mortgages and minivans. Yet for others like my sister, the chapter never ended. Why? Why were some able to walk away unscathed while others dove head first into the world of drug abuse purposely snowballing their lives into addiction? Why was it so innocent for some yet so dangerous for others? Many people argue that marijuana should be legalized; it’s no worse than alcohol. For some it isn’t, but for others, it’s a death sentence. So is it a gateway drug wreaking havoc on society or simply a temporary escape from reality meant to be enjoyed recreationally?
Unfortunately we aren’t born with labels. There’s no little tag hanging behind our ear with detailed instructions about what each of us can or cannot do. There’s no warning labels, no red circles with a diagonal line cutting across a picture of a crack pipe or a bottle of pills. We don’t come with guarantees and we only listen half-heartedly to the threats of “don’t try this at home.” There’s no predicting the outcome when a child is born and you can forget nature vs. nurture when drugs are added to the mix. My sister’s group of friends came from all walks-of-life with varied skin colors and ethnic backgrounds. Their family income ranged from poverty level to upper-middle. The only common denominator was their willingness to experiment with the unknown. Most made it out alive but many didn’t. At the time of my sister’s death, the number of lost souls could be counted into the twenties. Some were probably considered weak-links or social outcasts, but not all of them. Most were typical teenagers, never thinking beyond the present moment; never realizing this choice carried deadly consequences.
In hindsight, I want to believe the timing of my sister’s teenaged years deserves a portion of the blame for her death. Had she not been exposed to drugs at such a young age, would there still have been a chip on her shoulder? Would she still feel like society was against her, like the world owed her a favor? Those questions will remain unanswered but the world did her no favors by offering such an easy way out; a solution that seemed to make all her teenaged angst disappear in a cloud of smoke. Without that, maybe she would have fallen but gotten back up. Maybe she would have taken life’s hard knocks and grown from them. Avoidance must have seemed like the easier road and probably relieved her pain in the short-run but brought with it a lifetime of pain, robbing her of life’s lessons availed to us all. It stunted her emotional growth and skewed her parenting skills thus passing her pain on to the next generation and inflicting damage that will take them a lifetime to recover from, if ever. She gave up her life by choosing to avoid living it. A price too high to pay. In reality, society is still paying the price for treating drug use so casually but is it too late to stop the train?
Society’s landscape no longer resembles our childhoods of yesteryear. Our world requires an offensive stance. Children aren’t allowed to walk to the grocery store alone or play in the front yard without adult supervision. Their computer use is monitored for online predators and cyber-bullies. Responsible parents belong to neighborhood watch groups and subscribe to sex offender websites to alert the subdivision if a felon moves into the area. We teach our children that the world is a dangerous place and they believe us, at least until becoming teenagers. Then our sage advice about sex, drugs or underaged drinking-and-driving gets tossed aside with a roll of the eye and a shrug of their shoulder. Yet still we preach about the consequences of teenage mistakes, knowing in such a rush to grow up they often ignore parental advice, especially when all their friends are doing it. It’s a rite of passage. We expect them to have fun and enjoy life before entering adulthood with all its responsibilities. It’s part of growing up.
I don’t know if it’s possible to become addicted to alcohol the first time the elixir crosses your lips but some of our children are becoming addicted to drugs with their first hit. How do we make them understand that experimenting with drugs could alter their lives like a tsunami coming ashore? How do we prevent them from making such a devastating choice? And if we can’t prevent it, then how do we protect them?
We watched the train leave the station and build up steam, never once throwing the brake as it roared toward its final destination. So how do we stop it now?
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