Sociology 25
Wednesdays 3:30pm

Drug Use and Abuse
I was born in East Los Angeles, and I grew up surrounded by the Mexican culture. Not only were the "fiestas" big, full of joy and love, but there wasn't a party where you wouldn't see a man walking in with a twenty-four of coronas and a bottle of tequila to drink while singing along to the rancheras. The party never stopped until you had a bunch of machos tripping over their own two feet. Words quickly turned into slurs, women endured being disrespected, and fights always broke out. If that wasn't a good enough reason, the party wasn't over until the last drop of beer was taken. Having to grow up surrounded by drunk's made me realize that alcohol wasn't for me.
This is how it always begins, it starts with celebrations like your best friends marriage anniversary, or your son graduating high school. Then it turns into drinking socially and before you know it you're drinking uncontrollably, and you welcome any excuse to drink. That's what I witnessed with my uncle. He started of with a successful life living what every other immigrant can only dream off. He was a web-designer and owned a house. He had a beautiful family who supported him in everything. But suddenly everything seemed to turn upside down.
My family were always close. But just like everybody else I had a favorite uncle. So I spent a lot of time around him. As far as I can remember my uncle never had empty hands. His right hand was always holding a beer, and his left a blunt. No one ever said anything because he always said it was medicated marijuana. Sadly I started noticing changes in him and watched him destroy himself slowly. He started missing work for a few days here and there, until he

ultimately stopped going altogether. He somehow was still making money but he claimed he had picked up a new hobby making shirts. No one doubted him, until one night he never came home.
That one night changed everybody's life forever, especially mine.
I remember watching my mom cry, my grandma struggling to breath between each breath and my aunt losing hope. My uncle never came home, and the reason why was what got me confused. My cousin called 911 to report a missing person, yet to our surprise there was no missing person. My uncle was in jail for distribution of cocaine, and if that wasn’t enough they found over 400 pounds of it hidden in many areas of his truck. I was definetly not going to see him soon, and to make matters worse my mom landed in the hospital due to the news. I became very bitter, my uncle was everything to me and just like that I watched the man I once loved become a complete stranger.
My uncle remains in jail till' this day and I haven't communicated with him. I do have a lot of unanswered questions but I'm afraid to hear from him and be dissappointed. What he did really hurt me. In part I am grateful I was able to experience how drugs and alcohol affected my uncle. Thanks to that I grew up with a different mentality towards drugs an alcohol. While everyone around me experienced with them I tried everything in my power to stay away.
I grew up in North Hollywood in an area where gangs where going head to head to take over. So I watched gangsters walking around, recruiting young kids who felt like they had no family, drugs were being sold anywhere and everywhere. It was always out in the open and everyone pretended to look the other way. But I couldn’t help but pay attention. I only knew so much about drugs and I was one day offered angel dust by an ex boyfriend. I didn't know much about him, I was in middle school and like every other girl just went with the flow. I wasn't aware he was gang related and that he was more than familiar with drugs. Until one day we were

hanging around in front of my house when four guys who were huge jumped us. I ended up hospitalized with a bruised face, broken ribs, and a busted lip. But that did nothing to stop me from continuing to see my boyfriend. I then ended up in the middle of everything. I witnessed drug distributing front and center. Cocaine, angel dust, marijuana, everything. You name it they had it. I watched people do just about anything to get just one hit, just one pill.
Once again I was reminded how drugs affect peoples lives. And the saddest moment was when I realize I was helping them destroy it. These people just like my uncle had family. I no longer wanted to be near a situation that only reminded me of my uncle. I wanted to stay away from drugs, away for good. Unfortunately; I should know better than to expect it to just happen.
When I entered high school I was really excited, I thought I had left everything behind. I joined a health class where we discussed the effects of drugs and alcohol in our body. All this information only helped to enforce my ideas of it and continue to stay away.
But being that East Valley high was a new school there was absolutely no control. There was no amount of safety. There was no security, no punishments, and with no one reinforcing the rules it was easy to get away with anything. You'd find yourself surrounded by a cloud of weed.
They'd hide alcohol in water bottles. You'd see a few peers taking ecstacy in order to pass time.
To top it all of there were several gang rivalry's that ended with fights in just about every corner.
The few teachers available were afraid to find dead bodies where it was least expected due to overdose. While it was blatantly obvious what was going in our school, they didn’t have the funds required to hire new personal so the problems increased and the teachers that were available soon started leaving.
I watched my classmates make a fool out of themselves, dropping out of school. Because they were too busy trying to fit in that they were never paying attention. The saddest part was

that most of them didn’t even do it because they actually wanted too, but because of their friends.
There was always a leader who decided on all the ideas. They believed joining in made them loyal. No one seemed to have thoughts of their own they kind of just went along with whatever their group of friends wanted. I used to walk home from school since I only lived a few blocks away. I'd watch classmates walk into a small store called Big Lots and steal dust cleaners. They'd all inhale it while walking home. I once witnessed a guy faint and hit his head on the sidewalk.
His friends instead of helping, ran. Adults nearby immediately called the police. I kept walking but a part of me wished I would of done more. Once in a while I think about him, and what happened after, because I never saw him at school again. I didn’t want that and it continued to reinforce my believe in staying away from drugs and alcohol. At this point I watched so many people destroy themselves I didn’t want to be a part of it. I wanted a future, and even a simple taste of drugs and alcohol could turn into complete addiction. I didn’t want to be the one to savotage my own future. My classmates thought me the mistakes I didn’t want to personally make. The older I got the more I wanted to learn what made drugs and alcohol so desirable.
My last job was at Marie Callendar's, it was the only place I ever witnessed my coworkers consume alcohol. Being that I was older, I didn't view it as such a bad thing. Alcohol was fun if taken responsibly. I did see many of my coworkers stealing bottles from the bar area and stepping out to the parking lot to drink during working hours. Because there was no cameras anywhere, they never got caught. Their drinking went beyond working hours, after work was over they'd meet up at bars and drink some more while socializing. I tagged along once but it was just too much for me. Besides according to them I couldn't hang. In other words I didn’t drink until I forgot where I lived. They were fun people but just drank way too much than necessary. It was a messy situation, I just hated watching people be drunk and acting completely

different and out of control. Nothing made sense to me, how could being sloppy drunk be so amazing to them? I guess ill never know until I experience it myself and I just didn't want to stoop to that level.
I don’t listen to english music, my preference is spanish; and more than usual they are love songs. If I'm listening to pandora one or two songs involving drugs and narcs will sneak in.
And if I'm driving I don’t bother changing it. When I listen to these type of songs it makes me angry. These songs are written by groups who experience it or are usually based on true stories. I don’t really know the names but what they sing is about the drug violence and the cartels trying to take over Mexico. They also experience the wrath of the cartels. They've been shot at, threatened, hospitalized because of their music. They don’t want anyone writing about what goes on and made into music. When I listened to the song for the first type all I could think of was
"why would anyone risk their families to ear easy money?" I started hating the idea of drug intake even more. Nothing positive seemed to be coming out of it so why would I want to involve myself with it?
It wasn't until I came across the movie Smiley face on youtube that I for some reason felt different towards marijuana. Anna Faris made marijuana seem fun. It got me interested but I still found myself with the idea that maybe marijuana led to harder drugs just like my uncle. At this time I had met so many stoners who were A plus students, had a good future, and used marijuana simply for fun or to help them relax that I was conflicted in my own feelings toward marijuana itself. I did end up personally smoking, and did it more than often. I started when I had trouble sleeping at night and my friend recommended it. It worked and I started falling asleep in no time.
It wasn't until my mom found my weed placed in my drawer that I felt like I had failed her. The dissappointment in her eyes made me feel like what I was doing was heading to the road of

destruction, so I stopped. And just like that I went back to having insomnia. I started smoking again, I knew I wasn’t addicted because I could stop whenever I wanted too. And I did, when I got pregnant with my daughter, I haven't smoked since.
My thoughts on marijuana changed altogether. But I couldn’t change my mind over the other drugs altogether. I didn’t see any positive outcomes out of those, like I did with marijuana.
In a way I feel like an hypocrite, since maybe the users see it as a help the way I felt weed helped me. I did get closer to my catholic religion once I had my kids. And I knew they judged many who were involved with drugs. They always pushed their help, but not in a "it's your choice kind of way." but more of like "you have too, or you're definetly going to hell." That didn't change my way of viewing drugs and alcohol. I did witness alcohol being the number one reason why families fell apart. But at the end of the day others choices couldn’t define me. I learned that the hard way. They could help mold me but not turn me into one of them.
God did help make me into a better person and understand that drugs and alcohol can be negative if I let them. I don’t need any of it to help me live, but I do know that some are good but us as users can easily turn them into something bad by letting them get the best of us.