ESSAY CONTESTS www.TheCitizensWhoCare.org 1st Annual "Through My Eyes" Drug Essay Contest Winners A booklet called Through My Eyes contains all 22 essays from the first contest on the impact of alcohol and is available for $5.00 at Words & Pictures, 407 Oak Street, Brookings, OR 97415. 100% of the proceeds from the sale of this booklet go to support these contests. This contest involves the subject of substance abuse. Grand Prize Winner - Anonymous First Runner Up - Anonymous Second Runner Up - Olivia Buscho Third Runner Up - Anonymous Background Grand Prize Winner June 13, 2005, a 15 year old girl dies at the hands of methamphetamines. Cold and alone, she was found across the street from a church parking lot, hidden by the protection of an alleyway dumpster. Several needles were found strewn around her as if others carelessly ditched them quickly. This isn’t just looking through The Pilot and skimming the jail logs and noticing your gas attendant is going to court for possession. This isn’t another written pamphlet that warns you about “dangers of drugs” and why teens shouldn’t shoot up. This is bitter reality. This girl wasn’t just a statistic to me; she was my friend. Angela lived a block away from my house in an old downtown Victorian that awed me every time I was invited over. Whenever the doorbell was pressed, a loud, majestic ringing would alert the inside, and a small, blond head would peek through the glass. Sometimes I would be jealous because her whole life seemed so easy; a ride to school, ballet lessons and a new Barbie doll whenever report cards came out. But time went by and I learned to deal with it. In 7th grade, we were inseparable. I could go on about my grades and the school dances and the day that we planned to wear matching Harry Potter shirts on twin day, but all that really sounds mundane and pointless, now. However, a day that should be recognized is the day that she met Travis. He ruined her. One Tuesday after school, when Angela came over to do homework, she mentioned her older sister, Caity. The night before, Caity invited her to one of her friend’s parties. Angela told me about how she needed to use the bathroom and Travis led her to find the nearest one. “He’s so cute,” she kept squealing. “Did you know that he’s a sophomore in high school?” Angela proceeded to tell me that she was meeting him in the high school parking lot tomorrow after school. Week after week, I was bombarded with stories about how much older and sophisticated he was. How he drank wine from his parent’s refrigerator and they didn’t care and how his dad would give him a little pot when Travis ran an errand for him. “Travis says that it’s completely harmless. All it does is calms you down for awhile. Really, I only tried it once and I didn’t even like it. I’m not going to do it again.” She carefully reassured me. Somehow, by the tone in her voice and the fascination in her eyes, I couldn’t believe her. I didn’t believe her, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her parents. Though this was all about four years ago I remember police cars speeding past the middle school and seeing Travis escorted out of the building with cuffs on his wrists. Later, Angela informed me that he was caught with meth in his backpack and the cops were called. But she didn’t hesitate to pull a tiny, thin plastic bag out of her bra. A fine, white powder looked me straight in the face. I couldn’t believe it. “ANGELA!” I screamed. Where did she get it? How did she use it? How long had she used it for? All these questions came spilling out of my mouth. My mind was racing with thoughts of her on the bathroom floor of Caitlyn’s room with a needle in her arm. Does she scream like they do in the movies? Why didn’t she have red spots on her face? What the hell was going on?! Turns out, she’d used it three times before and she “could stop whenever she wanted to”. (I know that it sounds cliché and everyone hears it all the time, but the moment that you actually hear someone you love excuse them with it, you don’t know how powerful those words can really be.) She could not stop. She just couldn’t. One night, I walked into her room and heard crying. I looked behind her bed and in her closet, but I couldn’t see her. She was hiding underneath her desk crouched in a little ball, just itching and hysterically clawing at the wood. I didn’t breathe. “They’re everywhere! Please, please stop it! Stop it! Get them off me!” Angela was crying and pleading with me, but her eyes were blank; she didn’t see me. Her fingers found the hem of my jeans and she began to brush them and pick at them all the while trying to dig her nails into her neck. “Angela, stop it! There’s nothing there!” I tried to reason. I didn’t know what was happening. “I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep or else they’ll come. They sent all these bugs. There all here on my legs and… my arms and they want it. But he’s gone. I tried to tell them that he’s not here and I don’t have it. Please, get these bugs off me... STOP!!” she cried and scratched and tried to save me from these bugs as well. So I held her. I held her and rocked her and stroked her hair. I did my best to get her to the front room and to get a phone in my hand. She was beginning to scream at me and punch my legs and arms and anything she could reach. She told me she’d never stop and it was the best thing that’d ever happened to her. And hour later, the police came and took her away from me. That was a year ago and now she’s dead. They let her go back home after awhile under the supervision of her parents, but she got out somehow. No one knows who was with her or how she got out. But I know that there are a lot of teens saying that its okay and that they, too can “stop whenever”. It’s not true. Angela Maria Consuelo was my friend. She was another teen victim to drugs.   First Runner Up - Anonymous Drugs have taken away arguably the most important person in a child’s life. Drugs have taken away my mother. And the three years that she was a part of my life definitely couldn’t be defined as happy times. It’s a hard concept for a six year old to grasp that it’s more important to get high than it is to be taken to kindergarten on time My grandparents had me until I was three years old, and then my mother finally fought her way through the court systems and back into my life. She moved me up to Portland, expecting a second chance to be a good mother, because when I was born she proved to be incapable of taking care of me. Dismayed as my grandparents were, they had no choice but to let me go. Driving away from their house on top of the hill all I remember thinking is whether or not my kitten Gizmo would be all right without me. She ran away two days later. The warm welcome that I got upon entrance to the apartment in Gresham was a good screaming about how horrible it was that I still drank from a bottle. My bottle was taken from me and thrown down the stairs. That was the day that I started drinking from a cup. My brother living with us should have been a good thing, but he was around eleven and thought that it was funny to pick on his little sister. So on a daily basis I was reminded that I had a lisp and couldn’t pronounce the word three correctly. He and his friend John would leave me by myself, even while my mom was out getting high. Making food for myself became a necessity at age four. My mother lost her job, and all of her money was being pumped into her addiction, so we were kicked out of the apartment. Around this time her ex-boyfriend came back into the picture. He was violent and controlling, but my mother thought that she needed him. He lived with us in all of our future, rather unique, residences. The Peach was a motel that we lived in for quite some time. There were other children living there, and I was able to go out and play with them. On one such occasion, my brother’s father drove up in his giant red truck and told him to get in. He couldn’t take me because he was not my father, so I was left alone in the dirty parking lot to fend for myself. When my mother discovered that her son was gone, it didn’t effect her much because she was high, but later I got in trouble because I didn’t stop him from leaving. When the motel expenses got to be too much to handle, we were forced onto the streets. For awhile the front porch of an abandoned house across from the Goodwill became our home. This was not a coincidence, being as we stole from the Goodwill. Whenever the workers would leave the Goodwill delivery truck open, we would sprint across the highway and take whatever we could hold. I was commended for stealing shoes and crayons. Of all that occurred in those three years, one memory stands out above the rest. During another of my mother’s drug binges, we ended up in a gigantic empty warehouse. This warehouse was in one of the shadier parts of the city, so it was a testament to my mother’s addiction that she even brought me along. Apparently she thought it was safer to bring me rather than leave me on the porch by myself. Upon entrance of the building, I was told to go into a room on the left. I was given the instructions to sit and be quiet. So that’s where I sat, all night. As it got darker I picked a spot on the wall and stared at it. This was an attempt to not get scared. As a five year old I learned the measure of my determination. I believe that she wanted to stop, but the addiction had such a strong hold on her that she just couldn’t. Thankfully my grandparents regained custody of me when I was six, and I have lived with them in Brookings ever since. I have just recently started building a relationship with my mother, and it is off to a good start. I actually think that my childhood is a big part of who I am today. I have this desire to succeed that I cannot begin to explain, and I know that I owe it to that determined little five year old that I once was.   Second Runner Up - Olivia Buscho Scientists and psychologists have hundreds of explanations for why drugs are abused: Depression, genetic makeup, life’s pressures, or maybe just the desire to “get high”. Maybe it’s a combination of everything. But I believe drug abuse is a direct result of fear, the fear of failure, fear of pain, fear of being you. Or even sadder, drug abuse comes from the fear of knowing yourself. Let’s say my theory is correct and low self-esteem and fear drives the insecure and frightened to use drugs. Who would be the most susceptible to these conditions? Teenagers of course! We don’t even know who we are yet, but we are on the brink of independence, trying to figure out all of life’s tricks while deciding what we want to do with ourselves after high school. Naturally, some insecurity arises. What better way to avoid getting to know yourself, numb the uncertainty and avert your eyes from the future than to get stoned when the going gets tough. It’s a cop-out. How scared of yourself are you that you have to alter your mind to live with it? Of course this isn’t the case with all drug users, but being an insecure high school girl myself, it doesn’t seem like that insane of a theory. It’s true, I am insecure, but I also love myself. I love my mind, crazy thoughts and all. I prefer it unaltered with drugs. I believe if you mess with your mind enough your heart will get messed with too. Eventually priorities change and whoever you were or were trying to be gets lost along the way. So please, don’t be afraid to be you. Be afraid to lose you. Find the courage to face that big scary world; I expect you will be pleasantly surprised.   Third Runner Up - Anonymous I have seen the effects they cause, from prison to adoption. From suicidal thoughts to running away. There are no words to express the hurt and suffering I have witnessed drugs produce. I haven’t personally experienced any of this, but I have watched enough of it to know that drugs are a huge problem in our town and in Oregon in general. Most of my friends have been abandoned due to their parents’ addiction to drugs. Two have been adopted, and a few others have moved in with their grandparents because their parents (or parent, in most cases) couldn’t support them anymore. There are so many lasting effects, and so many past problems that they have to ignore because my friends just want to move forward with their lives. Could you imagine your parents basically telling you that you are the second most important thing to them? Their first priority being some kind of illicit drug. And not only that, but then being asked to lie for them and pretend like everything is okay. In one situation, about four years ago, my friend (lets call him John) ran away because he was getting beat because of the mind games the drugs were playing on his mother. When the cops found John they told him if he ran away again he would be put in Juvenile hall, and didn’t even bother to listen to the horrid things that had caused him to leave his house. It’s not only the citizens that are in denial about the problems teenagers face , it’s the authorities too. We need to take a stand and listen to what the people who have been most affected have to say. I am not one of them, but I am trying to help tell their stories. Trying to help others in their situations. Drugs are out of control in this town, county, and state. What amazes me the most about drugs, is how they can bring people to do things that otherwise, they would never do. To give up on your own flesh and blood all because of a substance that takes over your mind and soul seems inconceivable. My friends are strong and are actually trying to mend the scars and problems that their birth parents have caused. In my opinion they are smarter and more compassionate because of the things they have been through, but they are also more sensitive to certain things. Drugs haven’t ruined their lives because they choose to succeed. Unfortunately, I can’t say as much for their parents. Contact Us for information regarding future Contests. TheCitizensWhoCare.org was developed and is maintained by Gordon Clay Through My Eyes™ is a registered trademarks of Gordon Clay ©2007-2009, www.TheCitizensWhoCare.org/brookings/throughmyeyes-drugwinners.html