You have no clue
what demons and problems
that you're about to encounter
when you decide to do coke.
Cocaine is manufactured
from the coca plant.
There's a certain process
where they extract
the actual cocaine properties from the plant
and they refine it down into a powder.
Even though it's basically considered
a powdered form, when you buy it,
it's still kind of clumpy,
because it comes off a block.
Cocaine can be cut with glass,
it can be cut with Drāno,
just to get the users to get that first burn
in their nose,
so the rest of the night they're numb,
they don't feel what they're sniffing.
People from very young ages to senior citizens
use cocaine. It's not prejudice.
It's considered a rich man's drug, but even
teens can afford it at lower and lower cost.
So once a person is addicted, the price
skyrockets, because they need more and more,
and it gets more expensive
to have the habit.
There's a lot of different ways
to do this drug.
-- I just snorted it.
-- Mostly for me, I smoked and snorted it.
You can smoke it, you can shoot it.
It can be injected into the blood stream
through IV needles.
I was 14 when I first tried coke.
The first time I did cocaine
was when I was 16 years old.
I was 18 years old.
Just going to house parties
and hanging out with friends.
I was with a bunch of friends.
They were all doing ecstasy and coke
and smoking pot, drinking.
I was at a high school party where there was
some older guys there, and they had cocaine.
And of course, the older people,
they're the cool people
and they were going to the parties
and they were doing the drugs.
I was in such a crowd of intelligent people
and people with lots of money.
Cocaine came into the picture.
And it was just one big kind of a party drug.
You know, I'd do it once every month or so,
and then as it progressed,
you're doing it every other weekend.
Within an 8-month span, I went from trying it a
few times to becoming a weekly user
to eventually a daily user,
and then to becoming a dealer.
Once you start taking that stuff, like I said,
you feel like a rock star, you feel invincible,
you feel just -- nothing can touch you.
You can make conversations, you're happy --
but that's only for about a half hour.
The night I first took it,
I wanted more that entire night.
With coke, it's like instant.
Because it only lasts for 15--20 minutes, and
then you've got to have another line.
And then I needed some more,
because I started coming down.
So you're just constantly chasing this high
that you'll never achieve.
I was leaving work every half an hour
to go buy more.
I was working like 14, 16 hours a day.
I started using more and more cocaine --
to keep working, to make more money.
You spend all your money on it,
one way or another.
It was so expensive that I'd only do enough
until I ran out and I couldn't afford to buy more.
That's when I realized I had absolutely
no control over myself
and cocaine was pretty much controlling me.
You do more so you can feel normal. And you
don't feel normal, ever, on the drug.
I couldn't complete anything I started.
I couldn't have a conversation with anybody,
I couldn't look anybody in the face.
You're body craves more and more.
But when you're at that point,
the more you take,
the more dysfunctional you become.
It's like quicksand. Once it gets its grip, it just
starts sucking you in.
And the harder and harder
you try to pull yourself out of it,
the deeper and deeper you go.
I'd wake up in the morning, and if I didn't have it,
the first thing I'd think of was a 9 mm at my head.
I thought I needed it to get up. I thought
I needed it go to sleep or anything like that.
The couple of days after
you do cocaine, your muscles ache,
your sinuses are real bad,
your nose starts bleeding.
My nose hurt so bad from doing it, that I
couldn't sleep without having lines set out for me;
so that when I would wake up throughout the
night, I could do some just to numb the pain.
I would go through extreme hot and
cold flashes, very severe night sweats.
... like I can't sleep, feeling disgusting.
The chills, the shaking --
I was doing so much cocaine
that I was actually hallucinating.
... and, depending on the time, actually
sit there and talk to myself,
because I was going crazy.
You know, seeing things, constant paranoia,
constant depression, suicide attempts.
So, it went from being a party drug
to a drug that kept me holed up in a dark room
by myself, scared of my own shadow.
I was in a business, family business with my father
paying the bills, I was in accounts payable for him.
I basically advanced myself $30,000.00 within
3 months and almost put the business under.
I was making a lot of money at the time.
Everything was on plastic and credit cards.
Everything else was going to cocaine.
Probably upwards of about 6--700,000 dollars.
I started shooting it. I missed the vein and
actually went into a nerve.
And it blew up my whole entire arm and hand.
My arm just kept on inflating more and more.
I thought I was going to die.
I flatlined. And then they all came rushing
in and they took the paddles
and hit my chest and everything.
They brought me back again.
After I'm out of the hospital,
there I am, doing it again.
When I got to a party and...
a guy walked in -- I didn't know the guy.
I beat him. I beat him
and put him in the hospital.
You know, beat him
until he was unconscious.
Just because I didn't know who he was
and I was paranoid.
There was a kid that had just gotten out of
prison and he knew I was hard up for money.
And he wanted me to go rob these people.
We all went in there in masks with guns.
We taped them and tied them up
and took everything they had.
A good friend of mine, I went through middle
school, high school with him.
He tried to rip somebody off
at a high school party
and they shot him in the stomach
with a .40 caliber.
And he's dead now, 20 years old.
I can't feel that happiness
that I remember feeling before I did drugs.
My memory is nowhere near
what it used to be,
I have a hard time remembering
certain names, certain faces, certain places.
I actually had numbness in my leg
for a year 'cause I shot in my leg.
My foot is still damaged from that.
Damage to my arms
and my veins and stuff.
When I blow my nose, I still have
blood and other tissues coming out.
And I actually gave myself an ulcer
and it ruptured.
Heart attacks, strokes,
tears in your heart. Nothing good.
You know, everybody always talks
when they're young, "Oh, I'll try anything."
"I want to try something new. I'd do it, I'd do it."
But it's just not worth it.
I wish I had never done it that first time.
A social acceptance wasn't worth it.
The girl wasn't worth it.
The pain and agony to my family
wasn't worth it.
If you think you control it, you can't.
It can't be controlled. It will take ahold of you
quicker than you ever thought possible.
I'm 34 years old now.
I feel that my twenties were
completely unproductive and a waste.
I don't know anyone
who has just done cocaine one time
and had it not affect their life
in a negative way.
It might seem fun right now, and you might be
thinking you're having a good time,
but there is no such thing as an old
drug addict. You're going to kill yourself.
Your choosing death over life. And that's
the reality of the decision you're making.
