A few summers ago, my life was unexpectedly changed at a camp called Teen Institute.

This week-long leadership development program focused on raising awareness about the dangers

of drug and alcohol abuse. I discovered that, like a mosquito’s proboscis, the effects of one

person’s addiction can burrow into the lives of the victim’s friends and families. The stories told

by those affected by addiction made a lasting and profound impact on how I view the world.

One story came from a well-dressed, middle-aged man that I never would have

stereotyped as a “junkie”. “By the time my friends began drinking beer,” he told us, “I was

hooked on rum”. Initially, I assumed that he was just another “party boy gone wild” when he was

younger. He revealed, however, that alcohol had been a dominant presence within his family all

of his life. This shocked me because I’d never considered that an addictive substance like

alcohol could be an unquestioned aspect of everyday life.

The second story came from a young woman with a twin sister. While the speaker was

never entrapped by addiction, the life of her biologically identical sister took a much more

dangerous turn when she tried heroin for the first time. Her small, seemingly inconsequential

choice to inject that drug eventually infected everyone around her. While the speaker was

thriving at a university, her sister was struggling to keep a minimum-wage job. The image that

shocked me the most was the way the speaker described the addiction’s impact on her parents.

When the sisters attended high school, the mother would regularly receive phone calls from the

school district regarding the addicted sister’s “fights, vulgar behavior and disappearances”. After

hearing this, I realized that the stories about the actions of addicts tends to get the most attention,

but one rarely hears about what happens behind the scenes to the family who must bear the

consequences.
 I found that both of these stories have several ideas in common. The first is that both of

the speakers were just as susceptible to addiction as anyone else. While the first speaker

succumbed to his addictive surroundings, the second speaker resisted the temptation in spite of

being biologically identical to an addict. Second, in their worst conditions, addicts paradoxically

know that they push away those whom they love, but also fail to reach out to those who can help

them. Finally, an overwhelming sense of hubris drives addicts. They see themselves as strong

enough to conquer their addictions by themselves, yet are blind about the impact their selfish

actions have on those around them.

When I returned home from camp that week, it felt as if a veil was lifted from my eyes. I

will never look at addicts in a judgmental and dismissive way again. Real addicts - not the one’s

caricatured in the news or Hollywood - are not that different from anyone else. I found that I

was no longer quick to judge others - addicts or not - for past mistakes. Every “heroin junkie” or

“meth head” is still a human being that didn’t choose to become addicted. Whether they were

aware of the consequences of their actions while in the fog of addiction or not, they should not

be shunned by society.

In the following year, I returned to Teen Institute as a counselor and also became the

president of my school’s Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) chapter. With my

SADD peers and similar organizations from St. Louis, we lobbied Missouri state legislators

about issues regarding statewide drug abuse, alcoholism, the opioid crisis, and drug monitoring

programs. My hope is to share what I learned with my fellow students, show them what

addiction really is, and lift the veil from their eyes. Even if only one person has the same

epiphany that I had, my time as a leader in my community will have been worth it.