A Personal Witness About a Downward Spiral and a Turnaround at FFS
By Kevin L.
I was born in Mount Kisco, New York on December 18, 1992. I have a sister that is seven years older than I. She always looked out for me and we still get along to this day.
My mom and dad would always argue, and when I was five they got a divorce. Other than that my childhood was relatively normal.
All of my trouble began when I started middle school. I had a lot of friends but I always felt like I needed more and went to any length to get their acceptance. I always did well in school because everything came really easy to me and I never had to do a lot of work to succeed. The only thing that kept me from getting in a lot of trouble was sports. I always made sure that my actions didn’t affect my participation in athletics. All of my old behavior stayed the same throughout middle school. However, when school got harder I stopped trying and did the bare minimum and was focused on just getting by.
The day of my 8th grade graduation was the first time I tried drugs. I was at a graduation party and some kids that were already in high school asked me if I wanted to get high. While I was smoking weed I didn’t get high but I knew that this was something I wanted to continue doing. The rest of that summer was pretty normal and my mom had no idea that I was getting high and neither did any of my old friends.
When I came into 9th grade I was nervous about whom I was going to meet and if I was going to make any new friends. I was still hanging out with the kids I got high with that summer and they introduced me to a whole bunch of kids that did drugs.
Most of these kids were older than me so at first I was unsure about what they thought of me. Somehow we got along and I started to get my old friends that didn’t get high to try drugs. I loved everything that was happening in my life and I thought I would keep that feeling towards drugs forever. I started to steal money so that I could continue getting high with my friends.
My grades were getting really low and I thought nothing of it. I didn’t care about how important school was or how my drug use was affecting my family. I tried for a long time to keep my drug use a secret but everyone started to pick up on what I was doing. Nobody trusted me or any of the kids I hung out with. Stealing was now a habit and I started to pawn the stolen items.
After a while of this reckless behavior the police got involved and I was arrested and put in Putnam County jail. I ended up staying in jail for a little over a month and was certain that I would soon be back to my old ways.
After this I was sent to another program that took 28 days to complete.
Then on April 14, 2009 I was sent back to court with the recommendation to go to a residential boarding school. I agreed to come to the school hoping that everything would work out but I had no idea what I was in for. When I first stepped in the door of The Family Foundation School I had no desire to change my way of living and I thought all I needed was some time away from home. I refused to work the 12 Steps and made sure everyone knew that this was not the place for me. After countless sanctions and many blackouts I came to realize that by coming to this school I was given a second chance that I would have had no shot at back at home. I became very intrigued by the idea of a higher power and was recently baptized as a Roman Catholic.
Looking back on all the things that I did makes me truly thankful that I was given this opportunity and I hope to make the best of it.
