The Devil's Temptations

As quoted by an anonymous source, “We all take different paths in life, but no matter where we go, we take a little of each other everywhere.” For me, this was particularly true of my presently fifteen year old cousin and best friend. I have learned an immense amount from her, and she has definitely taken a different path that no one thought she would. Because of that, she has been an amazing influence on my life. Indirectly, she has unquestionably been the best teacher of life lessons to me.

She has been through a lot for being only fifteen, from cutting to drugs to alcohol to prostitution, and through all of her inner battles and current struggles she has taught me a lot. Although she is a year younger than me, I have learned, in my opinion, the most important life lessons from her just by watching everything that she has gone through and is currently going through. Ever since I can remember, I have looked up to my cousin, but at the time I didn’t know what she was getting herself into. She was popular and friendly; I couldn’t understand how she could be doing those things to herself.

I just recently found out how bad she had gotten. I did not know anything that had been going on for the past couple months; and who would’ve known that so much can happen in such little time? It was just a year ago that she was cheerful all the time and everyone loved to be around her. Now she is high a majority of the time, and she has become a completely different person; someone that no one wants to be around. It still baffles me; how my best friend could be purposely hurting herself? Wow! I can’t believe it. She went from cutting at the age of ten to piercing herself. Then she began going to parties, drinking, and doing drugs, until she became addicted. A drug addict? My cousin? No way!! But sadly, it was all true. She had every kind of drug imaginable… meth, acid, pot, cocaine, ecstasy, and at one point she even tried to snort her mother’s ADD medication in an effort to get high. She was rushed to the hospital, and the doctors were astonished that she lived. After that she had to find a way to get money to pay for her own drugs, therefore she lowered herself all the way to prostitution.

Cutting, piercing, drugs, prostitution, …this went on for many months, and her mother didn’t do anything to get her help. She was in total denial that her own daughter could be doing such horrid things. Finally, her mother began sending her to a psychologist once a week. After a few sessions, the psychologist came to the conclusion that she would have to be put into an inpatient treatment center to overcome the drugs and addictions.

At the present time, she is in a lock down facility in Minnesota getting detox and rehab, and surprisingly she went without a fight because she realized that she needed help. She knew that defeating something like this by herself would be much too difficult.

Now, after seeing and hearing everything that she has gone through and is still going to face, I now know that drugs don’t just kill a person; they kill an entire family and their relationships. I know this from first-hand experience, and as much as it has hurt and tore us all apart to see everything that she has done and gone through, I understand that it was, in some instances, a good thing because it has definitely strengthened my bond with the rest of my family. This past year has been such an emotional time for the whole family, and now our relationships are so much better. Even though we have learned the hard way, we now know that we can’t hide anything from each other without someone getting hurt. My cousin saved her own life and part of mine because she knew that she couldn’t keep living like that. She realized what it was doing to her family and friends and that we truly care about her, but when she began doing drugs she didn’t believe that. Now she knows of all of the love that her family has for her and will soon be back to herself, the person that I loved before any of this happened because drugs changed her into “something” that none of her true friend wanted to be around. She has taught me the most important life lesson that I believe I will ever learn. She taught me that “love conquers all,” and it is completely true.