Mike's Story: Part 2

By the time I was 20 years old all my friends had either graduated or dropped out of school. My ability to play hockey was going down the drain so I dropped out too. I got fired from the gas station when they caught me stealing and then found a job at a moving company with one of my friends. But I soon lost that job too for not showing up for work after a night of partying. The times in between jobs were really tough since I didn’t have enough money to feed my cravings for marijuana and cigarettes. I found another job driving a truck. It was a good paying job. But I was spending $50 a week on cigarettes and $180 on marijuana. On Sundays I was also gambling on hockey and football and I was drinking a lot. My whole paycheque was going to feed my addictions. A few years later I lost that job as well because of too much partying.

In 2001 I took a job with a courier company delivering goods to dollar stores. My parents only wanted $50 a week from me for room and board; the rest went to my addictions. One day I got pulled over by the police and got a ticket for not wearing a seat belt. It was only a $100 fine but I never managed to spare the money to pay it. Shortly before Christmas that year I got a notice in the mail telling me my license had been suspended. I lost my job as a result. The first thing I did after collecting my last paycheque was buy a carton of cigarettes. Then I gave my mom $50 and I took another $140 to buy marijuana. All I had left was $80 to buy Christmas gifts for my entire family. It wasn’t enough so I used the money to gamble on football – which of course I lost. That New Year of 2002 I found myself penniless. The feeling inside of me was just one big hunger for marijuana and cigarettes. The cravings were so bad I started selling my things – my computer games, my golf clubs; I even tried selling my hockey skates for a measly $10. I was really skinny, not taking good care of my health or my hygiene – all I cared about was getting high.

I looked in a newspaper and saw an ad for a moving company that offered to pay cash daily. The owner was badly in need of workers, so he called me the next day to offer me a job. My dad bought me a pack of smokes, gave me bus fare and off I went. Late into the shift I was craving so strongly I could barely function, so I faked an injury, collected my pay, and left the poor guy and his customers hanging while I went to my drug dealer to buy some weed and then hustled off home to smoke it.