I was pretty much raised by my brother that was 7 years older than me because my mom was always out smoking crack. Even though we lived with her, we had to take care of ourselves. When my mom was smoking we'd live in shelters or in a dope house where there would always people running in and out of the house. If she was clean we'd live in nicer houses. We never had any stability and it was hard to be a family. It was really difficult to just be a kid. We saw so much and had to take care of ourselves. Some good things came out of it though. Some brothers and sisters don't get along but in my family my siblings are all really close. We have always pulled together. I went to probably 10 elementary school and 11 different middle schools. Only three years of middle school and I went to 11 schools! I never stayed at one school for a whole year until I was in foster care. At that time, I stayed in a high school for 2 1/2 years.

When I was in 3rd grade my mom decided to run away leaving my older brother, my younger sister that was 2 years old, and my baby sister that was only a couple of months old, alone in the house. My brother dropped out of school and worked at a fast food restaurant to support us. I had to stay home from school to take care of my two little sisters. He'd come home and feed us fast food three times a day. To this day I can't eat that food! During this time some of our utilities got shut off. We would use candles when the electricity was turned off. When we didn't have any water we'd get one of those big water coolers and walk up to the gas station to fill it up with water. After awhile my grandma came to check on us. When she found out my mom wasn't around, my grandma let us stay with her. Eventually, my mom got caught and was put in jail, because she was on parole then. For about a year after that my mom was doing good. We moved to another town, but then she met another man. Meeting the wrong kind of man was always her downfall. She started using crack again. My mom and her boyfriend smoked up all her money, which landed us in a shelter for awhile before we decided to move to another state.

One guy she was with was real abusive. One night he was beating on her, so I called the police. She left him and got clean again until she start dating a crack dealer. Things got way worse, because there were fiends coming to the house. My mom wouldn't ever smoke right in front of us, but it would just be a door down or the crackheads would all go down to the basement and be smoking it. I would try to talk to my mom to help her. I'd ask if she wanted to go to church or go for a walk when she felt like getting high. If my mom was having a good day and hadn't been high for a couple of days, she'd do that stuff with me. If she was having a bad day or was high she'd be like, "Get away from me."

My mom would always make us promises. She'd say she was going to change, but we knew that as soon as she met another man she'd start using crack again. Sometimes she'd try to get sympathy by us by lying and saying she got beat up by gang members or she'd say she was going to take a bunch of pills to overdose. We were smart kids though and we knew what she was doing. It was really hard to try to build a relationship with her. One time after I'd gotten a whole bunch of money for my birthday, my mom took all of it. She'd pawn our belongings. If my brother would buy a videogame she'd go sell it. There was always so much drama.

I was probably like 9 or 10 the first time I took a hit of weed. I stole some of my mom's weed and that's how it started. It was my way to cope and take my mind away from it all. When I'd get mad, I would smoke weed and mellow out. Over time I would smoke for no good reason like when I was bored. It was always around. By the time I was in 7th or 8th grade I was smoking weed daily as much as I could. Four, five, seven, twelve times a day!

When I was in 8th grade the house we were living in was raided. My younger brother and I ended up getting sent to the children's home and then we were in foster care after that. When I was 16 I got tired of my foster family. I kept telling them I hated it there, but my worker couldn't see it, because my foster family will be nice to my worker. Finally, I took off. I had my car, $600, and that was enough for me. For a year I lived in another state with a friend of mine. The year I ran away my grandpa died of lung cancer. It hurt my heart that I wasn't around because I felt like my family needed me. Also, right after my grandpa died, all of the people that my grandma worked with collected money for my grandma. My mom took all of that money. I couldn't believe my mom would steal from her dad on the day of his funeral. I talked to her over the phone to let her know she was really messing up. I told her, "Your kids call other people mom. You've lost all contact with your kids." I really had a conversation with her. I think she realized all she was giving away.

Currently, my mom's out of jail, and she's doing really good. What made my mom stop using crack, was her kids. My mom wanted to be in our lives and she hoped her kids would want to be in her life. When she was on drugs we didn't want to be around her. Now, my mom is going to church every Sunday. She has her own house and got away from all my siblings' dads. I'm really proud of her. My mom got a job and even got promoted. She got her license back and is driving again. She's been staying in touch with my brothers and sisters. I am starting to build a relationship with her too. My family is all back together and we are all living and loving.

Not all people that use drugs are the same. If you would have seen my mom while she was smoking crack, you wouldn't have known. A lot of people didn't know. Not everyone looks strung out. We'd have business people coming over to our house to buy drugs that you would never think were using crack. I've seen the effects of crack though. I saw someone at our house that was smoking crack and they came upstairs and were like, "What's on my back?!" There wasn't nothing on their back. They were tripping out. I have seen my mom steal and leave her kids when she was high on crack, and I know I never want to be that person that would depend on something that would ruin their life. I don't want to get locked up. I don't want that life, and so I will never do crack. Weed is very deceptive. It isn't going to make you do anything drastic. It just mellows you out. That's where the problem occurs. I saw how people got addicted, because they thought they could still function. I smoked weed for a long time. I just recently quit, because it won't help me. Instead of buying weed, I can use that money to spend on other things. I've aged out of the system and live on my own now. I want to go to college and major in psychology. I feel like I've been through so much I could really help some people. Life is hard. Drugs can ruin your life by taking it over. A support system can really help get through hard times.