Where Would I Have Been?

Posted by Tony Bylsma on May 31, 2010 under Drug Abuse Prevention Education | Be the First to Comment

When I’m speaking in high schools, I often get the question, “Mr. Bylsma, do you still suffer from the effects of your drug use?” I usually tell them that while no one is ever completely the same after being addicted to drugs or alcohol, it couldn’t be said that I am still addicted. It did take years to recover and while I’m no longer addicted, (I haven’t used speed in thirty four years and can’t remember the last time I followed one beer with another), it also isn’t true that I’m the same as I would have been had I never taken the first hit.

But I was thinking the other day, “What if I’d never taken drugs in the first place? What would be different and what would my life be like?  Would it be better or worse?”

While it is obviously impossible to know where I’d have been and a waste of time to even guess, the question does bring up some interesting thoughts.

I imagine the only way to estimate something like that is to look at the direction I was going and what I was planning when the drugs hit. (Or, when I hit the drugs, actually)

I was a thespian in high school, but not a major talent by any stretch. I had some ability on motorcycles and raced with moderate success, but again, there really didn’t appear to be any future in that for me. I had some other skills which could have been developed into careers, but the drive to do so left after I became infatuated with getting high all the time.

My father owned his own business which was profiting over 60 K per year in the mid-sixties and he would have loved to see me take it over from him when he retired in the early seventies. That one would have been a real money maker for decades-early retirement and seven figure income type money maker.

But I didn’t go any of these directions. Instead I spent years hitch-hiking and “chilling”; stoned most of the time, of course.

The most important years of life can be the years in which you set your course for the future. Those were the years I spent without any direction and rather than learning skills and launching a career, I was drifting with millions of other young Americans, following the examples of ‘Easy Rider’ and Jim Morrison.

So, I don’t twitch, I don’t slur words and I can sleep well. I also love my work. But, do I have the same life I’d have had if drugs never showed up?

No. Those opportunities are no longer mine and, like so many others who came through the drug scene, I would definitely change things if I could go back in time and tell myself where I was headed.

Tony Bylsma CCDC                                                                                                                    Detox Rehab