I had a personal experience with buying and selling drugs and what I have to say about it is that it gets you nowhere in life in the long run except trouble. Selling drugs is one way to make money, but once you get caught all your money goes away and so does your freedom. I don’t think drugs are worth everything else I have in life and I learned this because I had a drug issue myself and I got caught selling drugs.

I got charged with a third degree felony for distribution and two other misdemeanors. I was sent to a treatment center so I could get help with my addiction, and I didn’t have to sit in juvenile detention. I was at a treatment center called Lakeside Academy in Buffalo, Minn., for seven months.

I did not get to see my family and I only got one phone call a week for 15 minutes. That was probably the worst part because I love my family a lot and it hurt me to not see them. From day to day we would do stuff like pick up horse poop and learn how to work on cars and went to school only three hours a day. But Lakeside was a Christian-based facility, so we did a lot of Christian things like go to church and have Bible studies.

When I was in treatment, my first three months were crazy because I didn’t know anyone, and a lot of kids would talk smack and be annoying. In my third month I got arrested for assault. The assault was because one of the staff members didn’t want to let me make a phone call. He lied and said I had already made one when I didn’t, so I got mad and started punching him in the face until I got tackled by another staff member. They called the cops and I got arrested.

After the assault, they still accepted me back in the same treatment center. I finally started doing well, and they decided to drop my drug charges after I completed six months. (They didn’t drop the assault charges, and I’m still on probation for that.)

In my seventh month I went on a home visit, and my mom felt that I was ready to come home, so she pulled me out and I got to stay home. I’ve been home for almost three months now, and I’ve been doing really well. It was weird coming back to school at first because I was at a new school, but I’m doing well and getting used to it.