Hello! My name is Tyla, and once I was really hooked on heroin. I was fourteen years old when I started doing it. I remember it was on a weekend and a whole bunch of my friends and I were at a party having fun. There were all kinds of drugs there like cocaine, acid, angel dust, heroin and others. I didn't want to try any drug, but I was forced to do heroin. A little while later I started to feel high and it made me feel so good I started doing it every time we had a party. Then I got hooked on the stuff and had to have it every day. If I didn't have it, at first I would get very grouchy then almost go crazy.

When my parents found out about it they told me I could either quit or move out. So I decided to move out and live on my own. If I had no money I could always go out and be a hooker. Then I got pregnant from this guy. I kept his daughter so I could get child-support money. And did I go crazy for heroin after I started getting more money! I hardly bought my daughter anything she needed. I would always have parties in my house and stay with different guys. Then I got pregnant again when my daughter was about six years old. I was even happier because I could get more money from Uncle Sam. After I had my baby I would always let my older daughter watch her little sister while I went out to parties and slept during the day. In this way she learned how to take care of babies on her own. Several times I landed in the hospital for overdoses.

When my older daughter was a teen she started hollering at me because I hardly bought them anything and spent most of my money on drugs. And when I had no money left to buy heroin I would always abuse my daughters. Then finally one day my daughters got tired of me abusing them, and they told me how they felt and how I had been hurting them.

Then I started thinking about it, and finally I forced myself to go to a treatment center to try to quit the drug. Although I've been drug-free for five years, I'm still going to treatment centers as a counsellor to help other people quit doing drugs. My oldest daughter graduated from high school and is now attending college, and my second daughter is still in elementary school. I would like to thank my daughters for straightening out my life and I feel great being drug-free.

My advice to all you young teens is, don't do drugs because it can mess up your life and education. If you want to have fun, don't use drugs. You still could have fun without using drugs, and it's a lot more fun being drug-free!