for company’s sake and then often began to drink, with so called ‘friends’ commonly referred to as drinking buddies, alcoholic beverages of any variety and of the different degrees.
Of course, we had very little money, so we had something to steal, resell, share, some of our company even started selling, let’s say, illegal products to improve mood, in other words drugs. I didn’t get to it, but I also take things not belonging to me. So we earned and survived, because did not know or did not see the other options.
But this did not last long, until I was caught and brought to justice. Many times I was caught, but released, since the thefts were small and the age was also small. There were a lot of critical situations, but I managed to escape, so I can’t say that I was doing it only once. And they caught me stealing an expensive watch, I did not manage to escape from the crime scene in time and quietly get rid of the loot.
There was a trial, but they didn’t give me a real term, since they don’t give a term to minors, only a fine, a warning, a reprimand and a month of community service. In principle, then I stopped this activity, but not because of fear of the police, but still realizing it’s not good to take someone else’s. This happened because of one young man with whom I was in a ward, awaiting court. He just explained that people work really hard to earn for his family, to feed it, but then there are such zingers, who take away everything that is not theirs, thus deteriorating the situation and their family relationships. The thieves, meanwhile, do not become richer, because they do not know how to manage the funds. Thus, I will not become happier, but in the end everything will return to each of us and each be rewarded according to merit. Something like that he was telling me, this dialogue happened long time ago, I don’t remember everything word for word. How strange, maybe even funny it was that one criminal taught the other. Maybe it’s all the same; it is rightly, because to understand the other person, you need to understand his feeling and experience them, having passed a similar path.
At first, friends remained the same after that, and their work is also not changed, I still kept company with them. I didn’t even have to do anything, they gave me everything bestowal. And even though I stopped stealing and in this respect I became better, but from the other side began to change in the opposite direction from the good.
I started attending school less often. Sometimes I responded with rudeness to strong pressure from the teachers, and this disrespectful attitude to the elders seemed normal to me. The louder I argued with teachers, the better I became, as I thought, and cooler, and more authoritative in the eyes of my age mates. Sometimes I had to do lessons and homework, or rather, copy, not to be expelled. Devil-may-care attitude toward school was growing with powerful force, because at school I was not interested in anything, I went there only because of my grandmother and at her request. She wanted me to get a good education, got a stable, reliable work, became a decent man and to find my place in society. I didn’t care, I just nodded my head, the main thing was to get rid of all this.
My friends and I did everything we wanted on the street: walked, drank, and smoked. We did not return home for several days, spent the night, sometimes, on the streets, in doorways, sheds, attics, and everywhere else. In our company were present as well the small, to my deep sorrow at the moment, girls. Then we start to use drugs, especially since it was not difficult to get them, you just need to reach out. By the end of school I’ve tried so many things and seen such events that not every adult can even imagine, the more to boast or regret.
Many of our company, or rather everyone but me, was on the junk. At first I liked it a lot, since I dealt with it. Or maybe I could hardly distinguish the good from the bad, in particular, they did it all, and I didn’t want to stand out from the crowd, to be an outcast. But in the end, it became a wild bust for me.
Every day was becoming more and more frightful to see how the older guys helped to inject little thirteen year old girls. So to say, a mutual service, the girls gave them stuff, and then received an injection, without disdaining any used syringes, neglecting any hygiene, not choosing the injection site. No one thought about morality, decency, or sanitation.
The things were changing from bad to worse. When there was not enough money and there was a catastrophic lack of drugs, it even went so far that the guys were fighting among themselves, stealing everything from everyone: women, old women, children – it did not matter. My friends have increasingly transformed from ordinary young people into soulless bodies, zombies, with one low, rather low-lying goal – to receive intravenous pleasure. They no longer have anything human, no moral principles, sometimes it almost came to murder (I think that, unfortunately, it still did, but I, fortunately, did not have to see this). Many, who hardly exceeded fourteen years, though it is sad to realize, killed themselves from an overdose.
6. New life
After saying farewell to a pair of friends, going on their last journey, I thought that I had no need neither to see such a life, nor to participate in it. I realized that I need urgently to change everything, what is more cardinal. Due to the direct involvement in all of this, it became clear to me that this is not friendship, but rather a survival game.
The ones around me didn’t respect anyone or anything; we all were satisfied only when the general interest was reinforced by the dose. The one, who brought these gifts, automatically turned from time to time to be the best friend, praised by the supporters of destructive temptation.
And we are engaged into this, more probably, due to the fact that grey, dull, everyday life induces the terrible boredom. We lost the taste of life from lack of love and understanding that you must first love, respect and, therefore, to take care of yourself, your health, inner world where we have to spend time to the last breath and last heartbeat.
If I someone explained me before, that all these pleasures you can get from pretty ordinary things, perhaps I would have never started to try and use artificial drugs to transform and enhance the good state for a while longer so as not to return to this poor world. But we did not have in the childhood such a perfect space of love which is created in full families, with the true human warm relations, with attention and care. How could we know that there is another life?
I have not seen any other circumstances and could not compare my life with anything, but something inside hooked and frightened me so much that it made me give up on this and leave the false friends. And after that amazing things started to happen, absolutely new values, which really gave me good impressions and pleasure, began to open up in front of me. It inspired me to respect myself and to move in that direction.
I had no longer appeared in the company, just like my guardian angel or my inner voice instinctively shielded me and pulled out of the swamp into which I gradually sank.
Once again I was redirected to another school, to a gymnasium, more decent. I began to regularly attend the lessons, in my spare time I worked either as a loader on the market, or a labor on construction sites. I was engaged in any work, that was not out of the bounds of the law and that I could have with my poor experience and young age.
I started to read a lot of books, which were a lot at my house, but before I did not notice them. I read scientific, classical literature and biographies of famous people, began to do exercises, attended Church, gave part of the money on donations and helped my grandmother. We talked a lot and became closer with her. I could share with her all my innermost thoughts and desires. She changed too, and was very happy for me, seeing that I’m changing for the better.
I graduated from school, saved up money for study in a higher educational institution and went to study to be an architect. I still worked, started martial arts, went to the gym, swimming pool, ran in the mornings, every day I did at least basic gymnastic exercises, and I forgot about bad habits a long time ago. As it turned out, that it’s very easy to stop doing.
I was engaged in physical exercises to keep my body in a beautiful shape, but also in order to become healthier and, of course,