Drug rehab at 16

When I was 16, I got into trouble at high school and with the cops and was sentenced by a judge to complete 4 - 6 months of residential treatment at Operation PAR in St. Petersburg.

There was no fence or anything to keep kids from leaving - which ended up being my downfall.

When I first got there, everything was going okay and I was going through drug counseling and AA and NA meetings every day.

After about 1½ months, I started getting really homesick. A couple of teens that were there with me started talking about leaving. They convinced me to go with them.

When the time came to leave, one of them had second thoughts, but I told him "that he put all that pressure on me to go and now you're the one who's scared" and I convinced him to go. I almost had to drag him out.

I was gone for the whole weekend and on Monday, PAR let me come back, but I had to start the program all over, so I did.

After a couple more months of the program, I began to get homesick again. I talked to my drug couselor, Danielle, but she couldn't help me, so I left again. This time when I came back, they sat down and all the counselors together had a meeting with me. They told me that they might let me stay, but they might not. My counselor and I were pretty close and I could tell that she knew that they were going to kick me out, so I left again.

The next morning, I called the program and spoke with my counselor and she told me that she was going to try and convince the higher-ups to let me be discharged unsuccessfully from the residential program and continue the rest of my treatment on an out-patient basis.

Thankfully, she did convince them, but unfortunately, not long after I started the out-patient treatment at PAR in New Port Richey, I got new charges and was sentenced to Avon Park Youth Academy, a moderate security 9 - 12 month program, where I did 9 months exactly.

Photo taken right before going to PAR.