It was a Saturday night and we were out in the ballfield again. I was so happy that this new group of “friends” were actually asking me to come and drink with them. I was almost 15 and just wanted to be with the cool kids from my school. My girlfriend had a boyfriend with a super cool car and was older than we were – her parents didn’t like him but that didn’t matter when we were out on that Saturday night.

We were supposed to be at the movie theater at 9pm for a movie and one of the girls’ mothers was going to pick us up at 11 – instead of the movies we went to the ballfield to drink some beer. We drank and someone had some weed so we smoked. The older boyfriend had liquor that he was drinking so we drank that too.

It was time to go and he was going to drop us off early so that we were at the theater before our pick up time. He fell on the way to the car and we all laughed.

As we drove he wasn’t doing a good job and my friend and I were in the back seat afraid of his driving and afraid to tell him to pull over. The girlfriend in the front seat just kept saying come on babe we have to get there before her mom does. We ended up in a ditch that night.

My friend in the front seat went to the hospital and got 22 stitches in her forehead, he was arrested and the two of us in the backseat were bruised and taken to the police station to be picked up by our parents.
Although we were alive we were in BIG trouble at home…

“Talk. They hear you.” is a campaign helping parents and caregivers start conversations with children about alcohol and other drugs. Learn more about it at https://www.samhsa.gov/talk-they-hear-you