I got popped for possession when I was 12 years old.

# MY NAME IS CRYSTAL

I’m really fucking glad your ass is here.

My name is Crystal. I’m 42 years old, born and raised in a little armpit of Southern California called Lake Elsinore.

I fell in love with sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll at a pretty young age.

And before anybody starts making assumptions, no, I wasn’t raised by drug addicts.

Quite the opposite.

I was given everything a kid needed growing up. Honestly, I was given more than most kids growing up in Elsinore. I had parents. I had a home. I had food. I had clothes. I had people who loved me.

So this isn’t one of those stories where I blame my addiction on some fucked-up childhood and tie everything neatly together with a bow.

My Life doesn't work that way.

If you were an ’80s baby, you might remember the meth epidemic.

Back when the shit was still pure.

One of my earliest memories is of my Uncle Tom completely wigging the fuck out because bugs were crawling all over him.

There weren't any bugs.

I was about five years old.

I remember watching him, completely confused, while he begged my mom to get imaginary bugs off his skin.

I asked my mom, “What’s wrong with Uncle Tom?”

She looked at me and said:

“That’s what happens when you do drugs.”

And somehow, my five-year-old brain thought that was cool.

Not scary.

Not dangerous.

Cool

Somehow, I connected this bizarre, magical, make-believe world to the underground world of addiction.

My introduction to drugs wasn't a lecture.

It was my uncle fighting invisible bugs.

And somewhere inside my little kid brain, Alice in Wonderland met meth-induced psychosis.

That connection stuck.

Seven years later, I was twelve years old and getting suspended from school for possession of marijuana.

Yep.

Twelve.

I wasn't expelled, thankfully, but the school board wasn't exactly handing out participation trophies either.

My punishment was community service, twelve weeks of outpatient treatment, and attendance at N.A. meetings.

As a twelve-year-old.

I thought the N.A. meetings were completely unnecessary.

Naturally, because I was twelve and therefore knew absolutely everything.

My dad wou.ld stay in most meetings because he enjoyed the shit talking and reminiscing. Then he would eventually just drop me off and eventually I was given the opportunity to share without self-incrimination.

So I shared.

People were curious what landed a 12 year old girl in the room with a court card.

So, I explained exactly why I was there.

-Like most fucked up stories of getting busted begin, Someone had snitched.

I had sewn a little sack of weed inside my scrunchie during Home Ec. in fifth period. Because apparently, twelve-year-old me had already developed the criminal ingenuity of a very broke drug dealer.

Then my friend Roxanne heard that other kids were getting caught smoking on campus.

She knew I had the weed hidden in my hair tie, and the tie was wrapped around my hair brush.

Knowing me as thorough as a bestie should, she walked over to my backpack, took the scrunchie, and put it in her own hair. Without telling me she took it.

It wasn't two seconds later when the campus sheriff came into my classroom and yanked me out. I literally had 30 seconds left until

They searched me pretty thoroughly.

And that's when I realized something important:

They didn't actually know what they were looking for.

So I lied.

I told them I got nervous and flushed it.

And they believed me.

They stopped searching.

They stopped questioning me.

I walked away having successfully saved face with the school authorities.

A week later, Roxanne and I pulled the weed back out of the scrunchie.

And I smoked marijuana for the first time.

Honestly?

I fucking hated it.

My mouth was dry.

I got hungry.

That was it.

I wasn't impressed.

Then, about a week later, my parents and sister went out of town, and I had to stay with my Grandma.

My big brother lived there, And my big brother smoked a lot of weed.

That was the week I learned three very important things:

1. My grandma was a true badass.

2. My big brother was stingy as fuck with his weed.

3. I was going to smoke marijuana for the rest of my life.