Growing up in Newtown, Connecticut, I had a friend who I really enjoyed hanging out with. He was a couple of years younger than me, and he moved into the neighborhood from Texas.
He was a very innocent, sweet, and kind kid. He thought I was bad because I swore sometimes. My parents liked me hanging out with him because they thought he’d have a positive influence on me.
Around the time I started high school, he moved to the greater Chicago, Illinois area due to his father’s job. I actually remember crying as he was leaving, as he was one of my best friends.
An Unexpected Voicemail and Conversation
We stayed in a touch for a bit, and I remember him coming over my house while he was in town with his mom visiting old friends. After that, we lost touch.
A number of years later – sometime while I was in college – I got a voicemail from him on my phone. When I first heard it, I literally had a hard time believing it was him. He was saying “yo” at the end of nearly every sentence. He was speaking like a tough guy, with the kind of lingo you’d never expect from him.
I was in such disbelief that I played the voicemail for others – not to make fun of my old childhood friend or put him down, but simply because the person leaving the voicemail was so absurdly different from the person I grew up with. More than anything else, it was sad.
I ended up calling him back to see how he was doing. He continued to say “yo” at the end of most of his sentences – there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the word “yo” and I wasn’t judging him here, it was just such a drastic change from the person he used to be. He told me that he was doing some hardcore drugs and his parents had sent him away to an intense rehab facility. There were many gangsters, thugs, and con-men at this rehab facility and it further enforced my friend’s changed demeanor.
He also mentioned wanting to become a rapper and was now hanging out with some really bad Chicago thugs and gangsters.
For the record: wanting to be a rapper is fantastic – I love rap, including admiring artists like Eminem, Biggie Smalls, and Tupac. What was so sad here, and what I found so hard to believe, is how he was on drugs and acting like a gangster. In my mind, he was a wannabe gangster because I could never see him as an actual thug. I’ll always remember the sweet, innocent, kind kid he once was, who had a positive influence on me. The change in his personality and demeanor was so incredibly drastic. It was shocking.
What Kind of Drugs Did He Do & Why Did He Become Involved?
This is nuanced here because the drugs he was doing – hallucinogens, like LSD and acid – are not considered by everyone to be bad. I myself don’t consider them to be bad. Ram Dass, a successful spiritual author, was a proponent of LSD. While they aren’t substances I desire to put into my body (and please know they can have very harmful negative effects when used improperly), I get why some people choose to do them. I also know there’s a lot more research that can be done here, as far as how hallucinogens can teach us more about the power of the mind and be used for medicinal purposes.
While we’re all entitled to our opinions, observations, and perspectives, I’m a huge fan of not judging others. While I’m speaking openly here in this post, please don’t misunderstand: I’m not judging my old friend at all. Everyone has their reasons for their choices and a lot of the time, we don’t know someone’s backstory. On top of that, one could make the argument that my friend doing hallucinogens wasn’t that bad.
I’d like to emphasize that what was shocking here was that drastic change I told you about. It was a 180 degree shift from the person he used to be. While in many ways there’s nothing wrong with hallucinogens in my opinion – they can lead to powerful spiritual journeys – it was not something my childhood friend would have ever considered doing in his earlier days.
I’d like to be open here and tell you that I do not know the exact reason why my friend chose to start taking hallucinogens. It could have been due to the people he was surrounding himself with. It could have also been due to his overbearing and strange father. These are educated guesses on my end – which is why it’s important to not judge my old friend.
On a phone call with my old friend, while I was starting college, he told me how he loved hallucinogens because they caused him to explore the innermost depths and recesses of his own mind. They also caused him to learn how to let go. Powerful – from this perspective, my friend could be considered a pioneer and in the realm of someone like Ram Dass.
When I referred earlier in this post to my friend being a wannabe gangster, I was referring to perhaps some negative side effects of his new lifestyle – not necessarily the choices themselves. I know of people who have done certain type of drugs in responsible ways and controlled settings. They also limited their usage. With my friend, to the best of my knowledge of the way his life situation played out, he used hallucinogens increasingly often – to the point where maybe it got out of control.
While I don’t know this for sure, it’s also possible he was doing other kinds of drugs he wasn’t telling me about. I use the word “yo” sometimes myself; his choice of words and language use was not the problem. The deeper challenge was his chosen lifestyle, the kinds of people he was spending time with, and his dysfunctional father.
Staying In Touch For a Bit Longer and Respectfully Stepping Away From the Relationship
I didn’t talk to him a lot, but every once in a while we spoke on the phone. He mentioned still doing drugs and enjoying doing them. He tried to convince me to do drugs myself and I said they’re not for me.
While I was in college, he did help me with a difficult bully I was struggling with. He advised sending the guy love, which I thought was mature and good advice. His true self was still there, buried beneath layers of conditioning from his flawed peers.
In 2012, I had a business trip to Chicago. By chance, my childhood friend contacted me on my last night in the city before heading home. It felt like something more than just coincidence. He didn’t know I was there. I decided not to tell him I was there as I didn’t want to meet up with him – it was a tough decision, but I realized he’s not the kind person I want to be around (anymore). Sad, but the truth.
I didn’t share this inner decision with him. Stepping away from someone you’re no longer a match for can be done respectfully and tactfully, and without putting down the other person or making them feel badly about themselves.
What Went Wrong and What Are the Life Lessons?
Out of the two of us, if someone had to guess who would become the delinquent, it would be me. I played “Ding Dong Ditch” a lot with my friends, ringing the doorbells of my neighbors and bothering them in the middle of the night. The neighbors called the cops on me a lot, and I often found myself hiding in the woods and behind stone walls from the police. It’s still hard to believe this happened to my friend.
There are a couple of really valuable lessons here. First of all, you need to be careful who you surround yourself with. The sweetness of my friend became corrupted and ruined when he got around the wrong people. All it takes is to be around one bad egg or a few bad eggs for your life to be ruined. Some people roll their eyes at me when I say this, but it needs to be taken more seriously, as you become the average of the people you spend the most time with.
The other big root cause of this is his father. I have empathy for my friend’s dad and at the same time I feel frustrated with him. My childhood friend told me on the phone that his dad didn’t understand him, and my feeling is that his dad put his career before his son. Maybe it’s not my place to comment on that, but it’s not only my opinion – it’s the feeling of my actual friend.
My friend’s dad is working and paying the bills – well done. With that said, perhaps he could have prioritized his son’s life better and been there more for him. My friend told me his dad was very quick to send him to a rehab facility. Rehab is crucial for a drug addict, though it seems the location they sent my friend to – some random disparate facility in the middle of nowhere in Utah, filled with really bad people – was not the best rehab facility.
Also, had my friend’s dad kept his family in Newtown, it would’ve been more unlikely that my friend would turn into a drug addict. My friend’s dad could have put his own son’s wishes and desires ahead of his career, as my friend didn’t want to leave Newtown.
This situation is, in my own analysis, largely my friend’s father’s fault. The root cause was bad parenting. And instead of taking the time to really understand his son and why he was taking hallucinogens, he decided to quickly send him off to a rehab facility. I get why his father sent my friend away, as he wanted his son to get better, but my friend’s father had a flawed approach.
I really can’t blame my friend here, as he was just a kid. We all make mistakes, and his mistakes weren’t even that bad.
Was there a qualified rehab facility closer to Chicago? Was addiction truly the issue, or was there perhaps a deeper root cause of my friend feeling deeply misunderstood by his father? These are questions my friend’s father failed to probe further.
Chicago is a beautiful city, and it can also be a really ugly place as well. I saw a documentary where a Chicago police officer was saying that the gangs in Chicago literally don’t care and will not hesitate to shoot anyone. I genuinely mean no offense to the city of Chicago here, as it’s a beautiful place with a lot to offer; with that said, it has some very bad people there, like every city does.
Also, when I was volunteering at the Bridgeport Rescue Mission in Bridgeport, Connecticut, a homeless man told me an intense story about how ruthless the gangsters in Chicago can be. The homeless man I was serving said that he and a friend rubbed a few gangsters there the wrong way. His friend ended up getting chopped up by a machete by one of the thugs. The homeless man telling me this story narrowly escaped with his life by hiding in a crate. The thugs ended up mailing the pieces of the homeless man’s friend’s body back home to his family.
I share this to say just how messed up the gang scene in Chicago is – these are the kinds of people my friend became entangled with.
I hope this story acts as a wake-up call to surround yourself with the right people, as well as an important and powerful reminder for parents to put their kids before their career.
What are your thoughts here? Do you know of anyone who suddenly changed in drastic ways? What are your thoughts on how my friend’s father handled this situation? I’d love to know what you think in the comments below.
Jeff Davis is an award-winning author, most recently publishing The Power of Authentic Leadership: Activating the 13 Keys to Achieving Prosperity Through Authenticity. He’s also an authentic leadership keynote speaker and Executive Coach to leaders and CEOs, offering individualized coaching. Follow him on Twitter.
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