After having a huge fight with my girlfriend one night, I decided to go out with some friends to have a good time and forget my problems. I was very drunk and high on Methamphetamine when I foolishly climbed up a tree and fell about 40 feet to the ground. The next thing I remember is waking up from a coma eight weeks later and feeling a pain so tremendous and so severe that I could barely endure it. I had lost control of my bowel movements, could no longer perform day-to-day tasks by myself and the legs that once carried me swiftly down the football field in high school were now lifeless. I weighed less than 100 pounds and was faced with the harsh reality that at 22 years old, I would be wheelchair-bound for the rest of my life. I was lucky to just be alive, but I knew my life would never be the same again.

 It has been 20 years since the stupid act I committed in a severe drug-induced state changed my life forever. But I can tell you it has been hell on earth -- an existence filled with enough misery to last a lifetime.

As a kid, I was your average American teen growing up in the suburbs of New Jersey. I was a B student, had lots of friends, an out-going personality and a passion for playing sports. I was a polite, quiet kid and part of a nice middle-class family.

When I was in sixth grade, I convinced myself that drinking beer wasn’t a big deal. “I’ll only drink on the weekends,” I thought, “anyway it’s only beer, and everybody else drinks.” My friends were all the “jocks” in the school and playing football and other sports was what we lived for. But yes, a lot of them were drinking beer and I wanted to do what they were doing to fit in. I didn’t want to feel left out or be the only kid who wasn’t cool. Not surprisingly, I graduated from beer to harder liquor and I continued to drink more frequently once I entered high school. The heavy drinking led me to experiment with drugs and I put my life on a direct crash course with disaster.

I started smoking Marijuana (or “dope” as we used call it) in 10th grade and I began losing interest in all the activities I was involved in. I even lost interest in practicing hard for the junior varsity football team at my high school in New Jersey. Then during a game one day, I tore all the ligaments in my right leg and a doctor informed me that I would never play sports again. I was crushed. Sports had always been such an important part of my life and a way for me to release frustration. I spent my newfound free time with a new group of drug-using friends. We smoked a lot of marijuana, which led me to harder drugs like Cocaine , acid and methamphetamine.

By the time I was a senior in high school I was using heavily. Somehow, I still felt like I had everything under control. In my own mind, my freedom was rooted in the notion that I did what I wanted, when I wanted. Going out with my friends and getting wasted became more important to me then going to school. Nothing else mattered and I didn’t care about anybody or anything, except getting high.

My parents didn’t know I was using drugs at the time and I started lying to my family to hide my abuse, even as I failed out of school. They all watched at the ceremony where I was supposed to graduate as I was handed an empty diploma sleeve with no diploma. I told myself that if I finished my classes I could graduate with a real diploma. Another lie.

Occasionally I’d make attempts to change things so I could turn my life around to escape the drugging environment that surrounded me. I always found aeronautics interesting and a guy I knew was attending an aeronautics school in Oklahoma. So I moved there to try school again and to do something with my future. But drugs just seemed to follow me wherever I went. After a year at the school of aeronautics, I flunked out and started using drugs again. Choosing the two roommates I lived with in Oklahoma was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. We did so many drugs together and made light of the situation. We owned two pure white German Shepherds; we named one “Coke,” the other one “Caine.” I found myself knee-deep in drugs again and I really didn’t care.

We were all passing around marijuana joints at a rock concert one night, when I mistakenly handed a joint to an undercover police officer. He in turn handed me a pair of shiny, new handcuffs and arrested me.

Once I got out of jail, I decided to try and make a new start and move back to New Jersey without drugs. But I would fail myself one last time; my worst mistake would be that night when I climbed that tree.

With the help of loved ones and a lot of strength and resolve, I’ve been able to put my life back on the right track. I finally graduated from community college and I now serve as a youth drug-abuse prevention motivational speaker. I’ve shared my personal story with over 34,000 kids and teens. This is my life force now.

The unique opportunity to connect with teens and help them make the right decisions about substance abuse is what keeps me motivated. Looking back on my own teen years, I now realize that the decision to do drugs is a very personal and critical choice. It is choice between ruining your life the way I did, or giving yourself a chance at happiness and a promising future. Please, learn from my mistakes and make the right choice.