Alcohol & Drugs: Destroyers of Lives

Drugs and alcohol may have ruined my life.  As I've mentioned here before, there certainly were problems before I became acquainted with drugs and alcohol, but they have definitely taken a toll on my life. 

Considering the first time I got drunk, I should have stopped right then and there.  I had never gotten drunk before.  My mother was at her night job, so I was alone in the house.  I was a high school student at the time.  I knew nothing about alcohol.  I started with a drinking glass full to the brim with blackberry brandy: straight and warm.  I drank it down.  Then I got to work on a quart of vodka: also straight and warm.  I almost finished it, and I probably would have, but I stopped because my mother returned.  I could have drank myself to death.  I vomited in my sleep that night.  I could have choked to death on it; many people have died that way.
Usually, when people first drink alcohol, they don't like the taste of it.  If we only followed our instincts and stopped right after that first sip, which is the smart thing to do. 
Even when I was a drinker, I thought liquor stores were evil places, and they are.  They supply the alcoholic with what he or she needs to kill themselves. 
I used to smoke weed.  I've wasted so much money on it.  After many wasted years, I finally quit smoking it.  But, thanks to Facebook, I reconnected with an old college friend (the guy I wrote about in the "Frenemy" post), and, he, being a bad influence, got me back to smoking it again.  Even a moment of clarity didn't get me to stop when I should have.  I was watching a movie that I ultimately didn't like much called Old Joy.  However, I took something very important away from it.  The movie involved 2 friends hanging out in the woods.  One of them smoked weed, and the other one didn't.  Even though I was smoking at the time, I thought it was pathetic that one of them needed to get his little pipe out and smoke over and over again while the other guy didn't.  I don't want to be the guy that needs it; I want to be the guy who doesn't need it. 
Smoking weed made me cough violently plenty of times, which hurts.  When we cough as a result of smoking, it's the body's way of saying it doesn't like smoke, that it's not good.  Smoke blackened my lungs.  Being high is fine, but not coming down from it, which, of course, is inevitable.  Then you need more.  More and more and more: it's never enough.  It's a big trap.  And it contributed to my depression.  I was depressed coming down from it, and depressed the day after smoking: sometimes 2 days after.  In college, the only semester I got good grades in is the one before I smoked weed for the first time.  After that, they went down and stayed there. 
People who drink risk getting a DWI.  If a sober person gets into a fight with someone who's drunk, who do you think the police are going to believe?
People who smoke weed put themselves in a weak position.  My new neighbors smoke it.  They opened the hall window, probably because they're paranoid and worried about getting caught.  I closed the window.  I have nothing to worry about.  I'm free, because I'm living a clean life.
If you're reading this, I care about you to some degree, because writers want people to read their writing.  Don't drink or do drugs.  They have ruined countless lives.  Life is hard enough without sabotaging yourself, which is I believe is what we do when we abuse alcohol and drugs.
I've been sober since 7/31/16 and clean longer than that.