It has been 718 days since vowed I would never comedown off drugs ever again.

The day was November 11, 2017, and I was alone in a motel room in Moosomin, Sask. I had just been fired for the second time in 10 weeks. I didn’t have enough money to buy my next meal, or pay for another night at the motel or, worst of all, buy myself any more liquor or cocaine. I was 30 years old, alone, sick and lost. I had spent the last 12 years drinking and partying, and I had nothing to show for it.

Coming Up or Getting High:

There is an easy to understand explanation as to why people all over the world and from all walks of life choose to smoke, snort, pop, plug and swallow drugs.

Simply put, it feels good.

MDMA is like being wrapped in a warm blanket of inner peace and positive energy. You are wonderful and beautiful, your life is perfect, everybody loves you and you love everyone else.

Cocaine is excitement, it's an immediate rush of energy and self-assurance. YOU FEEL GREAT!! You are going to do AMAZING things! You can accomplish anything! You are in control! You have got this! NOTHING CAN STOP YOU!

Drugs can be enjoyable and exciting, but what goes up must come down.

Coming down:

Whenever someone asks me why I got sober, I always give the same answer, “I didn’t quit getting high, I quit coming down.”

Coming down really is the hardest thing. The physical sickness is bad enough. You can expect symptoms such as headaches, nausea, fatigue, cold sweats, diarrhea, vomiting and muscle spasms, just to name a few. But those symptoms are nothing compared to the emotional turmoil.

Emotionally, coming down feels like your heart and soul are being ripped and squeezed, and there's no way for you to comfort them.

And the more you use drugs, the more drugs you need to get high, and the longer it takes for your body to heal. Coming down gets harder and harder.

Next, you start to feel like you're only happy when you're drunk or high, so you start hanging out with people who party all the time like you.

You no longer set and accomplish goals because your only goal is to get fucked up and party with your friends.

This is when your problems really start. Your relationship with your family becomes strained because you’re always broke and borrowing money. You lose your job because you’re continually calling in sick. Life begins to pile up around you, so you get high to avoid your problems sending you spiralling further and further down the rabbit hole.

Until one day, you're 30 years old and you're alone, sick and lost. Staring at yourself in a mirror in a motel room in Moosomin, Sask., contemplating breaking the mirror and opening your veins with the shards.

In recovery, we have a saying: “Play the tape forward.” When I start to think about how great it would be to party with my old friends again (and believe me, I think about it,) I play that tape forward in my mind.

The first night would be EPIC, I have no doubt. I would laugh and sing, just like the old days. Eventually, though, the party would end and the drugs would lead me right back to where I was. Alone, sick and lost staring at myself in a mirror, contemplating taking my own life.

So, take it from me: when it comes to hard drugs, the high is most certainly not worth the fall.

Colin Murphy

Colin is a 32-year-old Professional Writing student currently in his second year at Algonquin College. Colin was born and raised in Newfoundland, but he has traveled around the world. Colin taught English in Guangzhou, China, backpacked across Europe, partied in Las Vegas, skied the Rockies and swam the beaches of Cuba and Mexico. He has worked and lived in six Canadian provinces and driven a transport truck across the ice roads under the northern lights of the Northwest Territories. He loves to laugh and sing, and write about himself in the third person!