Gabe Porterfield’s Story with Addiction

After going through his addiction for over a year, he decided to conquer his addiction and take back control of his life.

By Alec Krsek

Nov 1, 2021

“They were just dragging me down with them, and even though they loved me and were my friends and all that shit, it was just built on smoking. It was the only thing we would do. The hardest thing was realizing that I had to get away from those people.” says Gabriel Porterfield, a high schooler, who’s talking about how addiction has shaped his life. Porterfield has endured his addiction for far too long, it has taken control over his life. “I started noticing how shitty of a person I have become.” Marijuana has caused Porterfield several issues regarding his physical and mental health. His performance in school as well as his standing in social relationships all took a drastic toll due to his addiction. “I was in a terrible mindset. I felt like every day was the same.” After going through the pain that his addiction has provoked, he knew he needed to change something. “I looked at my addiction just as a hobby and one day I realized I couldn’t eat right or sleep without weed”, this was the first step for Porterfield to conquer his addiction.

In the beginning, he started smoking marijuana occasionally as something to do during the right circumstances. Such as hanging out with friends, at certain events, during special occasions, etc. Smoking marijuana as a teenager is still unhealthy, even if done occasionally, but smoking it daily is incredibly dangerous for your health. “At first I wanted to be cool. I thought I was really cool for a while, I had really good confidence.” The first spark of his addiction was with how other people saw him as, his reputation, his image. His second spark was caused with his friends. Teenagers get peer pressured easy among their friends and this peer pressure was then a major issue with his beginnings with the never-ending pit of addiction. “Basically, just with the people I was hanging out with it [smoking weed] was very normal at first. It was kind of just like ‘we are gonna get high’ then it turned into ‘we need to get high today’. It was like who was buying the gram today or who is gonna pay for the weed today.” His last spark, the spark that lights the flame of his addiction, was related to something that everyone in this world suffered against and is still suffering more than a year later, COVID-19. The coronavirus caused drastic changes in people’s lives and many people in the world underwent mental health issues that were caused by the change in our everyday life. “Once COVID hit, it became a thing I was doing all the time. A thing that I couldn’t get away from.”

During the roughest times of his addiction, many aspects of his life were different than before his addiction. Porterfield suffered from his mental fortitude disintegrating by undergoing depression to his socialistic personality being burned up by trapping himself with loneliness. His addiction made him lose 10 pounds on top of him being already severely underweight. This ruthless addiction caused Porterfield to undergo many difficulties regarding his mental and physical well-being. “Well, I spent like a whole year just not doing anything really. Just boggled down and not socializing with anyone new. I was failing school. I lost weight. And I was just totally mentally unstable for a while. Depression was a big thing, every day was just terrible.” Porterfield’s addiction clouded his sense of sympathy and judgement. He would become narcissistic and take advantage of people that were close to him. The contentment and emotions of the people around him didn’t mean anything, he would do whatever it took to add fuel to his addiction. This would be one of the worst things that would be impacted in his life by his addiction. “And I guess what I was doing to people. I was feigning off of people. I needed people to buy me things. I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin.” In the last months of his addiction, everything about his life was turned around to how it was two years prior.

“You really just got to recognize it [addiction]. For me, it took a long time and for other people it is probably taking even longer. You just got to recognize to what it is doing to your life, and it is really fucking hard to do that. If you wanted to stop, you need have people around you that want you to stop.” Porterfield’s advice to conquering addiction. Finding supportive people in life can help against addiction. Rehab is also an option to fight addiction, it may be difficult but will show results over time. Porterfield’s addiction caused him numerous problems relating to his health, well-being, and his overall personality and work ethics. “Well, I mean it [life] has totally 180’d. I wake up every day, I might be a little tired, but I am pretty excited to go to school. I get my schoolwork done. I want to start getting back into basketball. I am eating normal, gaining back my weight. And am feeling more confident about myself.” Overcoming addiction changed Porterfield’s life and made him look at everything around him at a new angle. He now cherishes the simplest things in life, he cares for himself and gives himself self-value and pride. “You have to believe that you are gonna get better, because you will, you will get better.”