A group of Trapper Creek Job Corps students laid their souls bare on Wednesday, speaking candidly about drug addiction, violence, depression and redemption to entranced groups of Hamilton Middle School students.

Their stories were as horrifying as they were powerful.

Thomasine, speaking to a group of wide-eyed and curious youngsters in the auditorium, pulled no punches as she told of spending a portion of her youth  knowing her parents did methamphetamine in the house.

“I was 10 when I first tried alcohol,” she said. “Before long, I was doing almost every drug you could think of: acid (LSD), mushrooms, marijuana, meth. My parents tried to control me, but I told them I didn’t have to listen to them because they were doing meth. So I just was out of control. I was just doing drugs to feel numb. I didn’t want to deal with day-to-day reality. Sometimes I wished I was dead because that’s how bad my drug addiction was.”

Thonasine told the kids, by now completely engrossed with her story, how she came across a drug-fueled car accident in which she saw the bodies of her friends strewn across the highway. That was a low point in her life.

She joined the Trapper Creek Job Corps last year, and she is now clean and on her way to recovery.

“I want to live now because I want to be a role model for my younger brother” she said. “I want him to know there is a way out. I wrote him a long letter, and I told him that in a couple years I hope he will want to come live with me. Because it is impossible to do anything in a household when your parents are using drugs. You can’t do homework, you can’t do anything.”

Derrek, a 20-year-old, also tried to convey the horrible realities of being addicted to drugs.

“When I was on meth, I would stay awake two weeks straight,” he told the kids. “And when I came down, I would sleep for four days straight. I didn’t get up to eat or anything. I lost a ton of weight.”

The spellbound kids were eager to ask questions on any topic they could think of.

One sixth-grader had a beautifully obvious question.

“Why did you do drugs in the first place?” he asked, as his classmates turned in anticipation of the answer.

“Well, I thought it would be something to get people to like me and hang out with me,” one student explained after a pause. “I was always a quiet, shy kid. I thought drugs would make me cool. And it did get people to hang out with me, but they weren’t my friends. They weren’t hanging out with me because of who I am. They were with me because of the drugs. I quit three times but the people I thought were my friends got me back into it.”

The student said his biggest regrets in life stem from drugs.

“Alcohol was the worst drug for me,” he said. “I was a very angry person when I drank. I gave my friend a concussion and sent him to the hospital when I slammed his head into a wall. He was my best friend and he doesn’t talk to me anymore. I totaled my friend’s car with a baseball bat, and I took a swing at my dad one time. Drugs cause you to hurt the people you care about.”

Sixth-grader Hailey S. asked Derrek what he would change if he could go back in time.

“I would be at Florida State playing basketball if it wasn’t for drugs,” Derrek said. “They were willing to give me a basketball scholarship. That was my dream, to play for a college team. But I went to practice high one day, and the coach knew. He had me arrested on the spot and taken to jail. I had my dream in front of me, and I messed it up. It hurts. But you can’t blame others for what you do to yourself.”

Sixth-grader Summer J. wanted to know if the terrible rumors about meth were true.

“Does it make you look creepy like you see on television and on the billboards?” she asked.

“Meth is basically made out of all the chemicals you find in bleach and stuff under your kitchen sink,” Derrek answered. “It poisons your body. My bones would break easily because the meth made them brittle. I lost 100 pounds. It made me feel sick. All it does is poison your body.”

Sarah has been at Trapper Creek for nine months now. She told the kids that she started smoking heroin when she was a sophomore in high school.

“I beat up my best friend because she wouldn’t sell me the drugs I wanted,” Sarah said. “Or actually, the drugs I thought I needed. But I realize now, that you can get a natural high from exercise. You don’t need drugs.”

Chantz told the young students there was a good reason to listen to the sad stories he and his fellow Trapper Creek classmates told.

“Hopefully, you choose not to make the same mistakes we did,” he said.