Jude Hassan came back to OHS on Thursday, March 7, to talk to the juniors and seniors about  his story about drug usage and what it did to his life. Earlier in the year, Hassan talked to the freshman and sophomores.

Hassan spoke about how he got started with drugs and how it escalated to using heroin and other stronger drugs. However, he told the students at the beginning of the assembly that he didn’t want to preach about not doing drugs; he just wanted to show the students his story. He wanted to try and stop many students before it got as deep as he went. Along his story, the students heard about  how he went from weed to higher drugs, how he blew many thousands of dollars by using the drugs and the countless times his parents tried to send him to rehab, the way he didn’t attend class and just wanted to be high, and how he couldn’t live a day without being on drugs.

“After a while, I started getting a tolerance and began experimenting. On the night that I first tried heroin, I fell asleep and missed the night. So, I tried it again and told myself that this would be the last time. But after that, I fell in love with the drug,” Hassan said.

Another part of his story that he included is his recovery story. His breaking point was when he got arrested for 5 felonies when a group he got involved with robbed a man of all that he had. But also the fact that his dad was dying of cancer really struck him hard. On his dad’s last day and during the last hour, he promised that he would never go back and make his mom and dad proud. After that, he went into rehab and got clean. Hassan has been clean for 6 years. However even after I quit drugs, I couldn’t stop lying and manipulating.

“If you know a friend is doing drugs, say something, because you might regret it when it is too late,” Hassen said.