Lack of Guidance in the Tough-Ass Modern Age

Growing up was hard - especially after the divorce of my parents. Most of my life, I have spent telling myself and others that the divorce did not directly effect me..."I don't care...whatever", I used to say. Deep inside though, I know that it did have an effect me, but I refused to let it affect my daily life. I pushed that thought back into the cracks and crevisis(?) of my sub-conscious awareness.
I believe that I was around the age of 11 when my parents decided to go their separate ways. My mom got custody and we moved into what I guess you can classify as a "ghetto" (my idea of ghetto is kids looking for food at garbage dumps in Mozambique)...I can say that I was a good boy until my 13th birthday. Prior to that, I spent most of my time at the computer (as I do today). When I started growing older into my adolescent days, I began to run into more and more trouble as well.
That same year, I joined the Army Cadets (a military-style extracurricular organization for kids who want to do something productive with their time)...however, the experience turned out to be a bit more "productive" then I expected. Cadets is the very same institution where I met not so good kids. I got friendly with my new friends and soon enough I got into drinking 40s and smoking joints. It did not get any better for a while.
Throughout the next 3 or 4 years, I got deeper into the drug scene; at that point, not only was I doing "street drugs" such as pot, mushrooms, and extacy (not gonna let you know all the drugs I did, it is nothing to be proud of), I also began to engage in doing pharmaceutical drugs such as Aderall and Rittalin. The situation got to its lowest point in my second year of high school, 10th grad. In grade 9, I was regularly skipping and gettin' high at lunch with my close friend (I was never a socially skilled person and stuck with a few "worthy" individuals). My academic progress pretty well stalled by the second semester of grade 9. I could not stand to wake up at 7 am, be at school by 8.20 and sit on my ass the entire day until 2.40pm rolled in. I hated the social scene in high school. Kids are evil, high school is a very hostile place. People would rather be unfriendly, then be nice and try to make friends. However, this is all an opinion based on my experience. My hatred did not only stem onto students, I had a lot of dislike for the teachers as well. To this day, I can positively say that all teachers, excluding a few good ones, did not give a crap about the students (but who can blame them..they get paid beans)...however, the problem is that teachers need to care, at least about the younger students, ones who are visibly angry, people like me, but with less brains...the ones who CAN NOT guide themselves, the hopeless cases...believe me, there are many of them out there.
By beginning of grade 10, I suffered a major, year-long episode of depression. I dropped out of school, got into some more drugs, but this time around, I was selling them as well. A dirty business. Many young people who are in the same situation decide to sell drugs as a way of making a profit. However, I have seen countless young people waste themselves away trying to "turn a nickle into a dime." It is next to impossible to make a significant amount of money out of pushing drugs on the consumer level. Mostly, it is impossible due to the fact that the seller engages in doing his own product. I have seen people get beaten, do time, and throw their lives away because they considered themselves "hard enough" to get into the game of pushing. It is a no go, and it is far from being a game. I am thankful to God and the head on my shoulders for being able to find my way out of those circumstances.
About a year after dropping out, I met my current girlfriend Lindsey. She was also not at school at the time, and was trying to get back in. She ended up leaving the regular school system and began attending an alternative school (more freedom and responsibility). I enrolled as well, stopped selling and abusing drugs. We ended up moving out together and have been together for 4 years since. She is now on her first year of doing a Journalism program, and I am starting a Police Foundations program at college this January.
I hope that someone who is in a similar position reads my story (I doubt it lol) and finds a needle worth of hope. I know that I needed it, unfortunately I couldn't get any, if I had found hope earlier, I would not have traveled down the dark path. It was not worth it.