Hooked and Hunted by Crime and Substance Abuse

Kareem never thought he’d be the one making excuses. At 17, he had plans, big ones. His dream was to become a civil engineer, following in the footsteps of his older brother, Yusuf, who had always been his role model. They grew up in a tight-knit family that believed in education and hard work. Kareem was the good kid, the one everyone expected would succeed, the kid with potential. But as life has it, things don’t always go according to plan.

It all started during his second year of high school. The pressure to perform was overwhelming. Kareem found himself drowning in expectations. From his teachers, his parents, even his peers. His grades started slipping, and with it came the whispers. “You’re not cut out for this,” one teacher had told him. It stung. Then came the parties, the late-night hangouts where his friends would smoke weed and joke about their carefree lives. They seemed so much more relaxed, so much less burdened.

One night, Kareem gave in. It was supposed to be a one-time thing, just a way to ease the tension before the exams. “Just a little hit, it won’t hurt,” his friend assured him, passing the joint over. The smoke filled his lungs, and for a moment, it felt like his worries had disappeared. The guilt crept in later, but he brushed it off. “I can stop anytime,” he told himself.

But that one hit became two, then three, then every weekend. By the time he graduated, Kareem was smoking weed regularly. His carefree weekend habit had slowly become a daily crutch. What he didn’t realize was that it wasn’t just the weed, it was the lifestyle. The need to escape. The constant cycle of stress and numbing himself became part of who he was.

By the time he joined college, Kareem was smoking more than ever. He lost interest in classes, skipped lectures, and often showed up too high to pay attention. His once-promising future as a civil engineer faded into the background. He didn’t even care anymore. At home, his parents noticed the change. His father, a strict disciplinarian, was furious, but Kareem’s mother believed he just needed a break. “He’ll come around,” she would say, trying to protect him from his father’s wrath.

But the truth was, Kareem was already too far gone. His casual smoking turned into experimenting with harder drugs. At a party, someone offered him something stronger – a pill that promised to take the high to another level. Kareem was skeptical at first, but curiosity won. That was his first taste of MDMA. The rush, the euphoria, the complete escape from reality. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before. And that was when things truly fell apart.

The price of maintaining the high became steeper. He started spending the little money he had from his side gigs on drugs. When that wasn’t enough, he began stealing small amounts from his parents, lying to friends to borrow money, always promising to pay them back. His relationships started to crumble. His once-tight circle of friends began to distance themselves, alarmed by how reckless he’d become. But Kareem wasn’t listening anymore. The drugs had a tighter grip on him than anything else in his life.

As his dependency grew, so did his need for more potent drugs. Kareem was introduced to crack cocaine by a group of guys he met at a local club. “Just try it once,” they said. But once was all it took. Crack was different. It wasn’t just about escaping anymore, it was about survival. His body craved it, demanded it, and without it, he felt like he couldn’t function.

Desperation started to cloud his judgment. When he couldn’t scrape together enough money, he turned to crime. It started small—shoplifting, breaking into cars to steal electronics he could sell quickly. But with every crime, the stakes grew higher. Kareem wasn’t just trying to get high anymore, he was trying to outrun the life he had lost control over.

One night, the police caught him breaking into a convenience store. He was arrested on the spot, high, disoriented, and barely able to speak. When his parents got the call, they were devastated. It was his mother who showed up at the station, eyes red from crying, while his father refused to come. That night, Kareem saw the hurt in her face, the disbelief that her son had fallen so far. But even that wasn’t enough to stop him.

The cycle continued. Kareem spent the next few months in and out of trouble, dodging arrests, borrowing from dangerous people to feed his habit. He knew it wouldn’t last, but he didn’t know how to stop. Each time he got into trouble, his mother would show up, begging the police for leniency. But the streets were ruthless, and Kareem had made enemies. His addiction turned him into someone his family barely recognized—a shadow of the boy who once had dreams.

The turning point came when Kareem was nearly killed during a drug deal gone wrong. He was trying to sell a small stash of crack to cover a debt when the buyer pulled a knife. Kareem barely escaped, but the shock of it, the close brush with death, shook him to his core. He realized then that he wasn’t just ruining his own life, he was putting his family at risk, dragging them through his chaos.

After that night, something shifted in him. He wanted out, but getting clean wasn’t easy. The withdrawal symptoms were brutal, the sleepless nights, the uncontrollable cravings, the physical pain. His mother stood by him, taking him to rehab and staying up with him during his worst moments. His father, who had distanced himself for years, slowly began to soften as he saw his son fighting to reclaim his life.

It took months of rehab and therapy for Kareem to start feeling like himself again. But the road to recovery wasn’t linear. He relapsed several times, each time more heartbreaking than the last. But he kept going. Every time he fell, he picked himself up again. Eventually, with the support of his family and a new group of sober friends, Kareem started to rebuild his life.

Today, he’s back in school, slowly working towards his degree, and is actively involved in a community program that educates other young people about the dangers of drug abuse and how easily it can lead to crime. He knows the road ahead won’t be easy, but for the first time in years, he feels like he has a future again.