"Don't do drugs. Make good choices. Stay in school." We've heard that mantra over and over again from teachers, parents, and guidance counsellors but in the end we will make the decisions we make regardless of the advice we've been given. Sometimes it all works out for the best, but there's always negative consequences to making risky decision.

People on Reddit were asked: "What's the fastest way you have seen somebody screw their life up?" These are some of the saddest answers.

A doctor in an emergency department writing prescriptions for oxycodone and diazepam to be filled by their partner in crime who would then sell them for recreational use. They were caught when a patient in the emergency department shouted out "That's my dealer" as the doctor walked past.

EM_doc

Caught a CPA candidate cheating on the UFE last week. 4 years of college and 4 years of prep to become a CPA. Student now banned from the CPA for ethics violation. Immediately lost job. Sucks to be them. Professional code of ethics violations are serious issues. 

Ack_Nak

My cousin got too drunk one night. His brother put him in a taxi home and told the driver he would get paid when dropped off at his mum's.

Cousin is so drunk he doesn't realise this and starts freaking out about having no money and demands the taxi driver lets him out. Cousin getting angry about it so taxi driver does.

The road he is out on is the M8, the biggest motorway in Scotland - quiet at night, but still cars coming down.

Cousin is walking ON the motorway, all over the place. Two cars swerve round him, one of which pulls over and rings the police. While on the phone to police she hears a massive thud and screeching breaks. Some poor guy on the way home from work, on the same road he always drives down, at the same time, hit him.

My cousin is dead. If he hadn't of drank so much, or reacted in such a way he would be alive. The driver who hit him will be scarred for life, the taxi driver will have the "what if" in his life for ever. My aunt is severely depressed, a recluse who doesn't go out, after 10 years she still hasn't cleared out his room. Four lives screwed up quite quickly.

HearingSword

At my school this week some idiot posted a picture of a fake gun on his Snapchat story saying "Don't go to school tomorrow." That kid is now in jail.

lllELIOTOlll

I had a friend in high school who got a full ride athletic scholarship to a regionally-prestigious college. He was all set to go when his mom and girlfriend begged him to stay in town instead because they loved him so much and couldn't bear for him to be away. So he gave up his full scholarship and stayed home instead.

Within a year his girlfriend had dumped him and his mom had kicked him out of the house. The opportunity had passed, and now he was living in town without the things he'd sacrificed that opportunity for.

Granted, it looks like he's happy based on current Facebook (who doesn't look happy on Facebook, really) but things really went to crap for him quick.

Kijafa

The night of my high school graduation, one of the valedictorians got arrested for underage drinking. She was supposed to go to some big-name college but ended up at community college because she lost her scholarships. I don't know what happened to her after that.

krisfunk27

I have a relative that married a guy she thought she could change. She couldn't.

cpqarray

A friend I met during Freshman year of college came in with thousands of dollars saved from refereeing for youth sports, which I guess pays pretty well. He spent all of that money in about a month--he did ecstasy nearly every day and had a 2 week coke binge on top of that in the middle. Despite my and others' efforts to get him to get his life together, he was kicked out of the school with a .28 GPA by the end of his first year. 

From there he was kicked out of family homes for stealing money and prescription meds and ended up living out of a yellow convertible someone sold him for $300. From all this was born some sort of eating disorder, I met up with him and bought him some food and he couldn't even fit 3 garlic knots in before he felt sick. He was so screwed that his skin was basically purple with a yellowish sheen. It was awful.

We lost touch because he kept being a jerk and did some pretty meh things on the friend-scale, but I ran into him a few years ago and he was actually doing pretty well--a girl had helped him clean up and he had some life in his face again.

HelloIAmHawt

Rich kid shot a parking attendant and killed him. The short story is he went to a basketball game, wanted to park in a handicapped spot and tried to bribe the parking attendant. Guy wasn't having it, so he got out of his car and tried to start something. Rich kid ends up getting beat up by parking attendant and goes back to his car, gets his gun and shoots him dead. Dude had a young son. 

Anyhow, he's in prison now, but his old man owns a business. So, he'll get out in about 10 years and have a lucrative job waiting for him. His life is just temporarily on hold unfortunately.

michaelscottspenis

A kid in school decided to show off by jumping off the school roof on to a mattress. He slipped and fell 20 feet on to his head. Can't move anything below his neck now.

AFTER_THAT_LION_DUDE

Drunk driving. Valedictorian, finished 1st year at Yale, decides to hang out with his high school friends back home. They had some drinks at the nearby college, and this guy got talked into driving the rest home since they were the "least drunk". Crossed a double yellow line, got pulled over and charged with DUI. 

Scholarship money, gone, expelled from the school, now trying to get into another school but explaining why you're leaving Yale is pretty tough. But that's nothing compared to the jerks back home who are so glad to see this guy fail: friends, teachers, strangers he doesn't even know.

SCM1992

One of my best friends is who it happened to. To preface this happened over a few months span. Basically super successful working for an Oil and Gas firm, 24 years old. For some reason, goes through a recruiting service to find a better paying job. Ends up finding one, but the deal was not 100% done yet. He takes a few months off and decides to quit his job knowing that he's about to start a better paying one. Also buys a house in the middle of all this (knowing he's about to make more money). 

A week before he is supposed to start... "Oh by the way we filled this position so you should probably just stay put until further notice." He burnt bridges to leave his old job so he was not able to go back to work there. Had about $500 to his name with over $3000+ in bills/truck/car notes/new mortgage. Had to work for a $10/hr job and sell off all of his stuff to get back on his feet. 

Again this is just the worse I've seen personally, he seriously had it made before this. He didn't get an offer letter, he didn't get an offer letter. Let me repeat, he quit his job without receiving an official offer letter. That's the level of screwing up we're talking about here.

gt35r

A guy, Dave, that I worked with at my first job out of university. We were both engineers that started at the same time. Around 6 months into our jobs Dave's long term girlfriend whom he had been with since the 5th or 6th grade cheated on him, they broke up and he took it really badly as anyone would. I remember his Dad coming to our office with him, and them having a meeting with our team leader and program manager then agreeing that Dave would take like 2 weeks or at least some amount of extended time off to get his life together.

The rest of this was all relayed to me by my boss some year and a half later as I never saw or spoke to Dave again after those few weeks he was gone.

During those weeks Dave was not coming to work he somehow got involved with a high school dropout and it all went south when one night she called Dave to come pick her up from a party or something that she really didn't want to be at or was in some kind of danger being at.

Dave agrees and drives ~800 miles to this 'party' that's three states away to pick her up. Once there it's the girl and her two friends that he picks up. During this car ride they do some meth and/or buy some meth and decide it's a good time to try and rob a convenience store on their way home. Dave doesn't physically do any of the actual burglary but drives his car to the store, lets the two friends get out and they rob the place. At some point during they threaten the cashier with a gun and hit him with it, then get back in the car with the money they took and Dave drives away.

They're stopped by state troopers some time later still in that state and all of them are arrested, Dave is booked for aggravated robbery, possession of a unregistered firearm and possession of the meth.

b8le

I was a cop in the Navy and was standing guard duty at the main gate. A car came up with some body damage, running kinda poorly. It had a good number of impacts and paint transfer from at least five different colored cars.

Driver was wasted, obviously, he tried to show me his credit card instead of his ID. Got him out and confirmed the DUI with some field sobriety tests. Arrested him and sat him in one of our cars.

Conducted a search of his card, incident to the arrest and found a letter of acceptance to OCS (Officer Candidate School), it was dated just a couple of days before. Dude got into OCS as a non-nuke, which is extremely competitive, and went out to celebrate. Got trashed and drove, hit five other cars on his way back to base.

We called the local cops and asked if they had any hit and runs, of course they did and told them to come meet us to get the guy's info.

End of the story, obviously he's not going to OCS, he got charged by the locals with five counts of hit and run, we charged him with DUI. He got kicked out of the Navy and eventually turned over for local prosecution.

Moral of the story; If you drink, don't drive, do the watermelon crawl.

LaserSailor760

Girl I know overcame a household destroyed by drugs, did really well, and eventually became a physician assistant. She had surgery, got hooked on opioids like her parents, and started writing/filling fraudulent prescriptions with a couple other PAs at the hospital she worked in. Got caught, arrested, did her time, and cleaned up. She got off probation and immediately started doing drugs again with people she met in a rehab program. When I knew her, she was such a kind, smart, funny person. It's really sad.

princessblowhole

When I was in elementary school, our entrance to cafeteria were two big double-pane glass doors. One idiot was stupid enough to hold the doors and wait for a person to run inside. He saw one boy running towards doors that were open. And obviously, this idiot slams the door as he ran through. That poor thing dived head first through that pane glass door. 

The next seconds are burned in to my memory like with hot iron. Half of the kids were screaming and puking. Cafeteria staff locked themselves inside and called an ambulance. The idiot who did this straight up fainted. Why all of this? 

Because that thing, which was few seconds before human being, looked like a zombie, that went through lawnmower. He was choking on his own blood. You could see his insides and bones, that's how bad it was. Before ambulance arrived, kid died on blood loss. Guy who did it ended up in the hospital for the rest of his life. For whole week, the cafeteria and school were closed and when we returned, every pane glass door was removed.

SneakyBadAss

Guy I used to know at school who was quite clever and could've easily done something with his life started using weed, quickly jumped fully into weed culture, naturally got himself fired for smoking weed at work, and now can't get another job because of it. If he hadn't started his life would be very different.

Nambot

Knew a kid who was hanging out with his friends in his dad's study. He pulled out his dad's handgun from a hiding spot and was playing around pointing it at things and acting cool. His friends told him to knock it off and quit being stupid.

To show them that he knew what he was doing and it was safe, he took out the magazine, put the gun to the roof of his mouth, and pulled the trigger; only he forgot to empty the chamber and blew the back of his head off in front of his friends.

The saddest part of all of it was watching the aftermath as his friends, who watched it happen, and his family, who blamed his father, destroyed themselves trying to cope with what his stupidity brought about.

Hiddnsaccade

I have a friend who is bipolar. November of last year he was earning 40k+, taking care of his son, and doing well. He felt so good in fact, that he went off his meds. By January he was living in the streets, jobless, his ex-wife had a restraining order against him, and pretty much all his worldly possessions were stolen when he "hid" his shopping cart behind a dumpster. Current whereabouts are unknown.

thewiremother

College buddy, seemingly normal guy but got a little angry when he drank. Ok, maybe more than a little.

One night he went next level and a few of us were holding him back from a girl he was literally trying to fight. It went downhill from there, and soon the cops came. He ended up swinging on a cop, wrestling his gun from him and managing to fire it.

No one was hurt, but last I heard he was still in prison.

cubs_070816

He fell madly in love with a girl and would do anything she asked. She told him he should go rob a store so she could have some cash, so he went into a dry cleaners with a hairbrush under a towel (so it looked like he had a gun). He was caught and served 7 years in the state prison. It was his first time ever getting in trouble with the law. Once he was released from prison, he was unable to get a job, and eventually drank himself to death.

ExHokie

This guy's first day working at a diner he drops his tongs in the fryer, decides to pull him out with his hand. Surely the plastic glove will protect him.

That hot oil fused the glove to his hand and we never heard from him again at work or school.

Innersmoke

One summer, my younger brother's friends were partying at a lake. All in their mid-20's. I think they had rented a pontoon or house boat, can't remember for sure. But one guy dives off the boat into shallow water and hit bottom. He was instantly, and now permanently, paralyzed from the neck down. That's means he needs to be fed, bathed, clothed, everything, by somebody else. My brother and friends still take him out to movies and restaurants, hell even amusement parks, and they take turns pushing his wheel chair and feeding him.

My worst fear is being paralyzed like this. I am such a fiercely independent person that death would be better. Stay safe while partying, gang.

Strip_My_Skin

A guy I know was always a little obsessive when it came to women he's in a relationship with. In the most recent reception: he met the girl, quit his good/secure job, and spent most of his money to move across the country with her after 3 weeks of officially dating.

3 days later they break up and he moves in with his parents... No money, no job, almost no car after driving it back across the country again. He couldn't get his old job back due to "burning bridges" when he left. It was like a movie...

JustALittleJelly

Sources: 1, 2

Some of this material has been edited for clarity.