It was my first time away from home and I was also trying to adjust to the rigors
of life as a student at Texas A & M University. It was my good fortune to meet a young
girl in my accounting class and we soon became close friends. We discovered that we
had similar backgrounds and had like moral and ethical values. We decided to share an
apartment, confident that the problems that plague many college roommates would never
happen to us. At first, our arrangement worked beautifully and we were inseparable. My
friend then met and became involved with a married man who was much older than she.
This man began supplying my roommate with alcohol and eventually got her into using
and selling drugs. The girl that I had met and become friends with, quickly abandoned
the values with which she had been raised, and was now constantly drunk or stoned and
began inviting people with like lifestyles to our apartment.
I spent many sleepless nights wrestling with this situation. On one hand, I felt
that, as a Christian and friend, it was my responsibility to try and help my roommate
realize that what she was doing not only hurting herself, her family and friends, but that it
was illegal. To be honest, I also wanted my friend back. On the other hand, I believed
the lifestyle that she had chosen to live was wrong and I resented the position her
behavior put me in. I knew that knowing about, and not reporting, illegal activity made
me just as guilty as those actually involved. I am very strong in my beliefs, but I also
know that extended exposure to negative behavior can desensitize you to those behaviors.