I have been at a private, mixed boarding-school in the west of England since the age of seven. This was a result of my parents' divorce. I am an only child and, up until that major change in my life, I had been the centre of attention for both my parents. It was, in fact, too much attention because both parents were attempting to protect me from each other. But nothing could compensate for the eruption that took place inside me when they split up.

We were once a close family but it is hard for me to remember that now. From a very early age, I had to cope with situations that no child should ever have to deal with. Spending my childhood in a boarding-school seemed very unnatural - a controlled, protected environment but at the same time one that appeared hostile and alien to me. I had been pulled from a place where I felt safe and loved, separated from my parents who I was used to seeing every day, and pushed into a situation that 1 was not prepared for.

In my bewildered state, I made some dubious friendships, and found myself being dragged into difficult situations by a girl who appeared to be stronger than I was. Once or twice my involvement with this girl led me to the point of being expelled. But, in the midst of all this, I had also made a group of firm friends who were very valuable to me, although at the time I did not realise it.

Through all these incidents in my early school life there was one girl, Rebecca, who was always there to put me back on the right track. She was the one who made me realise what this other girl was doing to my life. As a result, I finally managed to disentangle myself from that situation and from then on I began to enjoy my school life more.

Time went on and, with the change from prep school to senior school, Rebecca and I began to drift apart. Although we still remained good friends, we had now entered separate groups and were involved with our new friends. It was not until several years later, when we were sixteen, that I realised she had become involved with the wrong type of people. She was in trouble, and it was my turn to help her, just as she had helped me many years back.

The cause of my concern was drugs, and I had a gut feeling that Rebecca was in deep. She changed her appearance and began to wear clothes that she thought were 'cool'. At first, no one said anything, as it was up to her what she wore but, gradually, she began to look worse, as if she didn't care about herself at all. She stopped washing regularly and never wore any make-up. She began to see the things that she had done before, such as shopping, going to the cinema, just chatting or having a good laugh, as 'sad'. Instead, she would go for a spliff. She had always been intelligent and excelled in both the academic and athletic sides of school, but these deteriorated rapidly with her habit. Her language also changed. All she could talk about was how she and her mates were going to take speed and E that Saturday night. It got to the point where she was almost boasting about it. She thought it was the cool thing to do. I don't think she realised that everyone else didn't think it was 'cool' at all. No one could believe how much she'd changed.

Rebecca and her group shut everyone out of their lives. They were interested solely in themselves and no one was allowed to penetrate their tight circle unless they, too, were into drugs. I think they felt that anyone who did not take drugs was uncool, and they could not have that sort of person damaging their reputation.

I tried talking to Rebecca. In fact, the conversation I had with her is still vivid in my memory. I remember trying to make her see sense. I said, 'Rebecca, how can you take E or anything else without thinking about whether you'll live to remember it?' Her reply was, 'For fuck's sake, why can't you just leave it alone? It's up to me if I want to take drugs and, anyway, I trust the bloke I get them from.' I suppose it was easier to say something like that rather than face the facts.

After that, I realised it was only a matter of time before she and her druggy mates got caught. They were becoming reckless and were now smoking spliffs whenever they could - in their lunch breaks, after school, all the time - and it was becoming really obvious. At the weekends they would take a wide range of drugs. Base, E, speed. Anyone could tell from the way they looked that they were on something.

Then it happened, the moment we had all been expecting. 'The crowd' decided to go away for a weekend and they obviously thought it was a good opportunity to take drugs without getting caught. It just so happened that one of the people driving left a spliff in their car and when their parents came to clean the car out they found it. These parents rang the school and told them about the drugs and who had been away on the weekend. The rest of us could only sit back, watch the ordeal our friends had to go through and be there to support them when they needed it - which was often.

The news spread fast, as some heartless student told the press, and so within days the information had spread to the radio and newspapers. I think the sheer humiliation of being in the papers for such a reason helped Rebecca to realise her mistakes. She thought she would never get caught, it would never happen to her. Drugs seem to do that to you. They give you a false sense of security and the illusion of invincibility.

Gradually, the incident died down and the press soon moved on, but Rebecca now had to have regular drug tests to make sure she no longer took drugs. She once said that she felt confined and constantly watched by the teachers in our school as she no longer had their trust. Even though the rest of them still took drugs during the holidays, they took them less and less until it was just the occasional spliff. Rebecca never spoke about how her parents reacted to the situation but I have the feeling that their constant reprimandings must have been a great strain.

Rebecca is gradually returning to the friend I once related to, although time and this incident have damaged the friendship we once had. She cares about her appearance and, although she is still involved with her friends, they have all begun to take an interest in other people; people who don't take drugs. Despite the fact that we all wish that it hadn't taken them being caught for this change to occur, it has altered their outlook on life and that is a good thing. In fact, just the other day, I was speaking to Rebecca about the past two years of our sixth form and how in individual ways we had wasted our time and she said: 'I realise now that if I hadn't taken drugs, I wouldn't be as behind in my work and I wouldn't have lost the friends that I did.'