Friends are a great thing. They make life more enjoyable and give you an opportunity to share moments. You'd never want any harm to befall your friends. Well, sometimes the worst just happens, and your friends are changed forever. These people share the stories of how their friends ruined their own lives. All stories have been edited for clarity.
Maybe Try A Disguise Next Time
“My half brother decided it was a good idea to try and rob the restaurant he worked at. Didn’t wear a mask or try to hide his voice in any way. At the time, he was hopelessly addicted to crack so he obviously wasn’t thinking straight when he convinced his dealer’s girlfriend to help him out. She secured a ‘weapon’ for him and he was dumb enough (or desperate enough) not to check it and didn’t realize it was a bb shooter. They did manage to get out of the restaurant with $7,000, but the dealer and his very large friends were waiting for them when they came out. They beat the crud out of him, took the money and left him unconscious for the police. He got 7 years in prison for armed robbery and grand larceny.
He did manage to kick his substance habit in prison though.”
Why Would He Drag His Kids Into It
“A friend of mine was three years from retirement at age 53 and decided to throw it away. He used to take the winter off and spend it with his family. He used to do hard substances and he decided to start shooting harder substances winter before last. He taught his 18 year old son how to do substances and run around with women. He didn’t return to work and lied to his wife about them not being able to take him back at work. He texted me in the middle of the night that he would have hung himself by the time I woke up. He sent the same message to his brother who called the police to do a welfare check and they found the white powder. He is losing his beautiful house and is going to be living out of a camp trailer for now. He had everything going so well and now he has to start over.”
Always Get It In Paper
“This all happened in the span of about 6 months.
A friend of a friend started dating a new lady immediately after his divorce. She was clearly more interested in his money than anything else, and was generally mean and an instigator of problems. But he didn’t see that, regardless of how many times people warned him. They’d been dating for a bit and because she had young children, they were older (her late 30s, him late 50s), and his lease was up soon, she convinced him that they needed to buy a house together.
She got him to give her his portion of the ‘down payment’ on the house in cash. He handed over 80K, which was actually most of the total cost. Then she didn’t put his name on anything because his ‘credit wasn’t as good as hers.’ She convinced him to buy all of the furniture, painting, flooring, and other stuff. Her excuse for that was claiming that she was going to pay for some remodeling and a new roof, which the house didn’t need but she lied about. She also convinced him to give her the money for all of those things in cash. When the house was nice and ready, he lived there for about two days before she dumped him.
She said all this face-to-face. There’s nothing in writing between them. There’s no paper trail. There’s no text messages. There’s no witnesses. It just looks like she paid for the house which is in her name, and that’s the end of it. He has no recourse.
Lost all of his savings. Depression. A suicide attempt, which led to a lost job. Had to move back in with his ex-wife.”
It Was Devastating
“Friend of a friend was 18, pretty rich, and he went out with one of the hottest chicks in the district. He was the first to get a high powered motorcycle in the neighborhood at our age. She was really into that.
One night he is zooming down a 60km/h road with his girlfriend on the back… No helmets. It’s a 2 lane road and there is a car ahead of him. He decides to over take the car ‘on the inside’ even though that car is also on the inside lane… He was so close to making it until an inebriated driver pulls out in front of him and doesn’t stop the car in time. That car over steps the boundary enough to block his path. The car on the left serves to avoids the collision which caused the biker and his girlfriend to hit the nose of that inebriated driver at close to 110 km/h (according to forensic report). Girl dies instantly. Guy dies hours later on the street.
They were buried next to each other 7 days afterwards. Both families were devastated.
The inebriated driver faced no charges other than the drink driving charge.”
All In 30 Seconds
“My barber left NYC to escape a very miserable life and came to Virginia. Got a job at my local barber shop. Left his life of petty crime and substance abuse and set himself up nicely in VA. Good looking girlfriend, coached a local softball team, and lived in a nice quiet neighborhood. He was very good at his job and developed a healthy following of people who only wanted their haircuts from him. He made decent money, etc.
This went on for 5 years.
One day, about 6 months ago, a couple of kids came to his barbershop. They were a bit rowdy and he asked them to leave. They didn’t. He pulled out his straight edge razor and threatened them. Actually grabbed one kid and put it against his throat. The kid got a little tiny nick on his neck from the razor.
Everyone in the store freaked out but they were on his side. The kids were a bunch of punks. They (the kids) called the cops.
The barber was arrested for aggravated assault. Is now in jail. Lost his girlfriend. His job. His house. The life he escaped from and rebuilt lost in 30 seconds.”
That’s Where He Was Getting The Money From
“I met this guy in college. He was a big goofy guy. Always cracking jokes but you could tell he was intelligent. Just hadn’t had the education (street smart I guess). Fun to be around. I hung with him off and on but definitely considered him a friend. He was a college student that didn’t have much and was hustling his way through semesters. So it was surprising one day when he offered to pay for dinner and pulled out a massive wad of 20’s. I’m thinking he was selling some bud or something but I wasn’t getting in his business and didn’t ask questions.
The money didn’t slow though. He was basically balling everywhere he went. Then one day he brings this weird chick around from New York. She locked herself in my bathroom for a couple of hours and was bugged out. Just showed up with him, went right to the bathroom and wouldn’t come out. Like a crack head would. Needless to say, the whole thing was getting weird. He sort of stopped coming around for a few weeks.
Then out of the blue, I get a call from him and he says he needs help. Wouldn’t talk about it but wanted to borrow my my car. I said ok not thinking much of it but thought was random. An hour goes by and he doesn’t show up. I get another call back from a pay phone and it’s him again. He tells me he’s running from the FBI. That he had been robbing banks and that’s how he was getting his money. He had just robbed one and somehow the cops were there. They swoop in on him and somehow this guy gets away. I wasn’t really sure what to say I just told him to call his sister. I call his roommate and tell him what I had just heard and he was like… the FBI is sitting in my living room.
10 minutes later, they were at my house asking me about the call. He was somehow avoiding them and they were super angry. After running for about 10 hours, he gave up and turned himself in. He then tells a crazy story about laying in a field and the German shepherds were literally stepping 6 feet from him and not finding him. He laid there for hours until he got cold and realized he was done.
He was sentenced to 32 years I think and served 12. He had robbed three banks already. He and this girl were driving across the country hitting banks like Bonnie and Clyde. He was about to do another one and the cops knew because this crazy girl he had brought around got caught smoking weed in New York and told the police if they let her go she would tell them about bank robberies. She did and that’s why they were there waiting.
I never confirmed this story. It’s just what he told me his early days in. Without the girl snitching, he most likely wouldn’t have gotten caught at that point. The guy went from a promising kid working his way through college that everyone generally liked to a convicted felon that they were going to bury under the prison. I tried to keep in touch with him in prison but they transferred him around so much I lost touch. Then I saw an article one day where he had gotten out of prison early and was studying law.”
He’ll Never Recover
“A school mate had just become a dad and was posting pics all over Myspace. He posted that he was heading out of town with the family to show his new baby off to his Mum.
Next thing we knew, they were in a crash. It was a head on collision on the highway so they were probably going at least 60. My mate was in the front passenger seat, holding the baby. The baby was found a long way down the road, after smashing through the windscreen. The dad was badly injured and the baby died.
Depression, substance abuse, and all sorts of bad stuff has followed this mistake. He will likely never recover.”
Why’d He Have To Do That
“He was my best friend and roommate in the Navy, everything was going great for both of us, fast promotions, killing it at work, he had recently gotten into insane bodybuilding shape
One day he tells me he can’t pay for gas because he was 10k in debt from daily substance abuse for the last several months
He was shooting up in the garage before he went into work. All the fitness and muscles were from steroids that he had ordered
Sounds as stupid now as when I told it to the MAC then, but I really thought he had just been really sleepy and lethargic, never even considered substances
He spent a few months in the brig, got out of the navy about half a year before I did. Got a call from him asking if I could get him needles, talking about how everything was gonna be okay and he was gonna fix everything. I had really weird vibes from him, told him not to do anything stupid.
Got a weird feeling on my drive home a few weeks later, looked him up on Google and saw his obituary.
And that’s the story of my best friend (and how I learned to buy steroids via the dark web and western union money transfers).”
He Ruined Her Life
“A family friend got a girl pregnant and did the right thing. Got married to her. Family friend is an army vet with PTSD, blown up a bunch in the sandbox and on disability. She was 18.
They get married and… spoiler alert: pregnant again.
He is actually a really nice guy. The real issue is how ignorant he is. Ignorant at bigger picture stuff, thinking ahead, plans… stuff like that. Typical dummy, really. He loves his Xbox time and cherishes it over most things.
When they got married, they were living with his folks and their one year old. When they had the second child on the way, they were living with her parents, in the garage. They got an apartment with paid laundry services (that’s rare in this area, most apartments I’ve ever seen have their own, or they’re free). They love coming over and using our house’s units simply so they don’t walk half a block with laundry.
They bought a cheap van at a buy here/pay here place, went exclusively to Jiffy (the car place) and Les Schwab to throw so many hundreds/thousands into ‘servicing’ and never checked fluids. Transmission is likely torched now, so they have no car. And they’re still upside down in it after a year. You know, because of them subprime loans.
Total time elapsed here is about 3-3.5 years now from announcement to the latest of ‘hey can we borrow some money (for weed) until the first’.
She doesn’t work, because if she did, he would have to watch the kids. And that means not spending 14 hours a day on Xbox. Nope, can’t have that.
They are apparently awaiting a settlement from the government regarding his being blown up (multiple times) to the tune of $40k, and his talk has been nothing but how he plans to set him family up for life on that.
$40,000, and disability of $2k a month or whatever. To set your family up for life.
Yeah I expect that to get blown on new smoking glass, lots of weed, maybe fixing their van at some terrible repair shop for $5,000 instead of trusted mechanics I’ve recommended.
I feel really bad for her, though. She had college plans that are all but demolished now. She is sharp as a tack and otherwise fully dependent on him for her and her kids now.”
A Sad Existence
“I knew from college got pretty addicted to coke and sent her life into a tail spin.
Super sweet girl, smart, attractive, pretty much everything you could ask for. Her downfall is that she is one of the most naive people I have ever met. She wants to assume the best intentions of everyone, all the time. She got a job at an ad agency after college where pretty much everyone there had some kind of substance abuse issue, whether that be drinks or otherwise. Well, she was hanging out with them, so she felt like she couldn’t not do the things they were doing.
Long story short, ‘I only do this every now and then’ turned into a pretty regular thing. Blew through a lot of her money buying coke on the regular. Couldn’t afford it anymore, started hooking up with guys that would supply her. Got pregnant twice, had two abortions. Ended up losing that job, started bar tending instead. Doing more blow now…because bar tending in a beach town. This is pretty much the last time I saw her or heard anything about her. She lost a lot of weight, and not in a good way. She already looked really good.
Pretty sure she’s still there doing the same things.
Just kind of a bummer. She had so many things going for her but she started hanging out with the wrong people and didn’t have the will power to say no. So now she’s living this mediocre coke fueled existence.”
Panic Was What Ruined Him
“Couple of guys in my hometown were looking for something to steal so they could sell it to buy sunstances.
They come to a house where no one was supposed to be home and one guy gets out of the car and goes to the house to steal a grill. A friend of the homeowner happened to be there and came out when the robber stepped onto the porch. The robber tells the friend that he is looking for his dog so the guy walks out into the yard to help look for it. The ‘would be’ robber panics and pulls out a glock and shoots the man in the back of the head. At 21, he started a life sentence for a really stupid murder.”
Anything For His Family
“Had a friend, Frank, whose life was pretty tough. He’s a good guy, but he doesn’t always make the best decisions – lots of substances and shenanigans in his youth. Smoking messed up his health, and working primarily in construction/labor messed up his body pretty badly by 40. He by that time also had 3 kids, one of whom has autism and special needs. He loved the heck out of those kids. He was always struggling to support his family though, so he was always working his day job and then running around in the evenings/nights being a weed dealer that did deliveries (back when it was still illegal where we lived).
Well, eventually a botched vasectomy leading to a hernia, and then a COPD diagnosis come down on him, and making a living gets even harder. I guess that’s just when he gave up. It was the weirdest thing..
One day I’m at work, and I look out the front window of my little office and I see the street flooded with cops. They’re surrounding the bank across the street. Someone robbed the place, and I was seeing the aftermath – it was a little town, nothing like that should ever have happened. A day later I’m telling my buddy, ‘Hey, I saw a bank robbery the yesterday,’ and he says, ‘You didn’t hear? That was Frank.’ He’d thrown together a fake bomb, put it in a backpack, and he robbed the place. He was on the run two days before he turned himself in. I never got a fully straight story, but evidently his plan was to rob the place, maybe try to stash some of the money while he was still out (?), say goodbye to his family, and then spend the rest of his life in prison (which is why he specifically made a fake bomb, so he’d get in extra trouble). He figured that if he went to prison, his health would no longer be a burden on his family and maybe they could move on and be happy. One of the saddest things I’ve ever heard.”
Ruined His Life 3 TImes In A Row
“Old friend of mine was a stoner like I was.
At a party, we once tried speed (a type of substance). It was cool but I felt no need to do it again.
My friend instantly fell for it.
He lost his job, girlfriend, family because he stole from them. (Copper and cables worth around 5k from his work, college savings from his girlfriend, grandma’s jewelry from his mom)
All of them let it slide, because he told them about his addiction, as long as he would get some help.
He went to rehab for 3 months and seemed to be reformed.
His mom gave him another chance and it only took 5 hours home until he asked for 10 dollars to get some food.
As his kind hearted mom, she gave him the money and he was gone for the whole day/night.
As he returned, she asked him where he was and he actually told her he was at my house playing Xbox 360. However, she called me and I told her he hadn’t been at my house at all. Turns out, he went to buy more speed.
After that, she refused to give him more money. He stole and tried to sell her car. As a result, she called the police on him and he served around 8 months in prison.
When he got out again he never returned home.
Sometimes I see him downtown begging for money..
Underweight, full of acne and destroyed teeth.
So this guy basically ruined his life 3 times in a row in a short time.”
Was He Always Like This?
“I once knew someone who swapped university courses mid-way through so that he could become a teacher in a subject he was more passionate about. We were pleased for him, he was really excited, and it all got off to a great start. He eventually completed his degree and qualified as a teacher in that subject.
However, he is no longer a teacher. Why is that? Well, turns out he had relations with two underage students and verbally harassed them afterwards. There was a failed third attempt. He then fled to Italy for some reason (he has no connection there) to escape justice, eventually turned himself in and was arrested when he arrived back in the UK.
Just shy of 3 years in prison (although he was paroled at around the halfway mark). 10 years on the UK S. Offender Register with a supplementary S. Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) which controls his interaction with young people. Banned from teaching for life.
Apparently that wasn’t all. I heard other gossip about his behavior in the classroom which was deeply troubling, but not criminal, so nothing was done.
I have no idea what he does now. People have seen him, spoken to him, but he doesn’t speak of what happened. No idea what he was thinking or what he initially set out to achieve – did he go into teaching so that he could do these things? Or did his mind somehow warp a bit later on?”