Cocaine

It's amazing to me that I never put this piece of the puzzle together until just today. I was standing by my machine, watching paper fly by and I was thinking about last night. After our meeting a group of us went out for appetizers and fellowship at a little dive bar/restaurant near Highland Park. I seated myself at random but somehow got stuck between the two guys that only talk about football. Now, I know what a football looks like, and I've even heard of a name or two from our team. And that is as far as my passion for the game goes. I nodded and grunted to just barely hang on as part of the conversation and then they started talking about college prospects. Fuck. Check please!

That wasn't the whole night, and I did have a good time. I played one of those claw games and I won all three times. The point is that as I thought of that moment in the conversation I didn't want to be in, I thought about how much better I was at conversing when I was on uppers. It all started in a garage/mancave back in the 1900's......

I was 18 and was socially drinking and abusing marijuana, if you think that's possible. I liked alcohol because it made me more talkative and open to people. I had been a very strange and awkward teen, and I had very few friends. About six of us were sitting around drinking beers when one of my better friends asked if anybody wanted to try something that would help us stay up and drink. I did not hesitate.

What I found was a whole new world. A world in which I became just like everybody else. I could speak clearly and join in on conversations that I would normally shy away from. Back then, just like now, I spend a lot of time up in my head. It's nice there, and everybody likes me. I can hold conversations that I want to have, alter conversations that have already taken place, and live in a world where I don't have to take any risks.

Taking risks is risky and you can lose a lot. I spent my early teen years moving from place to place, never being able to make friends for any amount of time until we settled down in St. Paul and I met this particular group. We bonded over bong hits and convulsed with laughter on all night acid trips. It was the start of the end.

Back to the story, I believe cocaine did for me what an anti-anxiety medication probably would have. And I loved it. I could drink all night, make people laugh, and I was just super awesome in my opinion. Unfortunately, cocaine has some drawbacks, like becoming dependent on it, and its big brother, crack.

For me, crack did the opposite of cocaine. I wanted to be alone, in a sealed off room, away from things that would bother me like work, family, or continued education. I lost jobs, friends, all of my money, and dignity in my short stint as a crack head.

Thankfully, somehow through the haze, I realized that I had caught the eye of a cute young blonde, and I wanted her. She was a stoner and that was it, and I decided to clean up my act for her. She became my girlfriend shortly after my last hit, and the years that followed were the worst alcoholic period of my life, except for the much worse, much longer one years later. Yep, it was the beginning of my first "bottom".  And it was hell.