So how did I get here, anyway? Good question.
I've always been the kind of person that was interested in mind altering substances. Weird, I suppose, because I was also an honor student. Go figure.
I did a lot of stuff in high school. Acid... lots, and lots, of acid. This kid that was selling it used to put a ten strip in a bottle of root beer and four or five of us would share it on the bus on the way to school in the morning. Pre-cal was a lot more interesting when the equations talked back and occasionally fell off the page.
Funny thing is, the first time I smoked pot was also the same night I'd snorted coke for the first time. I was fourteen. The coke came way before the pot. So all that stuff about gateway drugs? Not even close, at least for me. But I digress.
Did some pills, mostly Vicodin or Valium. My grandmother had a prescription for the latter, and dutifully filled it every month even if she'd only used a handful of her allotment. I discovered that it was very easy to make use of the excess, and as she was already starting the decline into dementia no one would notice. There was also a lot of Ritalin floating around. I am in the generation that has the highest ever incidence of diagnosed ADHD after all.
In college I had a roommate that was into Xanax. Her mother liked it too, and her step-father let her have free use of a credit card. The internet is great for getting stuff like that from India without a script. At some point we wondered if crushing it and snorting it would be any fun... and the next six months or so were consumed by that scene.
But somehow I've always looked at my life almost from the outside, as an objective observer, and known when to say "enough." Kept my grades up. Held jobs. Stopped whatever it was that I was doing abruptly when necessary and never gave it a second thought.
Until I smoked crack.
If someone had asked me a year ago, would you ever smoke crack? My answer would have been a quick hell no. And at the time, I meant it.
Problem is, I had already done more than a little experimentation with cocaine. And some of the people I liked to get high with, had no problem with smoking it.
And one night, we were already high, wanting more, and all they could find was rock. I said I wasn't going to do it, but I didn't get up and leave. Because in reality, I'd already decided I was curious.
And wanted to get high.
And I did.
And I loved it.
So down the rabbit hole I went... a line had been crossed that could not be uncrossed. I knew I would probably end up regretting it someday.
That day has long since passed.
That day was about six months ago.
Yeah kids... don't do crack. There is no good ending to this story. And even though I know that, I'm waiting for a phone call and hoping to score tonight.