druggie talk
I was thinking about drugs today. My own history with drugs is rather complicated. I started with recreational drugs when I was around 12, smoking pot and willing to try most anything else I could get my hands on. I had an insatiable curiousity and capacity for altered states when I was young. I liked LSD best, because it made me feel so happy, and turned the world into a beautiful sparkly place. It was unpredictable though; sometimes I'd have horror-show trips - monstrous bummers where it was the end of the world or I saw death everywhere. One particularily bad trip had me see bodies dangle from trees, demons stare from attic windows, and worst of all was the knowledge there were zombie folk living in the sewers beneath my feet.... evidenced by their red eyes peering from the storm drains and dead white fingers wiggling through manhole covers. My friend who was tripping with me on the same bad wavelength, kept screeching at me to, "Stomp them! Stomp them!" and I would as we ran screaming down the sidewalks in the deserted suburban twilight. It was Mayfly season and there were drifts of their corpses gathered around the streetlights, so maybe that had something to do with that bad ride. Her name was Liz and we were in love with each other the way you are with your best friend at that age. We were runaways together, spending a terrifying and glorious summer living with a drug dealer who eventually made her his girlfriend. I thought he was a gorgeous and manly. That he'd gone to jail over and over just made him hotter to my juvenile mind. So tough, or gangsta I'd guess they'd say nowadays. Thug life!!! He snagged me when I was 15, getting me super high with hash as partial payment after babysitting for him and his wife. I have mixed feelings remembering that episode. On the one hand, I enjoyed it and totally wanted him, but in all truth, I thinkhe was a predator getting off by utilizing the power differential between him and horny no-nothing teenagers. Who knows how many sweet young thangs he seduced with his big cock and balls of hash. Anyhow, I caught up with Liz again when we were about 20. She had quit drugs after a really bad experience at a concert where she'd had a seizure after smoking some joints mixed with speed or coke. She wasn't sure which. Maybe it was PCP. Anyhow she'd almost died and that was it for her. I'd thought, thank god that's never happened to me, because I so loved getting high smoking weed, hash, oil, whatever the form, it was all goooood. This attitude in spite of the fact that with that drug too, I'd get unpredictable results, sometimes becoming paralyzed with paranoia, thinking the people I was with hated me. I'd freeze up unable to talk and that would just make situations worse - depending on who I was with. Most folk were kind and understanding, knowing I'd taken a bad turn. But there were a few occasions where others were cruel. I eventually came to realize I couldn't smoke pot in public. Sharing a joint casually with friendly strangers was a no fly zone, not even with people I knew well. I eventually came to realize I couldn't smoke pot at ALL. I couldn't predict if I'd get that mellow flow state where music sounded oh so good and visual imagery just popped and was marvelously entertaining, where food was delicious, even if you'd normally turn your nose up at its pedestrian flavour, or if maybe the smoke would settle me into a sea of dread, drifing from one thought wave of self hatred to the next.
I think of drugs now like I was in an abusive relationship. I was in love with drugs for the longest time, because I'd remember the great first dates, where all we did together was laugh and laugh and feel goooooood. I chose to overlook when drugs were mean to me, making me think I was about to die or dead already. Or live the same moment over and over. Actually, I think that was THE worst time I ever had with drugs. I knew everything that was about to happen BECAUSE I'd already lived through it. It was like Groundhog Day. I was reliving my life with full foreknowledge and I was horrorstruck. I knew exactly what I was about to think, because I'd already thought it. I was caught in some kind of remote viewing feedback loop, like I was a prescient ghost haunting my own body.
I was thinking about drugs today, because one of my cousins was stabbed recently. I bet he was stabbed as part of some turf way, because I'm pretty sure he's a drug dealer. One of his brother's facebook updates a day or two before the stabbing was: "I got that weed y'all need. Hit me up if you want some." I don't know these boys well, but I played with their mom, my auntie, lots when I was young, her and her sister both. These aunties are half sisters to my mom, a year or two older than me. My mom would ditch me to play with them when she'd visit her family on the res usually, sometimes in a small town or city in Sask. One visit they taught me how to shoplift. (Of course I got caught, and they both ran off.) Often I'd help them do the stuff they needed to get high, stealing gas and other things - the usual task being simply to help find a plastic bag. I never did try sniffing. One of the few cases where my instincts said NO instead of GO FOR IT!! Seeing how they acted kinda freaked me out, but I think they wouldn't let me, because they were supposed to be looking after me. Probably they were scared of my mom finding out. She's older than them by almost 20 years, the oldest of 11. Her younger siblings except for one, all do drugs recreationally and semiprofessionally. One of my uncles is higher up on the food chain, but still pretty low level and lacking the muscle/money for playing bigger. His son was suspiciously runover. Once again, probably a case of territory mooching gone wrong. (See season 2 of The Wire for an illustration of how this world works.)
This part of my family is well entrenched in the drug lifestyle. They are small time to be sure, but it's still a criminal lifestyle and that's what disturbs me most about drugs in general. The illegality begets other illegalities, most problematic being the associated violence.
I think of drugs now like I was in an abusive relationship. I was in love with drugs for the longest time, because I'd remember the great first dates, where all we did together was laugh and laugh and feel goooooood. I chose to overlook when drugs were mean to me, making me think I was about to die or dead already. Or live the same moment over and over. Actually, I think that was THE worst time I ever had with drugs. I knew everything that was about to happen BECAUSE I'd already lived through it. It was like Groundhog Day. I was reliving my life with full foreknowledge and I was horrorstruck. I knew exactly what I was about to think, because I'd already thought it. I was caught in some kind of remote viewing feedback loop, like I was a prescient ghost haunting my own body.
I was thinking about drugs today, because one of my cousins was stabbed recently. I bet he was stabbed as part of some turf way, because I'm pretty sure he's a drug dealer. One of his brother's facebook updates a day or two before the stabbing was: "I got that weed y'all need. Hit me up if you want some." I don't know these boys well, but I played with their mom, my auntie, lots when I was young, her and her sister both. These aunties are half sisters to my mom, a year or two older than me. My mom would ditch me to play with them when she'd visit her family on the res usually, sometimes in a small town or city in Sask. One visit they taught me how to shoplift. (Of course I got caught, and they both ran off.) Often I'd help them do the stuff they needed to get high, stealing gas and other things - the usual task being simply to help find a plastic bag. I never did try sniffing. One of the few cases where my instincts said NO instead of GO FOR IT!! Seeing how they acted kinda freaked me out, but I think they wouldn't let me, because they were supposed to be looking after me. Probably they were scared of my mom finding out. She's older than them by almost 20 years, the oldest of 11. Her younger siblings except for one, all do drugs recreationally and semiprofessionally. One of my uncles is higher up on the food chain, but still pretty low level and lacking the muscle/money for playing bigger. His son was suspiciously runover. Once again, probably a case of territory mooching gone wrong. (See season 2 of The Wire for an illustration of how this world works.)
This part of my family is well entrenched in the drug lifestyle. They are small time to be sure, but it's still a criminal lifestyle and that's what disturbs me most about drugs in general. The illegality begets other illegalities, most problematic being the associated violence.