I will try and help you determine if someone you love is on drugs through my own experiences and the techniques to evade detection as a 30 year chronic drug abuser. Your ultimate goal is to identify if they are using and get them out of the environment and into treatment.Over the past half-dozen years or so, I've noticed a drastic increase the numbers of suburban youth (teenagers/early 20's) on the wrong side of town buying heroin and crack. Admittedly, after the upbringing I had even I understand how I ended up where I did. This phenomenon I absolutely do not! I've asked a number of these kids why they would choose to use heroin and the answer is always "boredom". They come from nice homes with parents who love them and show them love, go on vacations, have had academic opportunities, and the list goes on. I could have left and never returned, but I doubt all of the abuses I'd endured by my teens would've left me in any different environment in the end. All in all I did pretty good comparing my life now to my friends growing up in the same boat as I.
A note to the nu-users from the suburbs:
The quality of the heroin has been dramatically reduced because of these suburban dopes overdosing and crying to the police as to where they bought it. It isn't in your hearts and souls, you weren't born into it, and you don't belong with the dregs of society in the ghetto. Realize what you have and walk away now. The answer is just to stop: sounds stupid but it is true. And yes, I've gone through withdrawals from opiates 50 times and benzoes more than that-I am experienced. One of the most intelligent little stories an older addict told me once was "you start off using to forget hurtful things or a bad home life and you end up using to just forget what you did 5 minutes ago to buy drugs. guys-you will end up stealing and girls you will sell your body. This is 100%. It may not happen immediately, but you eventually will do it. And those memories are almost impossible to wipe away without a lot of painful therapy.
If you currently suspect that someone in your life is using:
#1.Keep a close eye on all of your bank accounts!! An addict will be very aware if you have an account (savings) that you rarely check on. When/if you find withdrawals contact the bank and put a lock on the account for any withdrawals for an indeterminate amount of time. If you confront the addict-he/she will try and make it sound like the bank made a mistake or something else must be going on-confrontation with absolutely no BS accepted will usually cause the addict to confess. If left to do what the drug/disease is telling them to do will leave you broke.
2.If you take prescription drugs-count them and write down the number of pills on a piece of paper and put it in the bottle-revise the list each time you use one. The addict knows very well that an average persons memory will cause them to think "were there 12 or 15 in there when I last counted?" That someone you love is stealing from you is not something you'll want to admit-at first.
2a) I am familiar with the signs and symptoms of many types of addiction, but opiates have been my longest and most difficult problem. When the user has enough in their system to function they will have energy galore..until they sit down (and this includes behind the wheel of a car). At this point the user "nods out" eyes droop and head tilts forward just like they are falling asleep. They will almost constantly itch their noses and if having taken enough dope won't be able to sleep and itch all night all over their bodies. The first signs of withdrawal are cold or flu-like symptoms. Often I had passed withdrawals as just off not feeling well or "coming down with something". The first day they will show the signs of over excitability, an irrational search mentally on how to get money will overcome every other thought. You will notice them pacing or going from room to room without really doing anything. At this point intervene. It is here that the addict is weakest. The one revelation I've had during withdrawals the last time were how badly being on the drug had messed my sense of time up. Minutes become hours and as the hours go by the symptoms become worse. The first 24 hours is bearable-it really is like having the flu you cannot sleep through. The second day is the worst. Every bad event in one's memory will play over and over again. You feel like you're dying of cancer and nothing can be done. At this point it is unbelievable that the absence of a drug could make you this sick. Time stands still-nothing can distract them from this hell except you. You might read to them. They can sit in the shower and that takes most symptoms away until the water gets cold. The only food they will be able to eat is soft; yogurt, soup broth, tablespoons of pent butter, ect.. I don't recommend taking xanax or valium but tylenol PM doesn't do much even in high doses as is the same with OTC nighttime cough medicine.
3.Keep a close eye on cash on hand. The addict counts on you having the same memory mishaps as with pills. "Was there $25 or $35 in my wallet?"
4. Check dialed numbers and received calls on their cell phones. They may title them as a doctor or familiar name in their phone book. Any suspicious, unknown persons, frequently called/received calls from someone you don't know-call the number from a phone booth. You might ask "who's this" and if you get a smart mouth returning your question like "whose this" in an aggressive tone-you may have a dealer or a person your loved-one is selling drugs to. If you have strong evidence that a person living in your home is using addictive drugs I personally believe their right to privacy is null and void. Email is the modern way of communicating drug deals and such-check it if you can with no feelings of guilt, but make sure your suspicions are backed up with a few symptoms before you violate their right to privacy. Remember, you aren't trying to damn them-you are trying to save them.
5. Never, ever, ever fall for the BS that they are holding drugs for someone else if you find some. That is never if rarely true. Lying is a large part of addiction and they will lie to you. If it is a small amount ask questions about what it is and make like you're going to flush it down the toilet. How pathetically they act on this will tell you how addicted they are. WARNING! If you find a large baggie of powder or marijuana they really might still owe a substantial amount of money for it. A larger dealer will often "front" drugs to someone to sell for them (mid to lower level dealer) and flushing the dope might have very negative repercussions for your son or daughter. I actually knew someone this happened to and they were beaten for the father destroying a pound of marijuana-then they made the family pay for it!! Larger level dealers are never "basically good guys." Your loved ones life equals only money or sometimes sex to them-that's it. I would arrange an exchange. Have them call the dealer and listen in on another phone to arrange the exchange. Your loved one will try and find anyway to deceive you-if a dealer knows that a spouse or parent is on to them they'll usually cooperate as long as you guarantee to keep the police out of it. I suggest you do that. Then distance yourself and the addict from them. Give it a month or so and then type letters to police agencies or the persons neighbors letting them know what and who this dealer is. Your ultimate goal is to get the addict into detox and in-patient rehab.
6. When an addict is craving (jonesing) for their drug they will act a lot different than normally. Identifying this behavior could save them, for at least that day, from jail, injury, or even death. When I had it in my agenda to go score (buy) heroin I would rush around, my eyes would be evasive, and I would have a half-assed reason for needing to go out for an hour. I am older and my situation is different. A younger person (son/daughter) might have a plan to go out for a hour to a few days. They will seem charged up moving around quickly and not making eye-contact. No one, in my life tried to stop me from making a run, because they never knew the signs-an insatiable hunger. It can be fed with love. Trust really can't be an issue-you 100% cannot trust an active addict and they will constantly shove that into your face. Don't ever let an addict make you feel guilty for letting them down, not believing in them, or some idiocy in their past that might have been prevented. They always have a choice-with choice come options. As addicts we cannot usually see the options-it is either yes or no. No rarely wins without some help.
7. I displayed all of these signs and was never told the main thing that could've broken me down. If my mom or dad would've stopped me on the way out the door-more than strongly suspecting that I was going out to use there is only one thing besides restraining me physically to stop me. This is what I believe one of them could've said as I prepared to leave the house "I know where your going and what you're planning to do-please stay here with us tonight because we love you and could not bare to lose you." If you keep the object of your objection to them leaving your love for them, it could bring them to some emotions and just sit home, watch a movie, or listen without judging. Initially they may or most likely turn it on you, but if you react negatively or judgmentally-they will break free of the emotive state and bolt. If you can get an addict to cry-you have won for a brief period of time.
8. No matter how bad someone gets when withdrawing from their drug-they will not die. Exceptions: there are 2 exceptions to this rule-benzodiazapine addiction and physically addicted alcoholics. To actually reach the point where death or seizures can occur from withdrawing they would have to use quite a bit of the drug daily over a long period of time. I used 150 mg of methadone a day for 5 years along with 3 to 6 mg of xanax for the final 3 years and a few beers a day. By the end I was insane, unpredictable, and thought of suicide daily. I went into the hospital to withdraw and hoped to go onto a 30 day detox. I was 47 years old. My insurance wouldn't pay for rehab and gave me 5 days for detox. I went in on a monday morning and they gave me methadone daily along with klonapin to sleep until Wednesday when they stopped the methadone. On Thursday around noon the doctor gave me subutex. This drug is great for detoxing a patient off of an opiate but rampages when mixed with methadone. Within an hour I began to feel the oncoming
My credentials:
I started using alcohol and smoking cigarettes at age 11. This progressed into the heavy use of weed, LSD, PCP, and barbiturates before I turned 17. I began injecting PCP four to seven days a week at age 18 and used it that way near constantly for 4 years. At 19, I was six foot two and weighed less than one-hundred pounds. My 20's were a mix of PCP, Cocaine, Benzodiazepines, LSD, and marijuana. I quit using the needle and PCP in 1986 at age 28. I got a decent job in the late 80's doing construction and became a chronic alcoholic. I also used LSD on the weekends and became physically addicted to benzodiazepines. In the early 1990's I started shooting up again, PCP had nearly disappeared from the streets by then, and I had lost my desire to become totally annihilated, so coke became my weekend habit. By 1993 hydrocodone (Lortabs) had made its appearance among my group and I found that mixing them with valiums was a nice high. I needed to get off Benzodiazepines and slowly switched over to "tabs." I took about 10 a day after a couple of months of using them. They are more addictive than people are made aware of. My father-in-law had cancer at this time, and I began stealing his medications. He had an overabundance of morphine and diluaids (hydromorphone). I found a way to shoot them and the high was perfect for me. I could function without being noticeably high and I didn't get sick from not having opiates in my system. Soon I was using 10 a day. When he died-the supply also died. I knew a group who'd been using Heroin in the neighborhood for years. I sought them out. My daughter was born in 1996 and I got clean for 3 1/2 years.
Those 3 1/2 literally were the best years of my life. I felt a love in my heart that I thought or really never knew could exist in a human being. As she grew older day-to day problems became overwhelming and old coping mechanisms slowly started to take root. I'd started working jobs that required nothing other than my ability to breath and talk on the phone; I'd only known construction work, and that went hand-in-hand with alcoholism and alcohol, to me, always led to dope. I knew I needed to start over and took a job doing phone surveys for $8.00 an hour. Plus, i hadn't worked in those years and was solely supported by my wife as I became a stay-at-home dad. Not to bang my own drum, but I really was the kind of dad I would've wanted growing up.
My wife's mom had died and she'd been having a lot of trouble handling it, as did we all. There was an enormous amount of tension between all of her siblings and everyday there were screaming arguments. I cracked and began drinking 1/2 cans of beer during the day to ease anxieties I was starting to have. Prior to her death, I'd been in touch with other recovering addicts, but slide away into my own world without sharing my feelings and needs with others. At first the beer didn't seem harmful-it killed my anxiety and didn't render me drunk or incapable of functioning. At the time we lived on a street in the city that was heading downward economically. My next door neighbors were an older couple; he smoked weed and drank heavily and she had a prescription drug addiction. My 1/2 beer was now turning into 3 or 4 a day and I was sliding towards hell with no idea it was happening. The lady and myself used to talk over the fence about our gardens and just about anything. In no way was this woman a "bad" person. She had legitimate medical concerns and was prescribe accordingly. One other thing she was was broke and in need of money. I knew this and capitalized on it, asking if she had anything for pain I could buy for my back problem, which was , in all reality, non-existent. This was the beginning of my end. I started out just taking 3-1/2 grain codeine and acetaminophen a day. This worked great! I didn't become addicted, felt absolutely fantastic, and kept the dose the same for months. during this time I got a new full-time job making $10 an hour. Our little family was doing good, and things seemed under control. Then she ran out of codeine's-I found out I was no longer her exclusive customer and she'd sold the remaining pills to the neighbor on the other side of her-Small world!!! I had been only paying her $.50 a piece and they were normally going for $1 to $1.50. I panicked-I wasn't addicted physically, but was very much psychologically hooked.
Now codeine wasn't all she had-there were also fentnyl patches which are extremely strong. I told her they were worth $5.00 each and bought 5 of them. At first I tried wearing them, but got no noticeable effect, so I sliced on end opened and squeezed the gel into my mouth. WOW!! I was like a fireball on these things. They gave me energy, enthusiasm, and no apparent downside I noticed at first. I didn't use them everyday at first and as she refilled the codeine 3's I'd jump back and forth. The real problem was that the fentyl was giving my the urge to do heroin. I hadn't been down to my old haunts in what amounted to 4 1/2 to 5 years now and was reluctant to look up old friends or go on a mission alone. The next step I took was to find a lortab connection which was quite easy. The same people who'd sold them when I quit either were still selling them or knew who was. There was no doubt-I was physically addicted again. It still was easy to hide, but the first thing to go is your main interests. My wife and daughter, instead of being in the front row of my attentions now took second chair to a chemical. I loved it more than them.
To cut this down for brevity I ended back on heroin and old criminal behaviors, eventually went on the methadone maintenance program, got kicked off of that for using benzodiazipine constantly again, back on heroin, and now for the past 1 1/2 years I've been taking suboxone which I'll describe in more detail later. Needless to say I am using another prescription drug to stay off of heroin. It is working so far and I've been employed for the same amount of time-1 1/2 years at the same place. I believe, deep in my heart, that for me to become who I really am and want to be-I need to be absolutely drug free, and I am not there yet. Also, I believe that is the truth with all addicts. It seems simple enough-I have to learn to live without being high-bottom line.
What I am doing here
This blog may help you tell whether a loved one may have a drug problem or not. I am what you would call a career drug addict. Now at 50 and in recovery, I have decided to do something useful: explain some of my history and help you determine if someone you love is an addict or falling into addiction. I can think of no worse way to spend one's life. There are many signs and symptoms that family members, parents, spouses and even other siblings disregard until it is too late. This might be done through just being naive, lack of knowledge, or as my parents and other parents in the 1970's ridiculous view "not my kid!!" It wasn't until my friends and me were walking skeletons using IV PCP on a daily basis for months that the problem became apparent. That was back in '76. A lot has changed in the drug scene and home front since then, but not the denial of the parents that their child is on drugs.
My intention here is to inform any parent, spouse, lover, or friend if someone in their lives may very well be hooked on or using drugs or alcohol. I am going to give away secrets and tools I have used to evade those loved ones in my life from discovering (not always successfully) the secret life I had as a drug addict. Addicts who think I am selling out-too bad...this is free advice, and it could spare you years of suffering and give you an alternate future.
A little about myself
I am no almost 51 years old, am a husband and father.
Growing up in the 1960's and 70's, it was a difficult thing to stay away from drugs in the city in which I lived. At the time hippies and Vietnam Vet's had merged their resources and the message of the 60's with LSD was replaced with cash profit. My home life at the time was abusive both physically and emotionally via my parents. This wasn't an oddity or isolated-what is called child abuse today was normal life back then. It isn't that they didn't love me, but it felt that way. Mom had what today would be determined Bi-Polar. She was violent and verbally abusive most days, very protective of us from any outside forces (bad kids she called them) and also could be very loving. The loving usually came after a beating or some act of real madness. My dad, like a lot of dad's then, worked two jobs and was non-existent in my life. mom had a bad temper. The streets were filled with kid's and we were all pretty much in the same boat. Being at home sucked, and the streets we fun. It wasn't like it is now with the danger and violence as bad as it is. They're were gangs, but they had some codes of respect for older people and children unlike today. My neighborhood sat directly in the middle of two working steel plants both blowing garbage into the air 24/7; the streets were tough and fights to and from school were a common sight.
Preventative...possibly.
By the time I was eleven or twelve years old my fate from outside sources was pretty much sealed.
We lived in a northern American industrial city with some tough winters. When I was about 7 I recall the weather being especially bad. Snow was flying, the temperature was freezing, and no one was one the streets. It was a Sunday, and dad was working as usual. for some reason, I must have peed her off because she got me all suited up in my winter gear and pushed me out the door. My brothers and sister's were all still in the house. I looked up and down the street and saw nobody; the wind was whipping snow so hard it hurt my face. I tried the door and she's locked it, so I went around to the side door of the house and it was also locked. I didn't know what to do, but I felt like crying. I couldn't think of anywhere to go, and I knocked and knocked for her to let me in with no response. She'd drawn the curtains and I couldn't even see inside. We had an open front porch with a roof, and I just stood there looking up and down the street. After some time passed I just laid down in the corner of the porch where the wind wasn't too bad and rolled up into a ball. She eventually let me in and showered me with I'm sorry followed by affection and special treatment. I believe undecipherable mixed messages between abuse and love start the cycle. You have to show your love with actions and healthy affection not just the words.
I had my first cigarette at 11. This was the door that opened to the slow decent into addiction. At the time my mom and dad didn't get along when he was home probably because he was rarely home, and when he was being or doing things with us seemed last on his list of things to do. We were a steadfast Catholic family and in 1969 a young new priest breathed some fresh air into our church. My mom was pretty involved in the church and school which was attached to it and quickly became friends with the new "father." In those days you'd walk home for lunch and then return for afternoon classes. This guy, Father Paul, started eating lunch with us. By now our family consisted of 5 kids. We were all in school except the youngest who was a one-year old baby. I absolutely hated this priest as did my siblings. He never came over when my dad was home and sat in his seat for lunch. One morning at school, on a day he was scheduled for lunch, I got sick and threw up at school. It was about an hour before the rest of the classes would be out for lunch and they sent me home. Can you imagine letting an 11 year old walk 5 blocks home alone today!! I don't know if they called home to let her know if I was coming, but she never came to meet me. Dad had our only car at work. The minute I got in, I got sick and vomited in the basement toilet.; both my mom and Father Paul stood and watched. She was very sympathetic; he, on the other hand, downplayed it, saying I would be okay to go back to school that afternoon. Needless to say she kept me home and he left frustrated. At that point in time I knew something was wrong with this guy, and I hated him even more. Whatever transpired between the two of them I truly can only surmise. Mom is old now and the truth wouldn't help anyone at this point in time.
My close friends were already smoking cigarettes on the way to and from school in the sixth grade, and I was the last to try it. I remember inhaling the smoke for the first time and coughing so hard it hurt; all I could think of was how much hate I had in my heart, and the pain didn't curtail my desire to do wrong. One day I sat down to lunch to the right of the priest at our table for lunch and had just finished a cigarette before entering the house. I actually blew the smell of the the smoke on my breath towards him. I knew he had to smell it, because I took a drag and tossed it right before walking in the door, and he didn't smoke. At the time both of my parents smoked at least a pack a day each making it easy to steal a few whenever I wanted, and early on I also learned both with alcohol and cigarettes: if you are using either-you can't smell them on anyone else whose using either. That is if you're drinking, you can't smell alcohol on someone else whose been drinking and if smoking can't smell the smoke on someone else' breath.
Most of these two act balanced on two really basic themes: I wanted to do something to hurt my parents for hurting me, peer pressure, and the total lack of a good role model. I am not writing this as a biography, but need to pass on my credentials in the dirty world of drugs.
I am adding this reluctantly. At eleven I was old enough to join boy scouts. Deep down I needed my dad and some fatherly attention. He had a rough life working eighty hours plus and when he was home showed no or little interest in myself or siblings. I considered him an asshole and mean but deep down needed him and cherished "my dad" as almost a dream person. I was the eldest child of 5 and remember having fantasies of having an older brother. Being emotionally needy is an open window through which predators can easily spot. Whether it be a pedophile, a drug dealer or anyone scum with an agenda, they are professionals at spotting it in kids. This particular leader took an immediate interest in me, and invited me to join him and a few chosen scouts for private camping retreats at his "hunting cabin." We became the upper crust of the troop; the others were all a year or so older than me and were aware of this man's other-than-fatherly personality. On our weekends at the cabin, we were indoctrinated first into being allowed to smoke cigarettes in front of him, then to drink beer, and after he had us in a spot where we'd done so much wrong by smoking and drinking to pornography and his then his pedophile nature. Even if one of us wanted to tell on him for the porno and sexual situations, we couldn't due to the fact that the other things we were doing would sink us.
A emotionally needy kid is open prey!
Possible I was more of an emotionally needy kid than the others, but he actually abducted me and took me to the cabin alone one time. He put on a big act that the others were waiting, got me and my gear in his car, and hit the road 60 miles from home. I was may be 13 at the time. Emotionally needy people in general are or become taken advantage of eventually. In the early 1970's pedophiles acted without fear or discovery due to denial that they really existed by the general public. Thank God, that today laws are putting the garbage they are in prisons and making it easier for kids to report them. After that weekend, he began to pay me $10 a visit to his home, which was only a mile or so from mine in exchange for sexual favors. That was a decent amount of cash then, and gave me easy resources for money to buy drugs. An ounce of marijuana in 1972 was $20.00. so I'd get at least a half ounce a week. I was addicted to weed at 14 It also dragged me deeper into self-disgust and the need to escape myself as well as my unhappy home life.The acts were never very hardcore, but I was always terrified of being found out. Being a "faggot" in the early 70's was a very, very bad thing to be as seen by the guys I ran with. The whole sad story is that probably almost everyone I ran with had some gay encounter as a young teen with an adult. My parents thought he was just a concerned adult who loved to teach boys about camping and such. After the trip alone I think they or at least my mother became a little more concerned that this "great guy" may be something other than he represented himself as, but she never intervened. By 14-15 we all smoked weed on the streets and at the cabin together-including the guy himself!! He had to be at least 40 at the time. I will not give details on exactly how he manipulated us because I will not teach other scum like him any tricks of his disgusting trade.
Drinking in the part of the city I lived in was actually expected, although not in the sixth grade, but by 16 it was accepted as was smoking cigarettes by many adults. I joined my buddy's on the weekends finding "buyers" to get us wine or beer. I remember the first time I actually got drunk in the early summer after sixth grade. My friend and I got a bottle of apple wine and were spending an early summer evening in another buddy's attic drinking it. The rest of the gang were out getting a buyer for more, and I had thrown money in for a pint of a sort of liquor that resembled a screwdriver in a bottle. By the way, " a buyer" was someone over eighteen years old who'd buy the booze for some profit-usually a dollar or two for kids too young to buy their own. It was uncommonly common at the time and buyers lurked outside of most liquor stores or anywhere that sold beer. The police were rarely a problem. They did their patrols and bossed us off of the corners, but they really weren't aware of the hurricane of dope heading our way in the near future.
I had an earlier curfew than the other guys and the crew arrived with my bottle just as I had to get home. I took the pint and just downed it and left. By the time I'd walked the two blocks home I was bombed. We had a side door that had a stairway to the left leading to the basement where the was a small bathroom. I just made it in time and threw everything up. My mom and dad were both down there in minutes hearing the heaving. I told them I'd felt very badly and had drank a lot of orange pop at my buddy Jerry's house. They went for it , and I went to bed. There is the number one symptom of drug or alcohol use! Both can and will make you vomit in the beginning stage of use. It is a hard thing "not to believe you child whom you love" but if you don't at least ask (they never did). they will lie. I may have told them the truth; it is now too long ago to say what I would have done. If you catch them and they admit it don't go calling everyone's parents and don't make it public. If you want to inform the others parents do it discreetly. An anonymous phone call or letter. Don't make your kid into a snitch, he/she will use it to turn further away from you in the end. This is the most crucial point of a life of addiction-the beginning. Today smoking cigarettes is the first sign, but then smoking was not seen as "that unhealthy" and many kids smoked from very early ages on. Coming home on a Friday night and immediately throwing up on arrival home is a 98% symptom of your kid having done something wrong in an intoxicating sense. Dig deeper-call parents-you don't show love by letting them get away with things. At that age I would have loved more than anything for my parents to have intervened and pulled me away from the crowd I was with or at least give me a major excuse as to why I couldn't hang with them, or that they were going to check me every time I came home on a weekend night. I became a liar at 12 and only got better at it from there. It is a life/death tightrope kids climb on at this point- what ever you have to do to save them from walking out further-do not hesitate!!
From drinking we went on to smoke marijuana. One of my friends older brothers had come back from the army in the early 1970's and quickly became a local hippy/drug dealer. He was our first pot dealer. There are telltale signs of being under the influence of marijuana that coincide with being a teenager. You eat a lot of junk food, sleep a lot, laugh at things that aren't really funny, make juvenile philosophical statements and smell like burnt herbs. Some will try, successfully, the smell with perfume or oil. It is a hard thing to tell the difference between "just being a teen" and being on pot. Today-it cost money. I used to be able to buy 10 joints for $5.00. The weed was weaker for sure, but that may buy a joint today. It is also extremely strong and less is needed to reach the desired level or effect. Keep tabs on your money, because the first place they will obtain it is stealing it from you! I learned very young that my mom would never remember if she had $28 or $23 in her purse. I would steal the five and was never caught. Cigarettes were the same, but they were $.35 a pack then, and it wasn't too hard to come up with that daily. At the point of smoking cigarettes, marijuana, and drinking I hadn't changed friends or become sinister acting just quite and lazy at home. I was really an angry and depressed young person with a bad home life, a man who was abusing me, and these things took me away from that. Also, when you're in your early teens these things make you feel guilty-so you pour more intoxicants on top of the feelings to not feel them
Today is 2/14/2009-I received word yesterday that a friend from my late teens early to mid 20's killed himself earlier in the week . This is the second old friend in 6 months to tragically die. I'd like not to care, but it is a horrible. I am all too familiar with. Getting involved with drugs and staying involved means that 100% friends who use will die young. Expect it!
One afternoon we were hanging out at my friends with his hippy/vet brother smoking dope. He told us that he had these little yellow capsules and they were synthetic THC or marijuana. THC is the active chemical in marijuana that gets you high. They were $1.50 each, and I had obtained $10 from mister boy scout and bought 6. My friends all believed I'd stolen the money like I often had before. They quickly sold for $2.00 and saved one for myself. This guy was a good seven or eight years older than us and was a true criminal as I recall his actions. The drug was really PCP (Angel Dust) which was used as horse tranquilizer and wasn't even illegal until 1974 or 75. Now it is a Schedule 1 drug meaning it is 100% illegal and has no medical use in the United States.
Just possessing and selling the drug bought me a lot of street credentials with the kids in my neighborhood. We all got together in a friend's mom's apartment, whose was out for the evening and each did small amounts. I ended up opening the capsule and spilling the powder onto a card, chopped and split it into two lines with a friend and snorted my half up a straw. A good 15-30 minutes later i was absolutely immobilized. I was sitting on a couch with my feet up on a coffee table and they looked 10 feet away. I couldn't talk or move; I didn't know my name, what day it was, or where I was. The worst part of it was that I knew I didn't know these things and it bothered me. It was pure confusion a complete and total feeling of being lost. My fiends didn't seem to get as wasted as I did-may be I did more, I don't know, but they knew i had to be home at a certain time and helped me up and walked with me to my house. I recall pacing back and forth at the side door terrified of going in because I was so intoxicated. The world outside looked crystalline and surreal. I didn't focus so much on what I was seeing as the thoughts of getting caught and what consequences that might bring. I was 14 and in no way would either of my parents suspect drugs were being used by anyone in my group of friends; it was the beginning of the movement outside of the hippies and miscreants of society.
Finally, I opened the door and tried to recall what I'd normally do upon entering the house; it was like I was faking my own life. I walked into the living room dazed and still totally disoriented from the drug, asked what was on TV and laid down on the floor and pretended to watch it. Everyone was home including mom, dad, my two brothers and two sisters (all younger than me). There were no questions on where I'd been or anything else I remember. Very slowly, the drug wore off and I said my good-nights and went upstairs to bed swearing I'd never touch the stuff again. Little did I know.
We generally met for our group hangouts in other kid’s basements. These kids always fit the same norm. Either both parents would not be home at the same time for long periods or they just didn’t care what went on in their houses telling themselves "at least I know where they are. The group of guys I hung with regularly lived on around the corner from me-a brisk three minute walk and I was there. The kid who lived there was named Jimmy. His mother was a bit “ditzy”, cared about us all but was very lenient-allowing us to smoke cigarettes as young as 12 at their house-i mean right in front of her. His dad worked second shift at a local factory, so that eliminated him from three PM and on weekdays. His mom played bingo six out of seven nights a week, which gave us about three or four parent free hours almost everyday of the week. We smoked cigarettes in front of most parents by fifth teen years old. I think Jimmy’s mom let us smoke in the basement a couple of years earlier than that. We also smoked weed…everyday by the time most of us were sixteen. I was the youngest of the gang; the others were all a year or so older than me. There were 5 of us who were there on a daily basis, but on weekends we'd sometimes have parties with thirty or so kids there.
We fixed the basement up in all sorts of different styles of the times, and always had a good assortment of psychedelic posters hanging up. It was a good, safe place to get stoned and escape the outside world and home life. As far as druggies go, weed was our main drug of abuse in the basement. In the seventies, it was a lot cheaper and weaker than today. We would laugh and chow down garbage food without feeling we'd down much wrong. The thing is, none of us worked for the money we used to buy drugs, and all either stole or in my case sell myself to a forty year old man. On the weekends some of the guys got beer, but I rarely drank then-I'd get sick easily and preferred marijuana. I told myself it was an anti-establishment thing-my parents kind of drug. Smoking pot was also easier to get away with using; you could mask the smell and you didn't stumble around or get sick. We would often meet at Jimmy’s after school and smoke a few joints before going home to dinner and homework usually returning for the evening's festivities. We had a killer sound system set up and all of us were really into music-especially after smoking.
Jimmy was kind of slow; he talked with a bit of a lisp and did very poorly in school. He was one of my best friends back then. His mom was kind of similar to him, in the sense of being slow. I don’t mean dysfunctional, they both could be fooled easily. Jimmy’s mom allowed the rest of us to smoke cigarettes freely in his basement and backyard, but he wasn’t allowed to at all. She caught him one day and chased him around the yard with a broom, hitting him as often as she could! She wasn’t kidding either; she was extremely mad about it. We sat on a picnic table, smoking of course, and just laughing our heads off at the sight of him running with a cigarette hanging out of the side of his mouth while he dodged her blows with the coarse whisk broom. His house ended up as a pivotal drug center in a few years to follow.
