I've learned that a good portion of the NG community are either drug seekers, addicts or habitual users. Same applies for alcoholism. Most of the older fanbase, including me have had at some point in their lives struggled with some issues with drugs or alcohol. I'm here on a sweet, sexy PSA to the younger fanbase on why you really shouldn't shoot up with your homies or maybe why drinking Everclear for breakfast isn't smart.
I spent a good few years doing drugs. Sure, it was fun at first. The wake and bakes, doing stimulants and chilling out on a barbiturate or a benzodiazepine. Sometimes, doing a bit of harder stuff with friends, coke and jack and coke were fun at parties; all fun and games.
It's fun till you get hurt or someone gets hurt and/or dies. I've seen friends who became toothless meth addicts with sores all over them, seeking out copper like some kind of backwoods werewolf. A friend and his girlfriend 'found' so much copper one time and filled a barrel with it that it broke the shocks of their car. I've seen friends smoke Oxycontin with a aluminum sheet and a pen straw and never wake up. I've seen people shoot up on dope only to have me do sternum rubs and resuscitated them only for them to shoot up again. I've seen people do so much pot that all they do is watch reruns of Wilfred and Arrested Development over and over again. Sometimes, you just got to watch something else, like House. I've seen family that have nearly drank themselves to death and have forgotten their ways. The sad thing, with the exception of heroin or meth, I've participated in most of these activities.
My father worked in a methadone clinic in the Bronx and Harlem back in the 70s. With the heroin epidemic, he had always told me, "Son, I will only ever give you one chance in life to fix a drug addiction. After that, if you ever get hooked again, you are gone." I always had a suspicion he knew I had been on drugs, but he knew I could fix my issues because I never went completely on the deep end. My sisters, both of them; heroin, meth and cocaine; both now estranged from life, had lost their chance. My brother spent his one chance for treating his alcoholism, and he's on the rise again. He still drinks, but I assume, it's not nearly as much.
It's all fun and games until someone dies. I've received calls from frantic friends telling me about so and so who OD'ed and rushed to so many different hospitals to see them blue and grey. I've OD'ed twice in my life, which put me on a path to never do opiates again unless it's from a hospital or if I'm dying. There is no religious salvation or light in a tunnel; it's just pure panic and speculation. It feels like a prolonged suicide to overdose.
On the flipside, I've relapsed so many times in my life, I could say I can always anticipate it. And, if you ever need a hand to talk about fixing your issues; ask me. Have a good day.
