Did I just turn down free drugs? Why? Well, you might think, because of the inevitable decrease in overall life happiness I will endure. But I am young, fit, growing moderately successful, hail from a good family and have the support of friends that love me. So why would one night of doing lines to stay awake for the Sochi gold medal hockey game be the turning point in an otherwise envy-inspiring life? We have all on occasion burnt the candle to the wick when we shouldn't and yet are not all gutting glass pipes for smack in grimy one bedrooms beside a train track with our toothless and temporary life partners. Of course the hungover policemen in high school told us not to and anyone who has read a trending cautionary article knows the danger. But I'm talking about that flippant moment when you could so easily walk away but think, why not have a story instead and reassess my life tomorrow.
I was slouched on a freshly starched boutique hotel king bed in a nameless snow covered hamlet somewhere in Canada. It was four in the morning and I was drifting in and out of sleep. Before melting completely into the flickering dream, I swung my head over and looked blearily at my age-old friend Tocs as he leaned over the plastic coffee table and inhaled his fourth or fifth rail of cocaine with a work friend of mine. He still laughed like he always had done since the simpler days of farting in each other's faces and video games. Standing a muscular 6'4'', a leukaemia survivor and on his way to law school in the fall, Tocs is not a drug addict. He works long hours at a sports bar, is surrounded by non-stop partying but is assuredly not "slipping" in the dark sense of the word.
Though he declared that he had no desire for drugs that night he did so at the coercion of my more stimulant seasoned co-worker. I held my tongue and though I refused the drugs myself did not feel an ache of worry for my close friend. I shudder to think that I've become the cliché that believes his friends are different than countless others and their "purely curious" cohorts. Yet despite his lingering immaturities, Tocs emanates an honest sense of security in me. I know that he doesn't justify the chemicals as a positive force in his life but, like me, sees them as a challenge, a step towards true fulfilment.
Let me be clear. My shy flirtation with drugs cannot be considered remotely comprehensive. I admit there are many that I do not wish to try because of stigmatism and imagery. But of the few pills, powders and herbs that I've whimsically ingested I have come to realize one thing: that they are as clever as they are magical.
I'll explain.
The weak man or woman takes the drug to distort their unhappy existence into something bearable. This will eventually destroy them, as the fantasy will never be enough. It will never last past the expiry of the effect. The curious youth aims to drown his or her fear of judgement. Affirming that they are indeed more confident, cool and sexy than their sober minds allow them to be. But eventually the teenagers grow up, throw on a tie and find greater validation in more justifiable and socially acceptable ways. But the wanderers, the philosophers and those searching for new-agers still call "meaning" find something else: contrast.
If one is to love the truly lucid moments in life then one must find chaos to even the scales. For us soulful consumers of crushed capsules the high is only has strong as the low of our current state.
Hold someone's hand or feel someone gripping yours.
…Look deeply into a strangers' eyes as you fuck them...
…Light a room with candles and sit on pillows together with friends...
Walk barefoot through wet sand.
If you are mining the cosmos for meaning and beauty then you know that no matter how satisfying that drug feels it will never compare to cold, hard and ever addictive reality.
As Tocs breathed in those lines of chemical wonderment I didn't refuse to join out of judgement but because I was already full up. My appetite for life had been well fed. Like an aircraft that had reached it maximum altitude I have seen the ceiling and know there is no trapdoor. The glass box of life's answers is vast and, sober or not, we will stumble upon them eventually.
I am not declaring that I will never touch a substance again as that is only asking for a masochistic outburst. But at that moment in that hotel room I pealed back a layer of truth: drugs are not ever going to give me what I so desperately seek. They will dangle it in front of my blindfolded eyes and lead me in circles.
Though a partnership with them could indeed prove enlightening, like any dependant friendship there is freedom that is lost forever.
So, without pretending to know if I'm right or just a square that is missing the point, I am inclined to shuffle along unaided and witness my adventures with clear eyes and pants on.
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