Drugs, frankly, have really
improved my life. I heard the warnings like everyone else--the
D.A.R.E. officer visited my
school and demonstrated to me and my
classmates that drugs were really
uncool, and they can mess up your life, etc etc. And, at the time,
I really believed it--I was little Johnny-never-smoke-a-joint in 6th grade, coloring in my
Winner's Don't Do Drugs poster in
Crayola red white and blue.
But things aren't just simple and black and white like that--it only seems that way when you're a kid. Really, issues are much more complex, and part of growing up is recognizing this. If little kids could deal with all the complexity of issues and choices in the modern world, it'd be ok to let them drink and watch the Playboy channel. Teaching little kids not to use drugs is like teaching a blind man the color red is evil--they don't have a clue.
Really, it's just a matter of being socially acceptable. Objectively speaking, alcohol is a drug, but it is so common and normal that nobody really thinks of this. Notice everybody always says "drugs and alcohol?" Well, they are the same thing--it's just a substance that happens to be arbitrarily legal.
So I can now admit that I USED to have a real problem socializing. I just didn't have what it took to really be myself with a group of people, so I'd usually just go along with what they were doing, and it was never that great. They were my friends, but I never really felt like we had much in common, like we never really connected. My time with heroin was like a shotgun blast to the brain.
Suddenly, I was connected to a group of people in a way I didn't know was possible. Today, we have the entire Internet, AIM chat, pagers, cell phones, email, everything...and people still don't feel like they ever really TALK to anybody, not in a way that matters. Everybody is lonely. And it's a little scary at first, what with all the social taboos, but I've found that drugs allow you to overcome that boundary that everybody in modern society seems to feel--I've never been so close to people in my life. It's that sense of connectedness and love that most people just never find.
Thank god I had this realization, though--I thought things were bad before, but it seems like I was just in time to watch the world go to hell around me. Even the people I thought were bad before are becoming more and more distant, like everyone has their volume turned down. As I spend more and more time with the people who actually like me, I realize what a cold and hateful place the world really is, and I see how it gets darker and more repulsive every day. I think I made it out just in time.
The truth is, people just want to be happy. That's what it boils down to--if you dig deep enough that's what motivates all those people who want money or power or love or whatever. They want happiness and pleasure--they just don't have the guts to take the leap and see what all their restrictive laws have insulated them from. They'd rather be spoon fed the same old imitation--they can't deal with reality as it really is, they need to feel safe and have someone else tell them what should make them feel good.
Me, my eyes are wide open.