Tuesday, February 03, 2004
A friend asked me today, "Why are you okay with alcohol but not pot or other drugs?"
My knee jerk reaction to this question is to immediately become defensive and try to convince you how right I am but because this question has come up enough, pretty much every time I voice my objection to drugs, I think I've finally accepted that I am the one who's wrong. The bottom line here is that I'm a total hypocrite and my aversion to drugs is as logical as my fear of flying. It's not. Logical, that is. But in the same way that our experiences form our opinions and beliefs, the same holds true for my intolerance of drugs.
For anyone who has known me for a long time knows that I haven't always had this Nancy Reagan-esque view of drugs. I spent most of my high school days getting high under the bridge, sucking on tabs of acid, cutting lines, and popping pills. Eventually I stopped using all drugs, for whatever reason...maybe it was simply because I grew up or perhaps it was because as I got healthier (mentally) I realized that I preferred to experience life without the distorting haze of being high. But that's my preference and for a long time, I never really cared about other people's drug use.
But then I watched a friend fall into a horrible life of hard core drugs and prostitution. There was really nothing any of us could do to help her. Her mother and I spent weekend after weekend driving up to San Francisco, finding Nelly, bringing her home to kick only to have her run away again a few days later. (Watching her detox is easily the most disturbing ordeal I have ever witnessed.) Eventually her friends and family accepted the fact that there was nothing any of us could do to help her since there was nothing she wanted to do for herself.
So for three years I watched a healthy, young, beautiful, intelligent, funny, affectionate, generous girl turn into a frail, cloudy, shell of who she used to be. Every time I saw her, she became even harder to recognize than the time before. She was a hollow skeleton that I didn't want to hug because I was afraid of crushing her despite the fact that's when she needed hugs most.
Even though I was watching her slowly kill herself and somewhere subconsciously, I knew she wouldn't be around for much longer, nothing will ever compare to the way my heart broke the day I got the call telling me she had "passed on."
From that moment on, I became Nancy Reagan's number one cheerleader (FYI: not really). I had absolutely no tolerance for drugs, not even pot. I know it doesn't make any sense because you all know my deep affection for beer which, technically, is a drug. I used to try to argue with people when they said I was a hypocrite saying it was "different because beer is a more controlled substance" and "You never know what you're getting when you buy street drugs...you can't anticipate the affects blah blah blah."
The truth is, I'm wrong for approving of alcohol but not of any other drugs. I admit it. But the same way I've begun to loosen up about pot and pot smoking friends, I hope they can loosen up and just accept my feelings as another "Jen-ism" and love me anyway.
I hate flying, I hate drugs, I hate cantaloupe. It's all the same to me and makes no sense to anyone else.
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My knee jerk reaction to this question is to immediately become defensive and try to convince you how right I am but because this question has come up enough, pretty much every time I voice my objection to drugs, I think I've finally accepted that I am the one who's wrong. The bottom line here is that I'm a total hypocrite and my aversion to drugs is as logical as my fear of flying. It's not. Logical, that is. But in the same way that our experiences form our opinions and beliefs, the same holds true for my intolerance of drugs.
For anyone who has known me for a long time knows that I haven't always had this Nancy Reagan-esque view of drugs. I spent most of my high school days getting high under the bridge, sucking on tabs of acid, cutting lines, and popping pills. Eventually I stopped using all drugs, for whatever reason...maybe it was simply because I grew up or perhaps it was because as I got healthier (mentally) I realized that I preferred to experience life without the distorting haze of being high. But that's my preference and for a long time, I never really cared about other people's drug use.
But then I watched a friend fall into a horrible life of hard core drugs and prostitution. There was really nothing any of us could do to help her. Her mother and I spent weekend after weekend driving up to San Francisco, finding Nelly, bringing her home to kick only to have her run away again a few days later. (Watching her detox is easily the most disturbing ordeal I have ever witnessed.) Eventually her friends and family accepted the fact that there was nothing any of us could do to help her since there was nothing she wanted to do for herself.
So for three years I watched a healthy, young, beautiful, intelligent, funny, affectionate, generous girl turn into a frail, cloudy, shell of who she used to be. Every time I saw her, she became even harder to recognize than the time before. She was a hollow skeleton that I didn't want to hug because I was afraid of crushing her despite the fact that's when she needed hugs most.
Even though I was watching her slowly kill herself and somewhere subconsciously, I knew she wouldn't be around for much longer, nothing will ever compare to the way my heart broke the day I got the call telling me she had "passed on."
From that moment on, I became Nancy Reagan's number one cheerleader (FYI: not really). I had absolutely no tolerance for drugs, not even pot. I know it doesn't make any sense because you all know my deep affection for beer which, technically, is a drug. I used to try to argue with people when they said I was a hypocrite saying it was "different because beer is a more controlled substance" and "You never know what you're getting when you buy street drugs...you can't anticipate the affects blah blah blah."
The truth is, I'm wrong for approving of alcohol but not of any other drugs. I admit it. But the same way I've begun to loosen up about pot and pot smoking friends, I hope they can loosen up and just accept my feelings as another "Jen-ism" and love me anyway.
I hate flying, I hate drugs, I hate cantaloupe. It's all the same to me and makes no sense to anyone else.
