Bad Scene

2005-08-12 - 1:15 a.m.

I kind of wanted to post this on my other, more public, blog, but I've been drinking a bit, it's late, and I have a cold, and so maybe I should screen it here, first.

How fucking disrespectful to you, huh?

The subject of conversation, immediately before I left the post-practice drink-up, was drugs. I'd just found out that someone - who I've developed an attachment to, someone with whom I figure there's a long friendship in the future - tried crystal meth a week or so ago.

There's been a buzz about meth lately. In the media, around town...everyone knows someone who's ruined their life with it. It's probably a bit like AIDS was 20 years ago. We even have a member of our rugby club who's in on-again-off-again detox for meth (and crack, and booze and you-name-it). I'm aware that I'm in the "really, really over-react" category when it comes to this drug.

I left the table tonight at the worst time: one of us was near tears, talking about the people he'd lost, who had died, because of drugs. He was in the middle of describing how he found out about the death of his closest friend when I stood up, shouldered my backpack and the team bag and told everyone I was leaving.

He wast telling this story, he'd told us, in reaction to me. I'd said something offensive. I don't remember what it was, but I remember that I'd also admitted to never having lost anyone close to me. I left the conversation in part because I felt like I'd been disqualified for that reason: because I've never lost anyone close to me to death, I have nothing to say about the subject of taking drugs that can eventually kill you.

I left because they used the ultimate trump card.

I don't know what it's like to lose a loved one. The closest I can come to is when we put my dog to death, and as much as that is a unique experience for me, one that hurt more than I can describe, I also know that it is completely different from the experience of burying a human family member or friend.

I've, so far, lived a fairly enchanted life. Disaster happens to the people I care about, but not to me. I will never be able to understand the pain and loss that others have gone through, until I go through the same thing. It's inevitable (to my knowledge my loved ones are not immortal), but it hasn't happened yet.

And I think that's why I'm so fiercely irrational about this sort of thing.

I value my innocence, such as it is. As much as I want to learn and experience the world, as much as I want to know what it is, I just as strongly want to keep the people I love around me. It's selfish, so completely selfish, but I don't want anyone I care about to die. Ever. I'll be so angry when one of them does that every tantrum or explosion I've ever had will feel like a child's firecracker next to Hiroshima.

The 14 months that I spent without alcohol were very difficult. I learned a lot through it, even while I know I missed some lessons, too. One thing I learned, though, is that drugs - doesn't matter which drug - fuck up your mind. Your ability to make decisions.

It's all a calculated risk - there's something to be gained from drug use - but when you're on a drug, you've already forfeited your ability to calculate. Your opportunity to make bad decisions is increased manyfold.

I hate puritanical thinking. I don't want to be the person to make choices for other people, but if I see someone I care about hold a gun to their head for a "mostly harmless" game of Russian roulette, I lose perspective. I compare their actions to Russian roulette, for example.

And I hate sitting there, listening to people talk about how noble their friends were while they simultaneously justify making bad decisions of their own.

I'm the pot calling the kettle black: I drink, I smoke pot, there are a handful of other drugs that I'll try, given half a chance. I know people for whom I've already crossed the line, I've already held the gun to my head. I think that they might not have all the information, or at least not the information that I have - though I'll own to having made some poor decisions myself.

But tonight, for some reason, I just couldn't be prudent. I couldn't be a part of the conversation any longer. I saw too much of my own denial in there, and saw too much of what I fear about losing family, and was too engaged.

This entry all came out wrong. Blech.

The moral, I guess, is that drunks shouldn't talk about drugs, even if the last pitcher has dried up.

Cheers,

The Magus

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