I was a drug snob

It may be true, as Darwin said, that nature supports aristocracies. Yet I think even Darwin himself would have to laugh at the way devotees of one drug invent reasons to despise habitual users of another.

I'm an occasional coke user. This time last year, I was a constant coke user--okay, a cokehead. I won't bore you with horror stories about how much I snorted, how much it cost me in terms of money, friendship and hours of sleep. Let's agree that it was bad and leave it at that. The point is, as blow came to assume an increasingly high priority in my life, I began to mythologize the drug, invest it with glamour it obviously didn't deserve--anything to make me feel like something other than a drug addict.

Along with my drug buddy Sam, who apparently saw a need to delude himself along paralell lines, I became obsessed with the movie Goodfellas. We watched it whenever we'd get high, and eventually, started reciting the lines along with the actors--those who know Martin Scorcese's style of overlapping dialogue will recognize how tough a feat this was, but we managed it. Our favorite part, of course, was the sequence (Scene 31, for those of you who own the DVD) where Ray Liotta, riding a jagged coke high, delivers hot guns to Robert DeNiro, picks up and mixes some more blow for selling, retrieves his wheelchair-bound brother from the hospital, cooks a multicourse Italian meal for six and entertains two mistresses--all while dodging a DEA chopper. In the "cast 'n' crew commentary," Liotta claims that his honest portrayal of a frazzled cokehead had convinced some of his friends to drop drugs. To this I say: bullshit. Nobody ever made pinned eyes and a sweaty brow look as cool as Ray Liotta.
Ray made the emotional whirlwind that attends chronic coke use look like a heroic trial. Sam must have thought so, too, because pretty soon we started speaking of our drug use in Goodfellas slang.

Sam: Hey! You pick up dat t'ing we talked about earlier.

Me: Fuggheddabout it.

Sam: That friend of ours, he's a real fucking mutt.

Me: Nah, he came through for us. He's a stand-up guy.

Sam: Fuggheddabout it.

As drug users will, we started becoming aware of other drug users. When we saw strangers who seemed restless, talked constantly, or whose eyes looked glassy--features that a few months ago would have suggested nothing more than a type-A personality and ill-fitting contact lenses--we realized we were in the presence of our secret brothers. The thing was, Sam and I didn't want to claim any kinship with these people. Many were dirty and underweight. All of them seemed desperate--at least for a sympathetic ear, but more likely for the loan of a few bucks. Sam and I weren't like that--hell, we were like Ray Liotta.

Soon, we discovered that these unkempt characters weren't cokeheads at all but glass-smokers. The news came as an immense relief. We decided that crystal meth must be a dreadfully substandard drug to attract such a declasse crowd. For a time, Sam and I devoted ourselves so completely to gathering evidence for this hypothesis that we quit watching Goodfellas.

Sam: This meth shit--who would want to do it?

Me: White trash, that's who. It's a cheap high, lasts forever.

Sam: Yeah, but it makes you feel like shit!

Me: And look like shit, too. God, did you see that last guy's teeth?

Sam: Yeah--both of 'em! Say, how's my nose?

Me: (Imitating The Sopranos' Michael Imperioli): You look like you've been French-kissin' the Pillsbury Doughboy.

Sam: Now coke--coke--that's got class.

Me: It's got to! It's natural! It comes all the way from the Andes. It wasn't made in some shack like that hillbilly heroin glass shit.

Sam: I'm tellin' you! Coke is for achievers. Look at all those record company execs and Wall Street guys--they toot their noses off.

Me: And what about the Incas? A great civilization..

You get the idea. So on we went for months, cocooned in our elitism. Eventually, I was laid off from work and forced by poverty onto the straight and narrow. Sam, not fond of snorting solo and not willing to support both of our habits, decided to go back to smoking weed and running his business. I actually did get around to smoking glass--once. I spent the first five dancing in front of my T.V., and the next twenty or so trying to masturbate. Not my thing at all. In fact, to borrow the final line of my favorite movie, I think I'd prefer to live out the rest of my life like a schnook.

 

rrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhtttt........


so you glorified goodfellas and glorified coke....thats basically IT.

 

Yeah. I just wanted to show what stupid things drug users will do to hide their addiction from themselves. I hoped it would be funny, or at least strike a familiar note. Back to the old drawing board, I guess.

 

do you own giant posters of Al Pacino...

 

Al Pacino isnt in Goodfellas.......thats scarface

 

i know...but al pacino did tons of coke in scarface...and just reminded me of it...

and only read first paragraph (no offensive to poster, but yeah..my attention span is short)

 

did you see the movie Blow? you probably would have liked it~



meth is crack for crackers. (i just heard that the other day and i died laughing)

 

Booga, very well written and an interesting read.

 

Very interesting indeed. I can relate to that story all so well, unfortunately. Let this be a lesson to anyone who feels they're heading down that road. Well done Booga. It was obviously a big part of your life-like mine. It's great that you can get it out of your mind and look back and go "hey, I'm better than that."

 

it bored the crap out of me!

nothing intersting happened at all....i mean if thats the point then it cameacross very well.. that coke and the film goodfellas are infact essentially boring and flat, so dont waste your time pursuing either...becuase fuck all.. will come out of it....;literally!!!

 

The moral of the story is that Drug addicts fool no one but themselves

 

You mean you went there and came back by the age of twenty?

Wow. Good for you? If there were a "bow down" emoticon, I'd insert it right here!

 

Actually you can insert certain smilies that arent on hipforums... including a "bow down" one but i dont know how... sorry.

 

OOOps

Just last year living with my ex. I never had much time for coke before last year/year before. She was supposed to be in college so her folks sent over ALOT of money that we blew on blow.

It's funny you mention Ray Liotta. I recently compared myself and my ex to him at the end of that movie. There wasn't much difference. I got aggressive toward s the end aswell. Lived in denial. Never cleaned the flat. It was horrible.

I Seen Goodfellas for the first time just before I stopped doing coke. It made me feel deppressed and I looked at myself and said "what am I doing ?" Maybe if it was at the start I would felt like you in some respect.

I don't want to write anymore. Some of my mates post on hipforums ....

I just hope anyone reading takes the warning. There are lots of young kids on these forums and there's lots of blatant glorification of drugs on t.v. as it is.



Peace

 

That was really well written.. I went through that too, when I was fifteen and sixteen, not with coke, but with some crack and pot and shrooms.. not heavy drugs except the crack... but basically the people I was with were into glorifying it (they were way older than me and did heavier drugs) and I just latched on to that. Plus there is the trippy side to drugs that in some ways can be very mind-expanding, so it wasn't difficult to 'latch on' to.

 

i just dont see the point in it thats all... what is trying to say???

that he used to think drugs were cool..and he took them and then figured out they werent so cool......how many fucking people do that every fucking day?????

and anyway if its all in your mind.. then then have the trip of your life..but dont try to make other people think that drugs are somehow cool.. thats just sucks and is a lie.. drugs are not cool they are just an exercise in nihilistic indulgence...

 

i know a drug snob... but he would never do coke.

 

Point? i dont think there was any particular moral of this story it was just someone writing the some of there life exeperiance and i think they did a good job too.

Also I if you think that the poster was trying to glorify drugs and make "people think that drugs are somehow cool" then i think you entirely missed the point!

 

well if there wasnt a point.. and i missed it.. what was it?!!!

 

you're a pretty good writer