Hey Guys,
The title is drugs are bad. It’s almost a silly thing to say. Of course drugs are bad. Well, mostly. Cocaine is bad. Heroin is bad. Cigarettes, very much a drug, are bad. Ecstacy, molie, meth, are bad.
Is a glass of wine bad. Probably not. (It is for me, but that’s a different story.) Is smoking a joint once a month bad? I don’t know. (It is for me, but that’s the same different story.)
Is using a substance to feel differently inherently bad?
I’m tired in the morning, so I drink coffee. That’s not so bad. And God forbid you are in pain to the level requiring heavy narcotics/opiates…some substances to make you feel differently might not be bad for a time.
Using substances to avoid your life or to cope on a regular basis is almost certainly bad. By bad I mean wrong, ie you should not do it as it will yield bad consequences.
I helped bury my good friend this past year. He died from a drug overdose. It’s heartbreaking. Here’s what I just wrote to another of our friends as we try to cope with what happened.
I’ve been thinking about the short exchange of words we had at his grave. About why this happened.For me, I take solace in the fact that I can’t know. I’ll never know – at least not in this lifetime. Why some people get the chances they do and why some people don’t. I don’t have answers to questions this big.
I failed our friend. When he OD’d awhile before his death, I went down there and I took him a big book and told him if he ever got out of that coma Id be there for him. He did come out of the coma, and we went to some meetings and some dinners. And then there were times when he called and I wasn’t available. What if I had been? Would this be different?
I doubt it.
I think this is what it is because his time here was done, simple as that. Maybe he’d done all that he was supposed to do here. Maybe it was time for his suffering to end.
Maybe we all failed him, but I don’t think so. I think in the toughest moments we turn inside for strength. He had the strength inside. But he let his guard down, said “Ah, fuck it!” a little too loudly, at the wrong time, when his body didn’t have more to give him.
For me, I take him with me. I converse with him in my mind. I don’t wonder why he died. I wonder how it made it so long.
I think of that Queen song, Under Pressure. “The terror of knowing what this world’s all about, watching some good friends, scream “Let Me Out.”
I know I will use the things I learned from him throughout my life. I’m grateful to him for being the person he was. I grateful for the memories.
May his memory be a blessing, they say.
To me, it will be. Always.
Love you broByron