WHAT IT'S LIKE TO TAKE DRUGS

I don't take drugs but I see documentaries about it. Like everybody else I wonder why addicts do it. After all, they've heard the same horror stories that I have. Why trade a short-term high for long-term misery? My guess is that most addicts don't expect to be around for the long term...they're depressives who do it as a prelude to suicide.

'Just a guess.

I'm also guessing that some addicts are romantics at heart. They reason that if they're going to check out then they'd like to have a few experiences first. It's the poor man's equivalent of a final vacation. They figure they'll take the inner journey. They want to find out if the hippies and mystics were on to something. Before they cash in the chips they want to take that lateral step outside of the ordinary world and see how things look from there.

I don't know what it's like to do that, but here's my best guess based...I admit...only on books and movies.

At the outset of the high the world is endlessly fascinating. It's full of lights and sounds and frenetic activity. You hear the clatter of heels on the sidewalk, the hum of neon. You become aware of the city's beating heart, expanding and contracting with the passing El trains.

You notice little things that you never noticed before before, like how there's a whole world in a street puddle (above).

Commonplace objects (above) look weird and funny, and you want to laugh.

After a while though, the drug begins to wear off and the streets (above) become less and less friendly. You become more aware of people who are off kilter somehow. They stare. They walk in and out of shadows. They seem to know something you don't.

You find an excuse to go inside (above) to shake off the weirdness, but it doesn't help. You begin to notice how shabby everything looks.

Rooms seem frighteningly empty. It's an emptiness that has weight, that's full of menace,  that's somehow palpably alive.

Whatever room you're in, you take note of where the exits are. It's not a case of being afraid of a police raid, or of violent friends. There's a sense that somehow the room itself might turn against you.

Out on the street you panic. For someone like you there's no food, no job, no real friends, no money of your own.

And that's how you end up walking next to an intended victim on a dark street, waiting for the right moment to strike. Maybe the guy has a family who depends on him. It doesn't matter. The guy has money and you want it, it's as simple as that.

It's interesting that the drug odyssey that began as a last fling before suicide didn't turn out that way. My guess is that addicts are among the least suicidal people you'll ever meet. They don't start out that way, just the opposite, but somewhere along the line they change. No more inner journey, no more romantic farewell to life. Something about the drug supercharges the will to live, no matter how painful and no matter how degraded that life might be.

Interesting, eh?