Why Cocaine?

Calling all cokeheads past and present. Plus the usual rundown: Sarah Manguso. Stoics on Adversity. Jack Kornfield on Peace.

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Beginning around the age of 12, many people assumed that I was on drugs. Probably pot, maybe something harder like "glue" since it was the 80s, but the number of times I'd had people ask me, "What kind of drugs are you on?" was frequent enough for me to already feel like a qualified drug user even though I'd never touched one, let alone seen one up close. 

But here was a part of the reason, I guess: I was always a little slow—I am deaf in my left ear, so I'd miss parts of conversations, and when I'd realize it, I'd clam up, and my mouth would drop open, giving me that lobotomized expression, the kind that would either evince pity in some or annoyance in others. 

Still, I definitely felt like I'd already taken massive amounts of drugs and assumed that the slow-moving underwater experience of my everyday existence was probably similar to what real-life drug users were shooting for. 

It took until age 17 for me to first try real drugs. It was crumbly pot out of a tin foil pipe on the way to a Steve Miller concert at the Mann Music Center. It left me dizzy and seasick. I never made it into the show that night, opting instead to lie face down on the cool grass underneath the car in the parking lot, vomiting. 

The part of the story that usually occurs here is something like, despite that misery, I wanted more drugs. But I did not. I was indifferent. And when I smoked weed, I moderated. Even into my early 20s, there wasn't a moment that indicated to me that drugs would ever be a problem.

Especially cocaine. I was afraid of cocaine—I'd read the pamphlets they distributed at the nurse's office and had watched the After School Specials: Cocaine ruined lives, sucked people's souls, and killed them sometimes instantly, but always eventually. 

A couple of high school friends began using it in front of me one night, and I became enraged, threatening to flush their drugs down the toilet, causing a whole scene.

They were annoyed by my outburst and paid little attention to it.

I tried again. "You're gonna get hooked on this and die!"

But then I wondered—maybe I should snort some to see if it was as evil as advertised.

I never tried it that night, nor soon after, but I did stop speaking to my friends, hoping that they'd be so guilty and shame-ridden that cocaine would never come up ever again. Their lives never derailed, though—they all made money, started families, and stayed out of trouble, but we still drifted apart. Maybe I was the problem all along.

And then, finally, it happened. In or around 2002, I snorted coke in a small bathroom at a birthday party on a ferry boat in New York City. Some friend-of-a-friend-of-friend of the birthday person had it and offered it to me. I was so uncomfortable and not drunk enough at that party that it almost felt heaven-sent. I had to ask the person how to snort the coke. "Just like they do in the movies," he said. Then he handed me a wrinkly rolled-up dollar. In the movies, I thought, people usually use bigger bills.

For the first hour or two, I could only think about the self-righteous monologue I'd given my high school friends. Plus, since I was a child of the 80s, I waited for my heart to explode like John Belushi's. Or no—it was Len Bias. Poor Len Bias's heart. Everyone born between 1970 and 1980 knows that you don't touch cocaine because of Len Bias. 

But nothing terrible happened to me—I had survived two lines of cocaine. And then, after I'd had it shared with me again at a few other birthday-party-things throughout the year, I decided that I loved cocaine and didn't want to depend on others to get it.

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The first coke dealer I remember was this young dad who would only work until about 9 p.m., driving his wife and baby around in his car all over Manhattan delivering drugs to hipster dipshits like me. And he wouldn't show up for anything less than $100. And he didn't deliver it in baggies—he used plastic Bic pens with the ink and tips removed, and the tube portion contained all the coke. You'd have to slam it against a coffee table until it all tumbled out. They were $60 each.

That was 2003. And for the next 12 years, I had a handful of dealers with names plugged into my phone, like "Suitcase Larry" and "Poison Steve." Poison Steve was the guy you'd only call after 2 a.m. If he came around, you knew you'd crossed some terrible threshold between "having a great time" and "pants-shitting regret." But it beat living like a normal human being. Sometimes, I'd get lucky and have enough leftovers to dump out on my fist and snort under the table during a late brunch.

My cocaine use never got to the point of life-ruining, though. I usually couldn't afford to spend more than $200-$300 per week on it, which is about what a couple of 8-balls cost in the mid-2000s. And the coke I bought was never quality—I could always taste the chalky, burning feeling of whatever zoo chemicals it had been mixed with. Sometimes, it would be so chunky with laxatives and sweat that I'd have to stick it in the microwave to make it dry enough to chop up. (See: Steve, Poison.) 

But I was convinced my life was better with cocaine in it. Take socializing. Cocaine mostly eliminated that anxiety for me. If I went somewhere I did not want to be and was properly zanged, it could go one of two ways: I'd be charming and interesting or dark and ugly. But either way, I would not care.

Besides, I didn't need nightclubs, super-sensational parties, or special events to enjoy it. Just give me some not-so-close friends, a dinner plate, and one big, impossible personal dilemma that someone needed solving. That was where I had my most vital and treasured human experiences. 

But the downsides were severe. I became unabashedly gross—I dropped so many bags in the toilet and then fished them out, even when the toilet was full of piss, sometimes not even my own. It also gave me bad breath and bad skin, terrible intestinal problems, and hemorrhoids so fearsome that I would sometimes have to shove Preparation H suppositories inside me before I went out to a bar. My nose was always crusted over, and my eyes were frequently wide and shaky. And even though some nights it ramped up my sex drive, it also mostly ruined my erections. Cocaine made me flakier, more agitated, and less considerate. And sometimes, I'd get a panic attack bad enough that I'd end up in urgent care, telling anyone who'd listen to me that I didn't think I was going to die, but I should make sure because I didn't want to end up like Len Bias. 

And there were so many times I did it alone. Like late at night on a Tuesday, I'd do a few lines, smoke cigarettes, and watch DVDs, even the ones that were scratched up and froze constantly, sometimes because they were covered in cocaine residue. I was convinced it would help me sleep better. I know, I know—strange and not the point. But the major reason I did cocaine was because I was so lonely all the time. Having one or two people to help me fight off the sunrise with was what I'd always searched for, dreamed about, even. And some nights, all I needed was a reminder of that—one good memory before bedtime. 

I can't remember the exact last time I did cocaine, but I know it was in 2015. It was probably autumn, maybe even on this exact day 9 years ago. Wouldn't that be wild?

A few weeks ago, I began to think about why I loved cocaine so much to start with. Of all the drugs I could take, there were so many more that probably would have suited me better. But then again … this is funny: in 2021, I was a guest on the podcast How Long Gone, discussing my drug use and blabbing about war stories, and one of the hosts (I forget which one) asked me what kind of drugs I was into during my Worst Old Days. I told him I was a professional garbagehead, and it didn't matter to me, just whatever got me there. "You seem like a coke guy," he said. Huh. It was like I was 12 years old again. But I knew what he meant.

And here's something I hate to admit: Sometimes, late at night, I look at pictures of my children and my wife and wonder if I should be more proactive and consistent about posting them on Instagram, especially when we go places together, like an Angels-Phillies game or Dead and Company at The Sphere. Maybe that would provide me with enough visibility to connect to some friends who don't think I exist or would rather I not exist. Should I learn how to smile or cock my head to the side so I feel okay with the person I'm putting out into the world? It's a private Insta account, so why should I care anyway? But I do. I pretend I don't, but it's another hard truth I'm trying to sift through. When I feel this way, especially at night after everyone in our house has gone to sleep and the dogs are scratching themselves so roughly that the fur flies off of them and floats like feathers onto the rug, that's when it dawns on me that this vacancy and restlessness still inside me is why I did cocaine in the first place.  — AJD

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How about you? Why do you love cocaine? 

This is for an upcoming What It's Like… issue. Tell us about why you love cocaine and when you knew it would be a problem. (This can be past or present usage.) But also, if anyone is currently still partying with coke, I'd love to hear from you in particular. What is THAT like? 

Anyone who submits to this issue will get SIX free months of a TSB subscription. (If you already have an annual subscription, you'll get a free second year.)

So here's how to submit: ajd@thesmallbow.com SUBJECT: Me and Cocaine