What’s Going to Happen to Me?
When the holidays rolled around, I invited Scott to visit me and my parents in Pittsburgh, but he declined. Instead, he suggested that I go with him to a New Year’s Eve party in Ohio – and I happily accepted.
New Year’s Eve has been notoriously lousy for me. When the days of banging pots and pans with my parents ended and I still wasn’t quite old enough to legally drink, New Year’s Eve celebrations went steadily downhill.
Except for New Year’s Eve With Scott.
When Scott picked me up for the party, he was dressed in different black attire – a black button-down shirt and a diamond in his ear. I wore my usual Forenza sweater and silver pants, and hoped I wasn’t underdressed, although I remember discovering that frat parties had a whole different dress code.
The party was a mass of strangers, all substantially older than me, but I tried to fit in. Scott’s friends were perfectly cordial, although he didn’t talk to them, either. I wondered where he found these friends. They were serious partiers, too, particularly on this wild, celebratory night.
Scott drank Coors, so I drank Coors Light. His can was gold; mine was silver.
Scott smoked Salems, so I smoked Salem Lights. It seemed like the feminine thing to do.
So when Scott pulled me into a side room and whipped out a tiny vial of white powder, I knew instantly I would be trying my first-ever cocaine. It was New Year’s Eve – the biggest night of the year. I was not going to mess up this one!
Scott dispensed the powder onto a little mirror and used a razor blade to swipe it into lines. Where did he find these things? I wondered. Did he pull them out of his pocket?
As he worked, I panicked a little. This is a real drug. What’s going to happen to me?
Then he rolled up a twenty-dollar bill so it became a little tube, and he handed the rolled-up money to me.
“How do I do it?” I asked Scott, completely baffled.
“Want me to show you?”
I nodded – and watched carefully. One end of the bill went in the nose while, somehow, I was expected to inhale a line of powder through the little tube.
“Just don’t breathe through your mouth,” Scott said.
I tried. I got most of it into my nose. It was a learned skill – getting the entire line in one inhaling motion – but I learned quickly.
Immediately my head felt delightful.
Many studies have been done about the effects of cocaine on the brain – particularly about its extremely addictive component. Because cocaine’s “rush” hits so quickly then dissipates at the same rate, it’s a drug that needs to be done over and over and over and over to maintain a “high.”
In rehab years later, I watched a film where monkeys were given cocaine. They chose cocaine over both food and rest … until they dropped dead.
And at that moment, I already understood.
I was hooked instantly. From that night on, if cocaine appeared, I chased it like a cat chasing a laser, a panther chasing a deer, a dog chasing a squirrel. If someone had cocaine, I was interested. Once I knew about it, I never took my eyes off it. I got myself into many, many bad situations by following the cocaine.
But that was ages away.
First, I spent a beautiful champagne- and cocaine-filled evening with Scott until the sun rose and 1985 officially began.