DOPE 2

I started using dope when I was about 15. I think mostly I started because I liked the bad girl image they gave me. I never really felt like I fitted in a school, and the drug group seemed to offer a more interesting alternative to the straight kids. I guess mostly because they were more open minded in terms of politics and social attitudes and were also more into the music and literature I was consuming at the time. I grew up in a fairly conservative society, and was always frustrated, I guess I was looking for some way to rebel against that reality. Drugs seemed to offer something more exciting, something dissonant, something bad. I remember the first time I smoked all the guys warned me I was going to cough, and I was so adamant that I wasn't. I wanted to seem hardcore. I remember holding that cough in till my lungs exploded. After that I tried dope on and off, only if someone else was offering. It took me about a year and a bit before I started buying dope and smoking seriously. Basically my boyfriend at the time was hanging with a serious drug crowd and I started going along. At first it was just 'cos I thought if I didn't partake, our relationship would fuck out, but then I got really into it. I like the way it set me apart. I really looked down on all the straight kids, I saw them as "buying into society", while I thought we were dreaming up and new society. At first it was just on the weekends, or at parties, but soon I was smoking every afternoon. Dope was pretty cheap so it was never really a problem to buy. My parents were pretty strict and I guess I got used to lying to them at a young age, so adding a few more lies to that was no big deal. Soon our smoking was pretty obsessive, every afternoon, on the weekend, sometimes even on the way to school. My parents never really caught on, mostly 'cos I was still doing very well at school, also, I never smoked cigarettes so, my parents thinking, was if I didn't do cigarettes I wouldn't smoke dope. I couple of times I came home really fucked, but then I just blamed it on booze which was a huge freak out, but okay in the end. I was pretty good at covering it up. I must have smoked seriously for about 2 years. I guess the first time I realised that maybe what we were doing wasn't so cool, was one afternoon. We were at a friends smoking, me, my boyfriend, the usual crew. And we were talking about getting stoned. Suddenly I realised that every time we got stoned all we talked about was the last time we got stoned. It was like we were in this horrible time warp, living in the past and talking about nothing but drugs. It freaked me a little. It was like all our passions and belief and ideals were squashed by dope. Nothing else really existed. After that I went to Varsity and stopped. I guess mostly because I realized how stupid you get on dope. I remember being straight one day and listening to some stoned kids and thinking, fuck, do I sound that dumb, that slow? I never really saw my boyfriend from school again. Last I heard a friend ran into him and said he was seriously into buttons, then a few months ago, I heard he was dead. He killed himself. It came as a real blow, I'd always wanted to look him up, but I guess I'll never be able to now.