"Can a semi use a drive-thru window?"

There are those times when a life changing choice is made. Sometimes you are not really aware that you are making the decision, or at least don’t realize the significance of it at the time. Sometimes you do know it is a major turning point. Drug abuse is a good example. A user can, without making a conscious choice, slip gradually into oblivion. Otherwise, they might pull themselves out before it’s too late. I have a friend, presently a drug addict, who is at that juncture. As yet it is unclear what will happen.

It is a difficult choice to get off drugs, especially a really good one like cocaine. I think I started using it at parties when in my aimless early 20s. Alcohol was boring, weed was nice but too mellow, other drugs were fun, but cocaine added a level of energy, confidence, well-being, and euphoria which was unsurpassed. It was great for parties.

Increasingly things went wrong. Fights broke out and people got hurt. People got addicted and eventually disappeared. At one party some drunken idiot pulled a knife on me. Fortunately cocaine beats alcohol and I easily disarmed him. Even more fortunately I threw it away rather than cutting him up.

The climax and decision point was when my girlfriend and I were hitchhiking from Michigan to California (that’s another story). We were picked up, I think in Kansas, by a truck driver. He already had another hitch hiker on board. This traveler had left his home and family and bought a couple of thousand dollars of blow then hit the road. We all, driver included, partied hard while driving deliveries around, I think, Missouri and thereabouts. At one point the cocaine guy got to drive. My girlfriend drove. Then I got turns driving. A semi-truck. On cocaine. I almost caused a disaster once, when exiting the freeway I decided it would be a good idea to go through a MacDonald’s drive through to get food. At the last second we all realized it wouldn’t work, so I careened to a halt blocking most of the parking lot while we ran in and ordered. Then off we went.

Finally, inevitably, things went wrong. Sex on cocaine is incredible. The other guys knew it. So one night they went into our motel room and demanded I share my girlfriend with them. (It wasn’t until much later that I thought about the concept of the other males demanding from me access to “my” female. She had no say in the matter.) I said no, and pulled out a knife, and we withdrew out into the night.

Never touched the stuff again.

What would happen if someone lay out a line or two for me now? I am reasonably sure I would walk away. I’m smart enough to know better. But. But. Would I think perhaps one more time? just to feel those great feelings again. Just one last time? Some choices are ongoing, never quite final.

I hope my friend makes his choice well and soon.