For anyone who does cocaine or crack OR is thinking about doing them TW

This isn’t meant to encourage cocaine use in any way. So don’t interpret this as a reason to do those drugs.

Some researchers staged a test. They made a cage with two little knobs inside and put two mice inside. If the mice pressed one knob it gave them food. If they pressed the other knob it gave them cocaine.
The mice quickly learned how to operate both knobs.
The mice starved to death.

That’s one example of what cocaine and crack do to you. I smoked crack four years and got addicted and learned the hard way what those substances do. Me and the mice put those drugs before survival and many other addicts do too. You ask any true addict how much danger and trouble they willingly faced to get and use their drugs. You will hear some wild stories of people risking their lives (or others lives) for crack or cocaine
Once you cross that line into addiction your life will revolve around getting and using drugs, the craving and obsession is overwhelming once you’re hooked.

If you’re currently using or thinking of trying cocaine don’t think it could never happen to you; addiction does not discriminate, we’ve all heard of the proverbial soccer mom who gets hooked on pills. Well, anyone can become addicted to coke too from any walk of life if they try it or if they just start off as a recreational user or casual user. When you do those drugs they make you feel in control. But soon enough the drugs control you.
Drugs in general are bad news but these two drugs are particularly insidious. I could write a few pages of how these drugs wreck your life. I risked my life to get them, I spent all the money I had set aside for bills on cocaine instead. Regularly. Being a schizophrenic, I was always low on money but if I got ahold of $20.00 it was off to the neighboring city for a rock.

And once that rock was smoked up in ten minutes it was time to walk 3 miles to the ATM to withdraw $20 or $40.00 and walk back to score and typically this was how my days and nights went, walking back and forth to the bank and withdrawing my SSDI money for a few rocks. When I took the first hit of the day, it was ‘screw’ everything else going on in my life and all I was worried about was getting my drugs. Had to have them.

I sold or traded all my possessions, I literally sold the clothes off my back for just a few hits. Sometimes I tried to trade my shoes for crack but that didn’t work. But I would have done it.
I lost the trust of my sisters. My poor dad stuck by me though, even though I wrecked and trashed two of his cars and embarrassed him by conning money from all his neighbors and other bad things.

That’s just a testament to his character, he was a loyal man, especially to me even though I often violated that trust.
I used my monthly food money for drugs, I lost 25 lbs. without realizing it until my friends pointed out that I looked like a freed inmate from a WWII concentration camp.

I remember one night driving around in my Datsun and giving a ride to a stranger so he could score some crack for me. We got it but it was gone fast. He looked at my tape deck in my car and offered me a rock for it. I said, “sure” and he ripped out of my dashboard leaving a gaping hole and a bunch of wires dangling. We stopped at a gas station and I went in the restroom to smoke up. I got high and came back to the car and soon and I wanted more and more.

Anyways, most of that was typical. It got much, much worse often during those years. But to make my prior point, I had a good middle class upbringing. I grew up comfortable in a nice city where most of my families friends were either upper middle class or millionaires. I went to nice schools, we had a nice car and we had the nice clothes’ we needed and lived good.

I was a good kid and so were my friends. We did a few mischievous acts of vandalism or stole a bike or two and later started smoking pot but we weren’t hard core at anything. But I ended up not only as a schizophrenic at 19 but in the late 1980’s I became a crack addict too. And the people I smoked with were occasionally murderers, prostitutes, ex-cons or small time hoods.

I discovered these things sometimes but often I picked up strangers at night to get drugs, but I knew nothing about them while we drove all over hell and back looking for drugs and I had no idea what the background if the guy or girl sitting a foot away from me all night was. I partied the majority of the time with rough looking people. They were probably a little scared of me but not much.

Anyways, this was my background, I’ve celebrated 30 years clean on January 31st of this year. AA, CA, and NA is how I got clean. They probably saved my life, near the end of my addiction I was getting into some bad situations.

Anyways, I wrote my experience in the hope that maybe some addict will relate, or just as good, maybe I will influence someone to avoid using in the first place. Hopefully, just maybe, this will plant a seed in someone’s mind of the dangers of cocaine so if you are tempted to start using, you will decline and avoid all the typical addict crap I went through.

Like the speakers in a lot of the over 1000 meetings I went to would say, “You don’t have to use, I did all the research for you and it’s bad out there. Learn from me.” I hope someone get’s something from all this. Doing drugs doesn’t take a genius, anyone can do it. It’s getting clean that takes a monumental effort. Good luck.

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Congrats on 30 years sober @77nick77! :+1:

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Cheers Nick, thank you for sharing. You’re sobriety is something to be admired.

Keep up the good fight dude, you’re amazing.

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I’ve felt the pressure to use again a lot recently. Every time I do I become a psychotic mess and that keeps me sober. Congrats on your sobriety, I know how hard it is.

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Good job staying clean for so long!

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Good that you stayed clean for so long!

Do you know the “Rat Park” study? They tested a similar phenomenon, providing morphine-laced and unlaced water to isolated rats and rats that were together in a large “rat park”. The rats in isolation consumed a lot more morphine-laced water than the social rats.

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And you did it! You got clean! And for so long! You are awesome! Congratulations!!!

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Well written and congratulations, you’re awesome.

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Those drugs are very illegal and can get you in prison for a long time. That’s the main reason I never touched them.

Good job on the sobriety, that’s a very long time.

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I was considering getting a pair of gerbils so I can breed them and be like G*D. This just scared me.

In all seriousness, congrats on your sobriety dude. It’s not easy beating an addiction.

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