Are We All "That Guy?"

I was talking to Eben a while back about the drug debate, and as usual, he had something to say that stuck in my head. I'll paraphrase as best as memory will allow.

"Changing your worldview can be awkward and painful. It's like if you were a bigot, and I told you that gay marriage is perfectly reasonable and I'm all for it. You like me and respect my opinion, so you're willing to hear me out, but your beliefs are deeply held and aren't just going to change overnight."

Please note that Eben is even more anti-drug than I am. In the course of that same conversation, he told me that he would absolutely not do even the small amount of experimenting that I've done. But he knew exactly what I was looking for, and it wasn't "Here's my opinion on drugs." It was "Here's an explanation for the depth of emotion this subject triggers in you."

I grew up with the largely unconscious idea that people belong to one of two categories: functional, drug-free human, or addicted loser. Each of those categories comes with a host of other descriptors, now with 40% more judgment free!

Basically, either you're addicted, broke, and living in a crackhouse on death's door, or you're straight-edge. (For this unusual definition of "straight-edge," alcohol doesn't count. Marijuana is an in-between, as in, "You're clearly not too bright, but maybe you won't actually keel over dead in the next 24 hours.") I'd heard tales of high-functioning addicts, namely lawyers who are secretly addicted to heroin, but I assumed those tales had all-or-nothing endings (they cleaned up or they died).

Then there's the designer category - the college kids and their club drugs. Some of them have fun and are lucky that the finger of fate doesn't bestow consequences. The others die horrible deaths. The rest of us are not that stupid in the first place. I actually wrote an entire novel based around an ecstasy-induced accidental death.

It was a new concept to me that people can do hard drugs "sometimes." What, isn't it all or nothing? You use, you lose? No, actually - some people are normal, responsible, functioning adults, with jobs and kids and mortgages and reasonably good health, who occasionally use highly illegal substances.

What? No.

The evidence is right in front of me and I'm still struggling with the concept. The idea that all drug use constitutes a druggie, a useless, dysfunctional drain on society, is deeply ingrained. The space in between has been labeled "limbo" to me - the place where you choose, where you shape up or ship out to the next life. You are either on your way up or down; you don't have to go home but you can't stay here.

Now they're telling me you can stay here.

I don't actually believe it, but now I'm paranoid that I'm the bigot.