The Steps
I started drinking at about 14, maybe somewhat earlier, but those early times of experimentation are a little unclear. But, I do remember going to a party at the house of one of my parents neighbors, trying beer, and while disliking the taste, I still convinced myself that it was "fun" due to the way it made me feel. After this I continued to try other alcoholic beverages whenever possible. This experimentation extended to other drugs as well as alcohol. Whatever was available, I was willing to try.
Of the other drugs around, pot was clearly the drug of choice for myself and my group of friends. It was a very social drug and the party atmosphere it created was a change from my somewhat shy and isolated life. It seemed glamourous and fun. However, it was not the easiest drug to get, that distinction went to alcohol. It was very easy to find an older friend who was either of legal age, or who was able to fool the liquor store clerk into thinking they were.
At about this time, the quality of my school work began to go down. I would spend more time trying to find a place to drink and get high with my friends then thinking about school. But I didn't consider that as a problem. This was when I started to get the feeling that I was not the same as others, and not the most popular. Being the typical male high schooler, I was intent on finding females to be with. Even if they were unattainable, it was fun to be around them.
There were distinct cliques and groups in my school, as I'm sure there are in any school today. There were the motor heads, guys who could spend all day talking about cars, and working on them as often as possible. Very few women were in this group. Besides, I didn't like the idea of getting all dirty while crawling around on the garage floor.
There were the jocks. The big guys on the football teams. Lots of girls liked them, but having no athletic ability whatever, there was no way I would fit in with that crowd.
There were the "nerds". Those were the ones who seemed to spend all their time studying or writing papers. There were girls in this group, but I was convinced that any female who liked to study, or enjoyed reading must be awfully dull and boring. Also as my school work was not up to par, there was no way I could be in with this crowd.
The only group left were the "heads". There was an almost equal number of males and females in this group, and some of the girls even liked me. We could all party, and drink and smoke dope together, and it seemed like real fun. There was no way that there could be a problem with this. So I fell into this crowd very easily.
My high school years went by pretty uneventful for the first three years, but in my senior year a couple of events took place that obviously affected my use of alcohol. In my senior year I turned eighteen, which at the time was the legal drinking age in my state. Now there was no problem in having a steady supply of alcohol. Indeed, I became the one to supply it to my friends.
As I said earlier, I was not a very athletic person. One sport however that I was good at was skiing. We lived about a mile away from a ski area, and any free time I had during the winter was spent on the ski slopes, or just as likely, in the lodge drinking with my friends. Of course we not only drank, we were smoking pot whenever we could. While riding up the ski lift, smoke a joint, pass the wine sack, and enjoy the ride up. And the run down. The exhilaration of going down a mountain side as fast as you can, is almost by itself an addicting habit. Add to that the high of pot and alcohol, and it seemed a very glamorous life style to be involved in.
Not a very good combination- alcohol, drugs, and an activity that demands a high level of concentration. It was obvious that my concentration would suffer. And it did. One afternoon as we were racing down the slopes as fast as we could, drunk and stoned, one of the inner edges of my skis caught something. The binding did not release, and as the ski made a 180 degree turn, so did my knee.
So now I had torn cartilage in my knee which was so swollen up it reminded me of a grapefruit. And why did this happen? Well, obviously, I had some bad luck. It couldn't have been my fault. I didn't have a problem. Surgery was done to repair my knee, and I spent most of the winter hobbling around on crutches, and a cane.
Now, as I had just recently turned eighteen, and being a legal adult in New Jersey, if I was at school if I didn't want to go to class, all I had to do was sign myself out for the day. I used this tactic quite often. Go to school in the morning, straight to the office, sign myself out and spend the rest of the day hanging out with my friends drinking, smoking pot, and doing any other drugs we could get.
We obviously couldn't party at most of our houses, without being detected, so we made our own place to party. We stole lumber from houses under construction, cleared a small area in the woods, and built a shack. Once we had our little hideaway built we had the perfect place to hang out all day long, drinking and partying. Most of my senior year was spent like this, in a haze, and not very aware of what was going on around me.
I somehow managed to graduate from high school without failing all my classes. Now it was time to do some serious partying. Going to the graduation parties was a major event. Make your plans correctly so that you could attend as many as possible.
I went to one of my classmates parties and drank until I could barely stand. Then I made the foolish mistake of attempting to drive home. Going down a hill on my way home, I lost control (I was probably going at least 60 MPH) of my car going around a corner. My car sideswiped two trees, hit a third one almost head on and flipped around, coming to a rest on the drivers side. The car was totalled. Amazingly, I was only slightly injured - a broken tooth, a gash, above my left eye, and a black and blue bruise across my stomach where the seat belt kept me from being thrown out.
Somehow a friend who was following me convinced the cops that I was only unfamiliar with the roads, and consequently I didn't even get a ticket.
The Steps
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