What's Been on my Mind of Late?

It is strange how our minds work. A single phrase heard triggers a flood of memories and musings. At least, that happens for me and I assume that I am no different than anyone else so I feel that this happens to all of you at times.

The other night, I was watching (off and on) a Nova program about Lewis and Clark, two men who led a party to explore the land west of the Mississippi, who sought the mythical "Northwest Passage."

They failed and succeeded. As do most expeditions, I think. There is no Northwest Passage but there was great and wonderful land with wonderful people and great numbers of game.

But there was one little snippet in the story that I happened to hear that flooded my brain with other thoughts...

It turns out that Meriwether Lewis turned to drink and opium sometime after he returned from the expedition. It was, the program said, during his governorship of the Louisiana Territory that he turned to drink, opium, and morphine. And it reminded me of the actor, Cory Monteith, recently found dead in a Hotel room in Canada. It turns out that Mr. Monteith overdosed on a mixture of heroin and alcohol.

And that, in turn, reminded me of a story that a fellow shipmate once related to me. My friend had been an intravenous drug user. He claimed to have shot up everything from speed to LSD to heroin and morphine. He was very knowledgeable about needles and I had no reason to doubt his stories.  It goes like this:

He and some of his friends were doing some drugs, mostly smack (heroin, for those who do not know the lingo), and one of them keeled over about halfway through an injection. Now, when a user injects a drug, he does it in stages; he puts some in, draws it back mixed with his blood, and then pushes the drug and blood mixture back into his vein. It was just as he started pushing the needle that he keeled over, collapsing onto the couch and rolling toward the floor. My friend grabbed the needle from the man's arm, he said, so that his friend would not tear his arm up when he fell. My friend sat there for a moment as the others checked on the fallen friend and then, for reasons he couldn't articulate, he put that needle into his own arm and gave himself the dose, mixed with blood, that his friend had failed to complete.

Actors are intelligent people. They have to be in order to act. They must have good memories. They must have good imaginations. They must be good observers of human nature and behavior.

I am sure that Monteith was intelligent. He was also rich and in a world where drugs were readily accessible and affordable for people like himself. Experimentation was almost inevitable. Addiction, in my opinion was not.

Why do I say addiction was not inevitable? Simple, because one has to continue using a drug to become addicted. It has been said that crack is so addictive that one use of it will hook just about anyone. I don't know, I've never used crack and I do not intend to but I have known people who used it (more than once or twice) and they didn't get addicted. I have used a lot of drugs; speed (dexedrine, methamphetamine), MDA (I think that's called "ecstasy" now), barbiturates, pot, cocaine, LSD, mescaline, and a few others. I stayed away from heroin, morphine and other "hard drugs"... drugs that were known to ruin your life and could be quite addictive. Had someone offered me opium, I probably would have used it... probably more than once or twice.  But I would have stopped as soon as I felt compelled in any way to find it.

I like to think that the intelligent are more likely to addicted or become an habitual user of intoxicants. The intelligent often have a view of life that is poor. They may be successful but they often feel that success is unearned. They often find things "too easy." They sometimes think, because they are keenly aware of their own faults and foibles, that they are frauds of some sort... unworthy of admiration or even respect. And they "self medicate" to suppress those feelings.

In the end, drugs mess up your life. Alcohol can also do that. And the relief, the pleasure, one gets from them is fleeting and empty.

So, sadly, we have another promising talent lying in a morgue.