Why You Can’t Take Me Anywhere

Last night I attended a meeting at our local school. It was part of a larger program put on by the police to teach parents how to prevent their kids from using drugs when they get older.

My personal objective was to make it through the night without making any inappropriate jokes that would embarrass my wife. It was a narrow escape.

Let me tell you, there are some situations where it is physically painful to be me. There was one point in the program where I think I ruptured a spleen trying to keep the jokes in. It came during the module on methamphetamines.

A parent asked why anyone would take meth, given all the downside risk and side effects. One of the policemen answered that meth releases 50 times more serotonin in the brain than an orgasm. Then they showed a before and after picture that looked a lot like this one:

http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/DrugIssue/MethResources/faces/photo_8.html

So I’m sitting there, doing the calculations in my head: Okay, that’s 4.5 years of meth use, once a day, 365 days in a year, 50 times more serotonin than an orgasm…that’s the equivalent of 80,000 orgasms.

On the downside, your teeth rot out, your skin itches until you scratch it off, you vomit, have withdrawals, possibly burn down the neighborhood, and roll around in your own filth while your life becomes a living Hell. And there is the jail thing.

Still, 80,000 orgasms…

I wanted to raise my hand while the “before and after” pictures were up and ask, “Isn’t that what anyone would look like after 80,000 orgasms?”

Or maybe, “So, on balance, you’re saying it’s totally worth it? Or am I doing the math wrong?”

But I didn’t. I listened for two and a half hours and tried my best to avoid looking like I had any of the telltale symptoms of hardcore addiction the policemen kept describing. I’m highly suggestible, so this was difficult. When they talked about the uncontrollable fidgeting, I realized I was fidgeting. When they talked about red eyes, I felt as if all the moisture in mine had evaporated. When they talked about the teeth grinding, I had an uncontrollable impulse to grind mine. I took deep breaths and tried to meditate so my pulse wouldn’t be too high – a sure sign of ecstacy use. I don’t think I was alone. The audience looked like a warehouse of mannequins by the end of the night. No one wanted to be a conspicuous fidgeter.

Then there was the bad guessing. The policeman would hold up a bag of one sort of drug or another and ask if anyone knew how much it would cost. No one wanted to nail the estimate on the first guess and have the drug dogs tearing out the upholstery in their minivan five minutes later. I was planning my own bad estimates in case I got called on. It would have gone something like this: “That looks like about a pound of cocaine, so I’m guessing it would be worth nine or ten dollars on the street. Am I close?”

I managed to get through the night without embarrassing myself, and without getting strip searched. I even got a free cookie, which spiked my blood glucose level and gave me a mild high, but I couldn’t enjoy it.

Comments

[Oncoming Storm]

Near as I can tell from those pictures, the results of meth use are bad hair, zits, and a little weight loss. Apparently every teenager I ever saw must be on it. If the weight loss was more extreme, I'd consider it myself - you can cover up the zits with goop and who hasn't thought more sex was the perfect way to get skinny?

[J Jetzen]

I too, suffer from uncontrollable joke making at inapproiate times. The key is to surround yourself with people who are used to you doing that kind of thing.

[cph]

What kind of cookie?

[Dom]

The pictures show what people looked like before they went to jail (ahem rehabilitation service) and got hooked on drugs (see second photo).

Yup, how's than penal system working out for you guys?

[Billy Arvia]

Scott,

I admire your restraint. I often find myself in similar situations, weighing whether a comment is too inappropriate to share against it being too funny not to share. I usually go for the laugh. We once had a plant superintendent that was the 3rd superintendent in 10 months. His predecessors had both been hired and fired by "Bob", the plant manager. The super asked in a meeting if we realized how stupid it was to make the same mistake more than once. I piped in with "No, but Bob keeps trying to teach us." Did I mention that I no longer work there? It was still worth the laugh.

http://triplebee.squarespace.com/

[Ephriam]

So thats what, 8,000,000 "monkey god"s?

[Adam]

This isn't really pertinent to your post, but I would like to point out that the site that you linked to is FILLED with misinformation...having been a regular user (not abuser) since I was about 14 (23 now), their descriptions of the effects of many of those drugs are way off base...they talk about paranoia, depression, death, things like that (many of which are WAY off base) What about increased perception with regards to music? Or how about noticing things such as the way an ant walks, or maybe the way a cloud slowly shifts shape as it moves? You know, the kinds of things you normally would pay no attention to...the kinds of things that actually make life interesting and make you say to yourself, "Wow...I never noticed that before!"

What about the relaxation that things like weed provide (and many of you weed haters drink, so I don't want to hear a single word from you. Drinking your drug does not make you any better than me.) What about the spiritual discoveries that mushrooms can provide?

I agree, things like crack or heroin are just plain bad...but things like weed, shrooms...if anything, they have enhanced my life by giving me a better appreciation of my existence...they provide a perspective that would otherwise not be possible for you to see. They make me want to be a better person, to try harder at my job, to do good deeds towards others. They allow me to feel more connected to my fellow humans.

There is a massive difference between a drug USER and a drug ABUSER. I wish people would realize that.

[jakesdad]

or scaling the math down that equivalent to one every 1/2 hour though it sounds like you can't dose it that way - 50 appears to be the coefficient of a meth "photon" so to speak - sort of the "mythical man month" in reverse...

Scott - you could be on your way to a Nobel prize for this! physics has the electron volt (grams are sooo Newtonian...), toxicology has LD50 and now pleasure can have the "Adams" defined as something like mg serotonin release/kg body mass/s - sort of like calories for your brain...

[Bas]

Thanks. Very funny post.

[Ann]

Absolutely hilarious!

[Lumbergh]

Did either Cheech or Chong show up?

[Matt]

I know some people might be upset about the topic because, "This is a serious matter." However, I am glad you always look at life the way you do. It gives all of us a reminder to enjoy life and laugh.

"On the downside, your teeth rot out, your skin itches until you scratch it off, you vomit, have withdrawals, possibly burn down the neighborhood, and roll around in your own filth while your life becomes a living Hell. And there is the jail thing." - I bust a nut laughing today. It would make a great anti-drug commercial.

[Raskolnikov]

It's too bad the "after picture" of that woman doesn't show her with an extreme look of contented satisfaction and smoking an extra-large cigarette.

[James]

You advocate drug use! BOOOOO!!!

LOL

[James]

You advocate drug use. BOOOOO!!!

LOL

[Roger The Shrubber]

So tell us, was the cop a fat cop or a steroid freak?

[Michael]

Excellent!!!

So the message for kids is:
If you want to be as happy as anyone taking drugs, you have to do "it" A LOT!!!
They better start handing out condoms...

I am glad I could laugh out loud while reading the blog and looking at the meth-faces. One thing about those, though: None of them were that pretty to start with, so no wonder they got their orgasms chemically (to those splitting hairs: yes, I am aware that my "natural" orgasms are chemical reactions in my moist computer, too).

One last question: what's the point behind guessing how much drugs cost? isn't it well established that the price range is somewhere in the "expensive, because you use a lot"- range?

Now I#m hungry for my cookie: Mike

[Real Live Girl]

Any evening that ends without me embarrassing myself and/or avoiding a strip search is a success in my book. I would have enjoyed that free cookie. Maybe even another one!

[disabled]

80000 in 4.5 years eh?
I'll probably lose the use of my arms and walk funny,but I've got some catching up to do.
After all, it seems worth it, right?
Just that after adding this feat to my belt, there will probably be no one willing to shake my hands to congratulate me.

[WATYF]

I'm pretty sure the chick on those pictures doesn't look good in EITHER one. Are they sure she ever did meth? Maybe she was just having a bad hair day.

[T.G.]

I know the feeling too well, hehehehe.
Btw, I ever thought that if I were to die an slow and painful dead (cancer, etc) then better be drugged to top with something enjoyable, but seems if it gives you pleasure, not just sedation, it is sin, er ... I mean, againts the law.

[disabled]

80000 in 4.5 years eh?
I'll probably lose the use of my arms and walk funny,but I've got some catching up to do.
After all, it seems worth it, right?
Just that after adding this feat to my belt, there will probably be no one willing to shake my hands to congratulate me.

[Ripper]

I would have been exactly the same. I'm about 8 years away from these types of meetings.

[Andy Watt]

I love the pictures: they're so perfectly framed it's almost as if they volunteered for several thousand orgasms worth just to prove how bad it was for your complexion, hair etc. It's like the anti-loreal advert. Nice. Where's the little small print bit at the bottom that says "Tested on 100 smackheads, 70% agreed"?

Also - Mr A - the phrase "It was part of a larger program put on by the police to teach parents how to prevent their kids from using drugs when they get older." betrays the impotency of that approach. You can't prevent anything, that idea mandates you have control of the situation: parents do not have that kind of control. You have to make sure that someone's sense of self - their purpose, their ego, whatever - is strong enough that they can say "no" to anything they know will mess them up. In Monkey terms, the difference between right and wrong.

I know, people fall out of the bottom of society into hellish pits like this for different reasons, but if you fall this far your parents didn't arm you with everything you needed, I suspect...

[Kent McManigal]

The best sex I ever had was from a girl who was addicted to meth. So, added to the 80,000 drug related orgasms, the meth also facilitates sexual ones as well. Maybe I should call her.......