The sun was coming up. Again. Not good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019d been up for three days on a bender. It was like a one-man bachelor party. To call me an addict is underselling it. I loved cocaine like Leo loved that chick in Titanic. Every night in my dreams \u2014 I see you, I feel you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I did lines so long I had to shuffle my feet just to finish. And the thing was \u2014 I was never finished until I didn\u2019t have any left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Somehow, I\u2019d gotten through two days of work at my hedge fund, but I knew I couldn\u2019t do a third. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I paced my Tribeca apartment, restless and raw, the city stretching out beyond my window. Porn, muted, played on my TV. I picked up my phone. Set it down. Did a line. Picked it up again to practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I tried to speak, but nothing resembling words came out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I tried again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I sounded like an alien after two Rosetta Stone lessons. I can\u2019t come to work today was the goal, but it felt like I had to assemble it in pieces \u2014 I can\u2019t\u2026 come to\u2026 work today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I knew there\u2019d be a response. Something I\u2019d have to answer. There was no way I could do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I set my phone down, watched porn, then emailed in sick. In 2003, on Wall Street, that was code for I partied too hard last night. I didn\u2019t care. I couldn\u2019t speak. My hands shook as I typed it and hit send.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My life had been held together by lies, half-truths, and omissions. Iceberg, right ahead. I knew the ship was going down \u2014 that part was inevitable \u2014 but maybe I could still grab a lifeboat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So\u2026 I did what every good addict does. I called my two-and-a-half drug dealers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not being able to speak didn\u2019t matter; it probably helped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First was Pierre. He was my guy. He delivered $100 bags of relatively pure coke. It made me jittery, which tells me there was some other shit in it, but it did the trick. He sometimes took over an hour though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then there was Bo. He sold $60s and fast. Not as good, but he delivered anytime \u2014 3 a.m., no problem; 2 p.m. office visit, piece of cake. He was my backup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then there was Eddie \u2014 my half-dealer. He wasn\u2019t a dealer at all. He was a sales trader I\u2019d trade stock with, and he\u2019d meet me after work for a handoff. Commission dollars for cocaine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each call was the same: Don\u2019t sell to me anymore. Under any circumstances. In a week I\u2019ll beg you to come over, but you need to cut me off. I\u2019m going to die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All three understood. All three wished me the best. Shockingly, they kept their word when I called them two weeks later. Who says there\u2019s no honor in drug dealing? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But here\u2019s the truth: I found cocaine in other ways. Cutting myself off didn\u2019t stop me. It delayed me. It inconvenienced me. It annoyed me. But it didn\u2019t stop me. And that\u2019s my point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everywhere I look \u2014 TV, X, the paper \u2014 it\u2019s all about blowing up Venezuelan boats to stop drugs and save lives. It\u2019s bullshit. America doesn\u2019t have a supply problem. We have a demand problem. Plain and simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m sure people will throw stones, so let me say this preemptively: in the history of drug users, no one has ever said, I really want to do cocaine tonight, but I can\u2019t find any, so I\u2019ll stay in and have a glass of wine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People don\u2019t do cocaine because it smells good. They do it because they want euphoria. And if they can\u2019t find cocaine, they\u2019ll find another way to get that feeling. And before anyone comes at me about fentanyl \u2014 I agree, it\u2019s killing people. But it\u2019s not coming from Venezuela. That\u2019s just a fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You don\u2019t stop addiction by blowing up boats or locking borders or making speeches. You stop it when the person who wants the drugs more than anything finally wants something else more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I know this isn\u2019t popular, but drugs don\u2019t pour into this country because dealers are evil geniuses. They come because people like me were buying them. If there\u2019s no demand, there\u2019s no profit. And if there\u2019s no profit, the drugs stop coming. Blaming the sellers is easier \u2014 it just doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If we actually want to help addicts, we should stop pretending the drugs are the problem and start dealing with the pain underneath them. That means making it easier to ask for help than it is to get high. It means treatment that\u2019s accessible, honest, and human. And it means creating a world where getting sober doesn\u2019t feel like stepping off a cliff with no net.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For me, it wasn\u2019t fear or law enforcement or supply chains. It was the slow realization that I was about to lose everything \u2014 and that no amount of cocaine was ever going to save me from myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can try to take away the drugs. You can\u2019t take away the desire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That part has to be dealt with face to face, in the mirror \u2014 usually at sunrise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The sun was coming up. Again. Not good. I\u2019d been up for three days on a bender. It was like a one-man bachelor party. To call me an addict is underselling it. I loved cocaine like Leo loved that chick in Titanic. Every night in my dreams \u2014 I see you, I feel you. I … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1539"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1540,"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539\/revisions\/1540"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}