By Gene Christian
To give up or to not give up, that’s the query. It appears pretty much as good a time as any to give up, not less than right here in New York Metropolis. There’s a brand new sheriff on the town, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who rose to energy partly on his sworn pledge to “rid the streets of medicine.” Now take that pledge and filter it by means of one of the crucial corrupt police forces within the nation, and you’ve got a scaled-down model of the Reagan/Bush Warfare On Medication of a pair years again: Cocaine and heroin stay protected by organized crime, whereas it’s open season in your pleasant neighborhood pot-smoker. Weed costs soar by means of the roof and coke and dope are cheaper and purer than ever. I imply actually, when was the final time New York skilled a “heroin drought”?
And certain sufficient, precisely at some point earlier than beginning this text, I ventured over to the Meadow in Central Park searching for a dime bag after I was approached by a six-and-ahalf-foot Irish vendor with pink hair and a handle-bar mustache saying, “Buds, dude?” About 50 toes in entrance of me, poorly hidden behind a patch of bushes, was a blue and white paddy wagon stuffed with cops ready for the second they may haul my ass over to Rikers and throw me in a cell with that loopy Jamaican motherfucker who shot up the LIRR some months again.
I checked out my “vendor” and mentioned, “Not in the present day copper, I ain’t your Willie Horton!”
It appears all people I do know has tried to give up at one level or one other, with assorted levels of success. And I suppose it’s good to know you are able to do it if you need to. Who is aware of? Possibly sometime I’ll wish to be a part of the LAPD and need to cross a urine check earlier than I’m given free license to beat passing motorists with impunity. The issue I used to be confronted with upon accepting this project was I simply didn’t wish to give up. I imply, HIGH TIMES asking me to secretly infiltrate Potsmokers Nameless and bear a treatment is sort of like Kirk asking Scotty to beam aboard a Klingon ship and go native. I had this picture of them asking me why I needed to give up smoking pot and me answering, “As a result of it makes my mouth dry….”
I had by no means been to a rehabilitation assembly of any variety, so I used to be totally unprepared for what was in retailer for me. I felt no disgrace for my indulgences and I half imagined myself bursting in on the assembly—making a grand entrance, maybe a working leap by means of the air that culminated in a slide that prolonged midway throughout the room, after which I might proudly rise to my toes and say, “My title is Gene Christian and I’m a pot-smoker!”
Potsmokers Nameless’ open-house conferences are held each Wednesday night at 6:15 PM on the East Manhattan College for Vivid and Gifted Youngsters, situated at 208 East 18th St. in Manhattan. The primary issues to hit you when you stroll inside are the blinding fluorescent lights and soiled yellow partitions which can be par for the course at any New York Metropolis academic facility. Strolling by means of the hallway, observing scrawled artwork tasks on the partitions, you start to assume that one thing’s not fairly proper. Then you definitely come to the room the place the conferences are held—a nursery faculty playroom.
It was the vacation season and adorning the partitions in obscene combos of pink, white and inexperienced had been the kids’s personal fingerpainted vacation portraits—Santa Claus standing in a inexperienced snowstorm with what gave the impression to be an ax protruding of his head and a sled pulled by a random forged of pit bulls and wild boars. Subsequent to it was a extra impressionistic piece, a preschool depiction of both a Christmas tree or the right-hand panel of Bosch’s “Backyard of Earthly Delights.” All colours had been swirled and blended to type one main colour—a muddy purple-black. Collectively all of the items would have made a high-quality coffee-table guide referred to as It’s a Rorschach Christmas.
I used to be clearly too stoned to be in such an setting. Figuring that this was solely the open home, and that my rehabilitation hadn’t “formally” begun, I’d acquired myself good and blunted beforehand. Now I used to be paying the worth. Different potential “quitters” began taking seats within the aluminum chairs organized in a semicircle within the heart of the room. Quickly Francis Duffy, director of Potsmokers Nameless, launched himself.
Potsmokers Nameless was based in New York Metropolis in June 1978 by psychotherapist Dr. David Izenzon, as a nonprofit academic program devoted to liberating folks from the insidious grip of marijuana, “the drug that quietly undoes your life.” He developed a nine-week course by which pot-smokers had been to progressively lower their utilization whereas growing “emotional recognition expertise.” The nice physician has since handed on and it’s now directed by Francis Duffy, himself a graduate of this system.
“It’s the nature of pot to subdue your processing of emotions,” says Francis Duffy to the group. “It’s an emotional anesthetic. When was the final time you had been really offended? Joyful? Unhappy? It’s not possible to guide an emotionally fulfilling life and nonetheless smoke pot…it involves the purpose the place you need to ask your self, ‘Am I smoking pot or is pot smoking me?’”
The group itself consisted of seven folks, largely yuppie-career varieties who had simply gotten off work. Notable exceptions had been a hybrid Deadhead/grunge-rocker who appeared about as stoned as I used to be, and one lady dressed within the Decrease East Aspect’s most interesting: ripped denims, Doc Martens and a humorous hat.
We got the “5 Hazard Indicators” of pot dependency:
1. Nervousness when the provision runs low
2. Forgetfulness
3. Fatigue
4. The “Sure, however…” syndrome (…sure, however I can cease anytime I need…sure, however it’s higher than consuming alcohol or respiration polluted air, and so on…)
5. The Amotivational Syndrome
The Amotivational Syndrome was by far probably the most insidious symptom of pot-smoking, defined Mr. Duffy. “It’s the ‘hidden price ticket’…the all-encompassing but invisible inertia within the face of life.”
I used to be responsible of most, if not all the hazard indicators. I began questioning, is it doable? Do I’ve an issue? Is there such a factor as an excessive amount of marijuana? I assumed again to after I was in faculty, dwelling subsequent to 2 Deadheads. Between them they should have had 700 Lifeless tapes and all I ever bear in mind them doing is smoking weed, consuming Ben and Jerry’s and staring for hours at Deadbase IV, as if hidden inside its pages someplace was the key of the universe. “It’ll by no means occur to me,” I mentioned, however who is aware of what that foul bitch Destiny has in retailer for me?
After the introduction, we had been informed that teams would meet in two weeks’ time and would price a whopping $40 a session.
“It’s solely 1 / 4 of what you’d spend every week on weed,” mentioned Francis Duffy, and I puzzled simply the place the hell he acquired that determine. “It’s costly, however consider all the cash you’ll save when you give up smoking.”
“Mr. Duffy?” I mentioned, moved to talk.
“Sure?”
“How about if we simply undergo the course and pay upon profitable rehabilitation?”
His shrill chortle informed me it was going to be a protracted 9 weeks.
Two weeks later I used to be killing time earlier than my first assembly by making an attempt to smoke up the remainder of my stash whereas flipping between GeraIdo and Donahue. Geraldo’s matter of the afternoon was “KKK Children—Youngsters Too Younger to Hate,” and Donahue had a panel of crackheads—three black, one white. What I actually wished was for each panels to be on the identical present and for Phil and Geraldo at hand out flame-throwers. That would definitely ignite that good ol’ American car-crash bloodlust. Colostomy baggage from right here to Miami would start to fill with heat, brown worry and we might all really feel just a little bit higher about draining the life financial savings on our new residence alarm system.
It appeared to me a foul omen. By some means I knew that when I left my house, I might even be abandoning the flexibility to entertain myself on the misfortunes of others.
Assembled as soon as once more within the nursery room, I used to be stunned to seek out that solely three different “abusers” other than myself had proven up for the assembly. Our counselor Ivan launched himself. Ivan had been by means of this system itself and had been so impressed he determined to bear the six-month coaching program supervised by Francis Duffy to qualify as a counselor. He gave the impression to be about 40, dressed casually in denims and a t-shirt. When he informed us he was a salesman in the course of the day, I puzzled if it wouldn’t have been wiser for me to save lots of myself the $40 charge and go take my troubles throughout the road to one of many guys at The Wiz.
Ivan defined that he had began smoking weed in faculty and had frequently smoked for 10 years, typically dealing to be able to pay for his behavior. Sooner or later he realized he had an issue. “I needed to get married, and my fiancee was fearful that I smoked an excessive amount of pot. She needed me to go have my lungs and my sperm checked by a health care provider. Nicely, I got here again from the physician with some distressing information…. He mentioned my sperm had been ‘sluggish.’ ” Personally, I couldn’t see what Ivan was complaining about—if something, I’d like to coach my sperm to retreat. “I used to be actually upset and the physician informed me I used to be smoking an excessive amount of pot….”
Okay. Now I’ve a confession to make.
I’ve by no means informed anyone this, however I really feel that to ensure that me to provide an trustworthy account of my expertise, it have to be revealed. It’s one thing that occurs to me after I discover myself in ugly, boring scenes like this—on the bus or subway, on line at Motor Automobiles—I go searching, discover probably the most enticing lady within the room, and lose myself in carnal fantasy. On the floor, this doesn’t sound unusual in any respect. It’s whenever you’re caught in conditions the place actually, there’s nobody even remotely enticing and also you begin daydreaming about your self and a 200-pound waitress with a spot between her tooth you may match a dime by means of, that it enters the realm of the weird.
I discovered my attentions drifting over in direction of a barely chubby blonde wearing yuppie apparel—blue skirt, stockings and the compulsory post-work sneakers. Save for her wandering eye, she wasn’t all that dangerous. She appeared like the sort who 15 years in the past used to hang around within the parking zone of White Fort consuming beer, smoking weed and listening to Black Sabbath. And after 10 minutes of Ivan and his torpid sperm, I didn’t care whether or not her eye packed up and moved to Acapulco. I began imagining myself and her up within the rafters at a Blue Oyster Cult live performance at Nassau Coliseum circa 1975, smoking a joint the dimensions of a banana and dreaming about promenade evening.
“The excellent news is,” Ivan continued, “since I give up smoking, MY SPERM’S OKAY!” Each fists raised triumphantly towards the sky in procreative glee.
Subsequent, Ivan handed every of us a stack of index playing cards. On every card was written a motive for smoking pot. We had been instructed to decide on the playing cards that utilized to our specific state of affairs. As soon as completed, Ivan referred to as upon us to inform just a little about ourselves and reveal our playing cards to the group.
First to go was Scott, the Deadhead/grungerocker from the open home. Weed had misplaced its magic for Scott. Recently, each joint he smoked left him with a heavy dose of The Concern. “It was just like the music goes,” he defined. “‘Taking place the highway, feelin’ dangerous….’” His grades had been dropping and he figured if he didn’t quit smoking and hit the books, his dad was going to yank him out of New York College and get him a job as a realtor. He was discovering it tough to give up as a result of he was in a band stuffed with pot-smokers. Among the many playing cards he had chosen from the pile was one labeled “Pot makes music higher.”
“The factor you should bear in mind,” defined Ivan, “is that when you find yourself underneath the affect of a drug, how will you ensure it’s higher?”
“I dunno,” shrugged Scott. “All my favourite bands did medicine—Hendrix, Zeppelin, the Stones, Aerosmith….”
“Yeah, however Hendrix is useless, so are a number of the guys from the Stones and Zeppelin. Aerosmith, then again, are clear and sober and so they’re soundin’ higher than ever….”
It was proper about there that Ivan misplaced any distant hint of credibility with me. I imply, anyone who would put Get a Grip above Rocks or Toys Within the Attic had nothing to show me.
Subsequent was Chuck. Chuck was tall and thin and dressed well in a company go well with and tie. He defined that years again, he had fallen in with the incorrect crowd in school, and after having not too long ago misplaced his job, all he needed to do now was piece himself collectively sufficient to get a job at Chemical Financial institution and overlook about weed altogether. Pot was a handicap within the rat race. He held up his varied playing cards, the 2 most notable being, “Pot helps me tolerate being handled like a moron” and “I’m 40 years previous and I nonetheless hang around with youngsters.”
My blonde blushed when her flip got here.
“My title’s Barbara and uh…l have numerous playing cards….” One after the opposite, she held them up—”Pot makes TV higher,” “Pot makes intercourse higher,” “I can’t go to the films with out getting stoned,” “Pot helps me cope with my mother and father,” “Pot places me in contact with my emotions….”
“Jeez,” she mentioned coyly in a Brooklyn accent. “I’m so embarrassed.”
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” mentioned Ivan. “We’re all right here for a similar causes…and at last, your title is?”
“Uh….” It took a second to comprehend that he was speaking to me, I used to be nonetheless fairly excessive. “Yeah, uh…my title’s Gene.”
“Any playing cards, Gene?”
I appeared down at my pile of playing cards and as a substitute of holding all of them up, I select the one which I felt greatest described my state of affairs: “Pot is my lifestyle.”
“Hmmm….” Ivan mentioned, writing one thing down on a observe pad. “Let me ask you, Gene, do you do different medicine?”
“Whattaya imply?”
“Nicely, do you drink?”
“Nicely yeah, doesn’t all people?”
“Uh…no. Acid, mushrooms?”
“I’ve…”
“Coke?”
“Are you shopping for?”
Ivan began writing furiously on his pad because the others sort of stared at me and all of the sudden my operate on this group got here clear to me. I used to be the management experiment, the problem. I felt like one in every of Geraldo’s daytime-TV patsies. Nobody within the group needed to say it, I might learn it on their faces loud and clear: “Hell, not less than I ain’t THAT dangerous….”
Concluding the assembly, Ivan gave us our “homework” for the week. This comprised largely of a sequence of calculations. He needed to know:
1. The sum of money we spend yearly on weed; 2. Any lack of earnings resulting from smoking weed; 3. Time “misplaced” per day stoned; and 4. The variety of tokes we soak up a given day.
The “toke rely” is the official measurement of pot consumption utilized by Potsmokers Nameless.
It’s how progress is measured, very like the “physique counts” of the Vietnam Warfare. Ivan instructed what he referred to as the “toke and stroke” technique whereby the smoker, upon each toke, was to notice it with the stroke of a pen on paper.
“However what if we’re smoking with different folks in a social state of affairs?” I requested. “If I begin writing issues down on a bit of paper, they’re gonna assume I’m a narc.”
“Nobody mentioned quitting was going to be simple, Gene.”
As we sat in our semicircle the subsequent week, Ivan greeted us all cheerfully and mentioned, “Welcome to week two—the start of our journey to consciousness.”
Going across the room, all of us gave our knowledge to Ivan. The sum of money spent yearly on weed by every of us assorted from $800 (Chuck) to an awesome $5,000 (Barbara). Barbara’s face went pink once more as she revealed the sum to us. The one one in every of us who figured that they had misplaced any earnings was Chuck as a result of he was presently unemployed. The time “misplaced” being stoned averaged from eight to 16 hours a day and our toke counts ranged drastically from 10 (Chuck) to 57 (Barbara).
Once I informed Ivan that my toke rely of 20 a day was principally a guess, he acquired just a little pissed.
“Gene, you need to think about this system and use the instruments I offer you. If I say toke and stroke, I imply toke and stroke! No exceptions!”
With my chastisement out of the best way, Ivan went on to clarify as soon as once more that after we are stoned, we’re unaware of our true emotions. He believed the rationale we had been smoking pot was as a result of we had been unable to face sure feelings.
“I don’t assume I agree with that,” Barbara mentioned, beating me to it. “I discover after I smoke pot, my emotions are if something, stronger….”
“And I’m sorry, Ivan,” I mentioned, “however I don’t assume ‘Dwelling on the Edge’ is wherever close to pretty much as good as ‘Again within the Saddle.’”
“Huh? Guys, guys…let me make my level, then I’ll reply your questions…. Now, we at Potsmokers Nameless have provide you with a system that can assist you to come to phrases with the emotions that you’ve been denying your self whereas stoned.” With that he handed us every just a little chart. Throughout the highest of the chart a 24-hour time interval was divided into 4 six-hour sections, and down the aspect was written the phrases Concern, Anger, Love and Ache. “Your whole feelings might be divided into one in every of these 4 classes. What we wish you to do is, all through your day, when you find yourself feeling one in every of these feelings, mark it on the chart. We name this the FLAP system. In case you are feeling good, pleased, I need you to FLAP Love. If you happen to’re pissed off at your boss, don’t let it get the most effective of you—simply FLAP anger. If you happen to’re nervous, I need you to FLAP Concern. Received it? I can’t inform you what FLAP-ing has performed for my life, the way it has put me in contact with emotions I by no means knew I had.”
We did some apply FLAP-ing the place he learn us a narrative about (of all issues) Popeye and Olive Oyl being harassed by Brutus. We had been to FLAP what feelings we thought Popeye was going by means of at any specific second. All of the whereas I stored pondering to myself that FLAP-ing gave the impression of one thing I’d do after consuming an excessive amount of Mexican meals.
Our homework for the subsequent week was to FLAP diligently, day by day. We had been additionally to cut back our toke counts by three a day and to institute what Ivan referred to as the “ten-minute rule.” This meant we had been to attend 10 minutes earlier than smoking and ponder whether or not it’s one thing we actually wish to be doing.
“Hey Ivan,” I requested. “How about if I hold my toke rely the identical, however I change from Form to business?”
“Nothin’ doing. And I need you all, if you happen to assume you’re going to surpass your toke rely, to name me first. Okay? And Gene—no guessing this time! And don’t overlook to FLAP!”
I reached my toke rely with a number of the HIGH TIMES crew in entrance of the No-Inform Motel down on Avenue A about one hour after leaving the assembly. I figured that, because it took about 10 minutes to roll the joint, I used to be nonetheless doing okay in that division. However after I lastly started refusing my flip on the joint, all people began giving me unusual seems to be. I informed them I’d reached my toke rely and so they began calling me a light-weight. Then somebody instructed I name Ivan up and see if he’d let me borrow some tokes from subsequent week’s rely. It appeared cheap sufficient.
“Hiya Ivan? That is Gene from P.A. I referred to as to inform you I’m goin’ over.”
“Wait a second, Gene. Let’s speak this out…”
“I’m as much as my restrict however my associates right here acquired a joint and it’s starin’ at me like a goddamn hungry vulture. I’m FLAP-ing some fairly severe Ache. You gotta let me blow one on credit score, Ivan.”
“Did you do the toke and stroke?”
“Ah… no.”
“, Gene. I can’t assist you to if you happen to don’t think about the strategies of this system. , typically I get the impression that you simply don’t wish to give up.”
“My associates are calling me a ‘light-weight,’ Ivan. There’s a small matter right here of my fame to uphold.”
“Nicely in the event that they’re saying that, Gene, perhaps they aren’t your pals.”
We each agreed that perhaps I ought to begin taking this system extra severely. We made an settlement to talk privately after subsequent week’s class.
The next week, when it got here time to begin the assembly, the one individuals who confirmed had been myself and Chuck. Barbara and Scott should have bailed, and Ivan was working late. I requested Chuck whether or not he thought the course was serving to him. He shrugged his shoulders and informed me he didn’t know what else to do. We each agreed that we didn’t discover the course outstanding sufficient to justify the $40 every week expense.
I informed Chuck that I had heard a few free 12-step program referred to as Marijuana Nameless that was assembly in an hour over on the Fourteenth Avenue Workshop and we each grabbed our coats and agreed to satisfy there. As I left the constructing, I sadly mused upon the truth that me and Barbara would in all probability by no means see one another once more.
Later, on the 12-step program, I sat within the brightly lit, olive-drab room and listened to the tales. In a gaggle of 9 folks, I used to be the one one who held my tongue. Individuals talked of cash and associates misplaced resulting from medicine and alcohol—of time wasted and alternatives misplaced.
Some spoke of The Concern—of being stoned in a room and imagining that every one eyes had been targeted upon them in judgment. One man even informed the story about how one evening he was rushed to the emergency room as a result of he had a roach caught in his ear. He was saving it there for later, he defined.
Every story appeared tinged with a small dose of self-loathing. All people shook their heads solemnly with every story of woe and thanked one another for having the braveness to talk up. Some had been sober now for 2 weeks, others two years and for that I too congratulated them. Some had been pleased, even happy and who was I to take that from them? The reality is, although, as I sat there, all I might take into consideration was how the hell I might get out of there with out hurting anyone’s emotions. I used to be feeling stressed and I needed a beer. This wasn’t my scene, not but not less than.
“Now allow us to be a part of our palms in prayer,” mentioned the moderator. Earlier than I knew it, I used to be becoming a member of palms within the heart of the room with all of the others as they recited the “Serenity Prayer.”
“God, grant me the serenity to simply accept the issues I can’t change, the braveness to alter the issues I can and the knowledge to know the distinction.”
With that completed, everybody launched themselves to me, welcomed me to the group, even commented that they preferred my apparel. Chuck grabbed my hand and shook it and mentioned, “I can’t thanks sufficient, Gene, for telling me about this place.”
I walked out of the assembly feeling as if I had simply witnessed one thing I wasn’t meant to see, like I had simply stolen a peek up my mom’s skirt or one thing. By the exit doorways, I handed a 300-pound Hispanic lady with an inoculation scar that upon first look was the spitting picture of Richard Nixon. On the telephone she mentioned, “Come decide me up, Tony, I simply got here from the Messy Condominium assembly….”
I hit Fourteenth Avenue, zipped into the closest Irish bar and ordered a pint of Guinness in an effort to recuperate from the extreme bummer I’d simply been by means of.
It wasn’t too chilly out that evening and I figured perhaps after I left the bar, I’d take a stroll up Broadway, smoke myself a spliff and bug out on the lights and faces, Rudy Giuliani be damned. And after I hit Instances Sq., who is aware of? Possibly I’d seize myself a 40-ounce Loopy Horse and drink it out of a brown paper bag so nobody on the Doo-Wop would assume I’m from Connecticut.
It’s the American in me that drives me on—the frontiersman, if you’ll. The gold rush has lengthy since died and Teddy Roosevelt is now only a title in a historical past guide. What’s left to fill that void? I’m an Evel Knievel man myself. Typically you’ve acquired to create your individual journey. What’s incorrect with making an attempt to seize just a little glory by hurling your self into probably suicidal conditions and proving to your self and the world which you can make it on guts and intuition alone? And if I get up tomorrow in some low-cost lodge making an attempt desperately to take away the roach caught in my ear as some 300-pound crack whore snores away subsequent to me in a malt liquor-induced coma, I received’t despair. I’ll merely settle for if as a factor of my very own doing, the identical means that Custer needed to settle for, for that temporary second, that that arrow protruding of his coronary heart was his personal rattling fault.
Learn the total situation right here.