Kewlb

Hey All,

I have not had time to professionally edit this yet. I had about 10-15 minutes of spare time earlier and just started writing. I would really appreciate some feedback.


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“Sure, why not” these are the words James would later regret saying for quite some time. You see, James was once a very promising new attorney at a prestigious local law firm. The story of James fall from grace is certainly nothing new, but certainly a story worth sharing. James grew up in a well-to-do family his father being a lawyer and his mother being a psychiatrist. It always amused James when his father would angrily lecture him after he did something wrong and his mother would turn around and say the exact same thing, but in a way that would always stick with him. His family never had any problems with addiction and his parents ruled with iron tongues.

James completed high school with a modest 3.2 GPA and headed off for the freedom that was college. James studied hard and tried his best to integrate his partying in such a way that it did not affect his studies. He engaged in the standard college drunken parties; however he never let his recreational life infringe upon his studies. All of his hard work paid off, James graduated with a Doctorate of Jurisprudence and got married to his long time girlfriend.

James worked tirelessly day and night to get to a point in his career where he was doing better than 90% of the people his age. James took great satisfaction in knowing this and started to reward himself with experiences he missed out on in college. One day, James wife suggested they acquire some pot to smoke for the 4th of July. James made contact with one of his friends and picked up ½ an oz of white trichomes coated headies. This was an evening that James had certainly missed in the past and soon the smoking would be a daily thing.

One would normally think this is where things would start go do down hill; however you would be quite over par if you thought this. Smoking pot was something that helped James immensely. James and his wife argued quite a bit due to the stress from his job that was often released in the form of verbally induced mental beat downs aimed at his wife. When James started smoking pot in the evenings he was more relaxed and talkative thus his relationship with his wife started to thrive. The pot smoking never got in the way of his job or his personal life so James started wondering what other substances his parents, the media, and the word in general had outright lied about.

James decided that since pot was so demonized yet was less debilitating and harmful as the legal intoxicant alcohol that he should give other substances a try. James approached every substance he tried with careful research and due-diligence. James already knew that he enjoyed opiates and the potential for addiction was there so he ruled out any form of opiates right away. The drugs that always intrigued him were psychedelics so he decided they would be his next experience.
After weeks of online research James ordered a research chemical known as 2-CI from an internet website. When the envelope containing the brownish-white powder arrived James carefully measured the doses in a 1:1 alcohol mixture which was shared between himself and his wife. The experience was unlike anything else he had experienced with almost no negative effects. James went on to try out several other psychedelics approaching each one with the same scrutiny as the first. He, not even once, had a bad experience and was always able to take some kind of positive realization from each experience.

One day, one of James friends came over and brought some cocaine. “Hey” said Brent, “I have some coke if you are interested in trying it.” “Sure, why not” said James. A small baggie about 1/16th an ounce was emptied onto a medium sized mirror. A razor blade brandished and the chunks of coke broken down into tiny granules. “Lick your finger, get some coke on it, and rub it in your mouth” said Brent. James took his index finger into his mouth getting it wet and proceeded to poke the glass which transferred some of the coke from the glass to his finger and then into his mouth. In three minutes, James mouth was completely numb and he also had a slight burst of energy. James was a bit apprehensive about snorting the coke since he had never put anything up his nose before; however society in general had been wrong about every drug thus far so what was the harm in trying it once.

Brent broke down a small line, one that would be considered a bump to most people, and handed a hollowed out pen to James. The pen was placed in James’ right nostril and with a quick snort the line disappeared. The taste was rather chemically and soon it began to drip into the back of James’ throat. James proceeded to insufflate 3-4 more small sized lines in the next 2 hours, not a heavy coke session by any means. James concluded that coke was overrated and certainly not that fun.

As a week or two passed James felt that he had cheated himself out of his coke experience by only doing a few small lines while the rest of his friends snorted what they called gator tails all night long. With this in mind, James proceeds to purchase 2 grams from a friend so he and his wife could do it together. This time there was little hesitation from James as he snorted the newly broken down regular sized line of coke. The feeling he obtained from what most would call a normal sized line was quite different then the feeling he obtained from the small amount he did last time. James and his wife enjoyed about .5g of the coke and saved the rest for a later date. James wondered why coke had such a bad stigma as there really was not much of a comedown and he did not seem to have any physical cravings for it at all.

The 2 grams that James purchase lasted about 2 weeks which cost a little less than the ½ oz of pot that he often went through during the same time period. James decided that if 2 grams lasted for a bit over 2 weeks then he could easily afford to keep an 8-ball or 1/8th an ounce (3.5 grams) around the house. An 8-ball was purchased and lasted the couple about a month. James still felt there was not much addictive potential to it, at least for him; however he did realize that he went from hating it to liking it almost spontaneously. He, however, knew that he was smart and was fully in control of the situation. James, in an effort to prove he was fully in control, even went 2 months without purchasing any of it and hardly ever thinking about it. He would get the occasional sniff where he smelled and or tasted coke, but it was not something that was bothersome. Deciding to reward himself for proving his own willpower, James started to purchase his monthly ball.

It was not long before the weekend night thing turned into an every few night thing which in turn became an every night thing. A lot of James’ friends knew he had coke and as such would come over constantly to hang out as well as purchase small amounts from him. It was not long before James was cutting and selling his own coke not because he needed the money, but because it was something he enjoyed doing. It now seemed that coke had fully replaced pot for James. The replacement of a stress reliever to a stress inducer lead to a rekindling of the verbal and mental abuse James put his wife through. It was not long before James and his wife were divorced, yet she still spent quite a lot of time at his house hanging out with his friends.

James was now going through an 8-ball per day and selling about 20 times that. Due to the slight mental change and added stress the drug had on James, he was no longer a fully functional partner at the law firm. If there is one thing lawyers hate it would be loss of money and with that in mind it was agreed that James would take a break from the law firm. The break from the law firm did not phase James too much as he was making more than enough money to support himself via his dealings.

The constant influx of people coming and going from James’ house in a prominent neighborhood did not go unnoticed by neighbors and the inevitable happened. It was about 9pm and there was a loud knock at the front door of James’ house. “It is the police” said the knockers “we have a search warrant, open up.” James, with sort of a sigh of relief, opened up the doors as 5 uniformed officers walked into the house. The officers found exactly what they were looking for and led James out of the house in handcuffs.

The trial was a short one with Derek pleading guilty and the state ridding him of almost all of his worldly positions and 5 years of his freedom. James, who once thought he had everything under control, slowly let a lackluster substance take control and lead to the ultimate destruction of his life by the legal system he once served.

pualdo

This feels a bit like an after-school-special to me. It almost seems like it was written with a generic anti-drug-story outline, filling in the blanks. The only thing to distinguish this from other anti-drug stories is the minor variation in backstory and the minor variation in the job he eventually loses. I think this could be a lot better if you add some little flourishes, and maybe bend some of the conventions of the genre, or maybe flesh it out with more layers, so that we can see James' life from some other perspective. Otherwise, this story is just a slight variation on a formula that we don't even need to read because we already have it stored in our head from repeatedly hearing it.

hope to read the rewritten version though.

Kewlb

Thanks for the feedback. It seems most of my writings and or stories are very pro-drug and I wanted to take the time to write one that also shows the bad side. I took the story from my own personal views of how I think something like this could go, even for someone who thinks they have control of everything (this would be MY story if I actually let it get that far -- fortunantly it never went past the 2nd time)

I will certainly re-write this story and will try to make it stand out more.