Excerpt: Guilty by Association

And life was such a beautiful thing. Beautiful when stoned. That was when there was peace, that was when everyone loved each other and we all knew things would be okay in the end. The world had a way of working things out and people just have to roll with it. That’s why I did it. I don’t mess with things like that. Life and shit. It was too complicated. It was so much easier to just stay out and watch what the rest of the world came up with. It was better like that.
My trip lasted satisfyingly long. They always were better when shot. Snorting was fun, smoking was social, but nothing beat getting in straight into the blood. It sounds gruesome. It sounds bad. It is. And I love it for that. I'm not going to deny that its messed up and I'm not normal. But when no one’s normal, isn’t that the new normal? The abnormality that overcome the world.
Drugs.
They ruined it. They ruined the perfect world and made it beautiful and messed up. They screwed people over. People like me. But I can’t stop. I could never stop. Because it’s taken my life, I won’t have anything left without it. It’s a sad circle.
To use is to escape. To escape it to forget. To forget is to lose. To lose is bliss. Bliss is to use. And so it goes on. Forever. Never ending. Because that was the beauty and horror of Zedifyx.
Sometimes I wished I hadn’t started, that I had just dealt with life’s crap and been straight. That was only when I was sober. When I was sober I was either wishing I were stoned or wishing I had never started using. That didn’t happen often though. Well… that was mostly because I usually wasn’t sober, but that doesn’t matter. I was glad I was using. It made life tolerable, less torturous, and more… accepting.
The people who used were accepting. They didn’t pressure. They didn’t force anyone. They always offered, because that was polite and you made friends that way. But they never made anyone. That would be pointless, and hurtful. We know better than to make people turn their lives into blissful shit. That’s not nice. But it’s a choice, and everybody had to make it eventually.
It was impossible do go without seeing someone high, or dealing, or using. Honestly, it happened too much. Sometime, someone would come up and ask if you wanted to join. You say yes or no. I said yes. I don’t regret it. But I’ll admit it wasn’t smart. I guess that makes me not smart. That’s that I guess.