Everything becomes orderly when seen from above. That’s why, whenever things were at their most chaotic in my life, I would always reach for a drink or a drug to get some perspective on what was happening. For me, these substances were the equivalent of air support. I could navigate even the densest and most dangerous areas of the jungle of my life, deal with any enemy I might encounter there, as long as I could call in the proper substances to lift me up and out of the situation when things got really tough.
Of course, the problem with that old air cavalry of drugs and alcohol was that – maddeningly – they only lifted me out of the jungle for a short time. Then – predictably, inexorably – the descent would begin. Like one of those coin-operated arcade cranes that grab a stuffed animal prize for a few brief seconds, substances always let go of me at just the point when I was starting to feel like I was really safe and out of the mess of my life at last.
Terms like “high” and “coming down” are so familiar that it’s easy to overlook just how correct -- how precisely descriptive -- they really are. Interestingly, the terms we use to describe what happens after the user moves past the initial rush of lucidity and vision that drugs and alcohol bring are also wonderfully concrete. The drug or alcohol user is now no longer simply high but “gone,” “wasted,” or “out of it.” They’re still out of the world, but not in the clear, orderly, and lucid way they were at first. Soon enough, we know, they will “crash.” That is, they’ll be right back down on the ground at the point where they started; only worse off – more beat-up, more disoriented, more demoralized -- than they were before.
I loved Warner Brothers cartoons when I was a kid. The Road Runner was my favorite, and whenever I watch one of these cartoons today, I can’t help but marvel at how familiar some of Wile E. Coyote’s antics are as he tries, time after fruitless time, to catch the Road Runner. It’s interesting to me, in particular, how many of the coyote’s purchases from the Acme Novelty Company have to do with getting him off the ground in one way or another. Rocket shoes, jet packs… All these items look brilliantly effective when the coyote first unpacks them. But inevitably, just as it appears like they are going to secure him a Road Runner dinner at last, these inventions sputter, cough, and conk out. Wile E. lingers there for a moment, looking at the camera with that woebegone, here-we-go-again expression of his. Then he plummets to earth.
Every drug I ever took, every bottle of alcohol I ever drank, might as well have come from the Acme Novelty Company. Each and every one of them promised to get me up and out, to confound the laws of gravity and land the Road Runner of clarity, happiness, and contentment in my hands at last.
And boy, some of them got me close. Indeed, there were moments when I actually had my hands around that damn bird’s neck. Then, every time, there would come that moment when the engine would give out, and I’d float, tumble, or plummet back down to earth. Right back to the exact spot where I started -- just a little more bruised and battered than when I'd left it.