New Year’s Day 1977. 16 years old. Sitting at a table at the sister of a friend’s house in Morgantown, West Virginia. A pile of white powder in front of me. The question:
“Do you want a bump, Brian? It will make you feel good.”
I was just offered my first line of cocaine. I had no idea what it was. I had never heard the word before. I had no idea what “a bump” meant. I looked at her, then over to my friend with a mixture of fear, ignorance, and anticipation of this previously unknown white powder. What I did know was this. Someone had taken interest in me. After years of bullying at school and fat shaming at home, someone wanted me to be part of a group. That it was a group with a common core of an illegal drug made no difference because of the other powerful drug in the room. The overwhelming need for acceptance. A feeling I longed for. In the mind of a fat, shy teenager who saw only rejection and shame in himself, those seemed like magic words. As I reached for the rolled 20-dollar bill handed to me, my friend, who was a year older than I was, grabbed my arm.
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“You don’t want to do that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s for grown-ups.”
I watched as everyone else, including my friend, took their snorting lines off a glass coffee table littered with Rolling Rock beer cans and marijuana residue. I saw the change in their demeanor. They were who I wanted to be. I was, however, excluded once again. I was rejected. I was not cool enough to do that white powder that would make me “feel good.” I felt ashamed that I did not get to do a line of cocaine, a word I had never heard before that moment. It would be 10 more years before I would ever see that white powder again.
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Summer 1987. My second year in Dallas, Texas. Hanging out at the bar in a downtown Dallas hotel on a Friday night. Still trying to fit in. Still wanting that acceptance. Still wanting to “feel good.” As usual, feeling completely alone and isolated in a crowded bar. Quiet and projecting that 13-year-old fat little boy in the mind of every man and woman I made eye contact with. They knew who I really was. I hated being there. Out of the blue, my friend asked me if I had ever done cocaine. I flashed back to Morgantown, West Virginia. Those words spoken to me 10 years earlier.
“It will make you feel good.”
I wanted to feel good. I had felt like a loser my entire life to that point. I took the baggie and went into a bathroom stall where I would be able to snort my first line of cocaine in my life in privacy. Within seconds, I was in heaven. I was suddenly the most handsome guy in the club. I saw a confident, chiseled image in the bathroom mirror. Mirrors had been my enemy for so many years. I had to see that person again. Within moments, I had discovered the magic trick I needed to instantly transform myself from monster to man. I now knew the secret to defeating the shame of self. Cocaine was the answer.
That incredible high changed my brain process both biologically and psychologically. The cycle was complete. There was no self-awareness as a person and no peer group as a balance. That is how addicts function. I had become an addict. I couldn’t stop. I had no desire to stop.
Cocaine became a routine part of my life, like washing my socks. I was very aware of the illegality of the substance, but like most addicts, I rarely thought about the consequences. I rarely thought about the damage I was inflicting on myself or the possibility of tragically affecting the lives of others often driving both drunk and high. A DWI in 1991 was merely a blip in the guilt and momentary self-awareness that criminal legal proceedings often bring.
At one time, a fairly high-functioning addict, the two worlds now crashing down around me. Doing it the bathroom every morning at the law firm where I worked. Before I walked into a courtroom. Cocaine chasers in the morning after an all-night binge. Leaving work to pop a black market Xanax or Ambien to sleep it off. Do it all over again.
July 2005. I sit in the intake room of Green Oaks Hospital after putting a .45 automatic in my mouth. Thinking back to that hot summer evening in the in the bathroom, doing my first “bump.” Thinking back to Morgantown, West Virginia. The multiple thousands of dollars spent on cocaine. The wasted years of just surviving. The damage to my body. The “cocaine friends” who were in prison. The ones who were dead through overdosing or suicide. I am lucky that I am alive. I try hard to figure out where the fun part was. When I really “felt good.” It’s not coming to me. Wondering, am I an addict?
Brian Cuban (@bcuban) is The Addicted Lawyer. Brian is the author of the Amazon best-selling book, The Addicted Lawyer: Tales Of The Bar, Booze, Blow & Redemption (affiliate link). A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, he somehow made it through as an alcoholic then added cocaine to his résumé as a practicing attorney. He went into recovery April 8, 2007. He left the practice of law and now writes and speaks on recovery topics, not only for the legal profession, but on recovery in general. He can be reached at [email protected].