Only Having Fun
I’m Jason and want you all to know that I don’t do drugs any more – though sometimes I get the most immense cravings that seem to come up from nowhere – no way will I ever use again. Well yeah, I do drink alcohol. But that’s not the same. Drugs – well, drugs are different to alcohol.
So, what’s brought this on – this abstinence – this holier than thou not doing drugs again – when I know you all are still using – and pretty happy to do it – just the same.
I don’t know how you can – and if you do, then why, what was Jimmy’s life for then – if not to show us that coke is not a fun drug at all – in fact totally evil. It took Jimmy’s life. And that’s the plain fact that I have to go by.
At the funeral, I didn’t go back for the wake – I didn’t want to be there – I went right up to Jimmy’s Mom – looked into her empty eyes – I said – I want you to know that Jimmy’s life isn’t wasted, from now on I’m staying clean, not using any more – please, don’t blame us, you know we never meant anything bad to happen – we were only having fun.
She held me in her arms a while until someone came and gently walked her away. I looked at Jimmy’s father in the distance but could not think how to approach him at all, so I let it go.
Somehow it made things seem all the worse, as he was their only son.
Jimmy had been so full of life, the first to take a risk – if you’d thought he would die early you’d have thought that it would be coming off his bike, freezing to death on a mountain, or drowning in the lake. But not to be that way, it was that Jimmy hung himself – suffering from depression they said. I hadn’t noticed that. How could it be depression, it must have been the drugs.
The night he died he hadn’t used, so that’s a complication – but he’d been down with us at the bar, and downed a pint or two – well yeah, maybe six or eight, but that’s nothing over an evening, and nothing unusual for Jimmy any night of the week.
So, about this depression, I don’t really know – we’re all under pressure here – the student life seems easy to some – but that’s not how it feels. You can get as stoned or as drunk as you like but it never goes away – you’ve got to study, you’ve got to pass – a lot of money has been spent – you can’t let people down – you’ve got this huge expectation of you, that you got to fill.
Coke was different, it was clean, not like alcohol – it got me reliably high as a kite – right out of it, above it all for a while. And all of us thought it was great to party on weekends – including Jimmy. Josh got it for us cheap, he said he had a friend.
No, I never knew that Jimmy was depressed. His mother at the inquest testified that he called up home sometimes, said he wanted a break, it was getting all too much – but his mother had said how he might as well see out the year – the fees had been paid in advance.
No, he never explicitly said that he was using cocaine, he said he was drinking a lot, but no more than the other students. In my experience Jimmy could hold his liquor – never got sick, never passed out – and didn’t use more coke than anybody else. We all put in and shared it out – we all got an equal amount.
Perhaps it was more that Jimmy never wanted to study at all – he told me that one day. Said given a chance he would be out of here – and paddling up the Amazon. I never thought about it much at the time – we all have to let off steam.
And it wasn’t that Jimmy was failing at all – he seemed to be keeping up with his grades. How could a person be so depressed, and you wouldn’t know. It couldn’t have been that Jimmy was really depressed, it must have been the drugs.
So yeah, I’m committed to stay off the coke – it’s something I want to do – but can’t say that something in me doesn’t still want to use – sometimes I get cravings really awful.
What I’ve done is had to keep away from that group that still uses coke – no way could I imagine actually seeing it there – and maybe not give in. So, that’s been a bit of a blow – I thought perhaps that they all might stop after what happened with Jimmy – but no, it is only me that’s given it up. And yes, I miss my mates.
I suppose one day I might give in, but right now, I say I won’t. Right now I don’t want to use coke, ever again, in memory of Jimmy.
