Never underestimate the addictiveness of Crack...

We've all heard "crack is whack" and the dangers of the drug. We all know it's crazy addictive and extremely dangerous. Well, I've decided to tell my story about my own addiction to it. It all started when this idea for a book came to me. It was actually 2 stories I had written a long time ago that I'd stumbled upon while going through an old computer, and my imagination morphed the two together, giving me a concept that I couldn't ignore. So...I began writing. But this story is different from anything I've written, since it kind of involves drugs...not the use of them, but the memories of one character and how destructive it was to her family growing up. Well, needless to say I know nothing about drugs. Not a darn thing. Never tried them, never wanted to, never really knew anyone that had. So, this part of the story became difficult for me because I needed a specific drug to speak of. After speaking to some fellow authors and searching online, I decided on crack. But I needed to know how it was used, what it felt like, what it looked like and so on. Then I needed to read people's stories about their experience and addiction. Ugh! Those stories broke my heart! The way they talk about how they are addicted but can't seem to stop. How their lives had been destroyed, but the addiction was unbreakable. Now, there were stories on this one particular site I found that didn't interest me...the ones where they glorified it and loved to smoke it, how they were not addicted, they only did it because they wanted to. I don't like reading those. But the ones (and there were a lot of them) from the people that could see logic, they could hear the logic, but they were powerless to stop it--those were the ones I found myself searching out. They talked about their weak minds and how crack feeds on the insecure, weak-minded people. All I needed was enough information to fill half a chapter, just enough so that my character could recant one memory from growing up. But by the time I had that information, I was already addicted to the stories I'd found on this site. At one in the morning, I tried to put my computer away because I was exhausted after writing all day, but I just kept telling myself, one more story. But by the time I finished that one, I needed one more. After 2am, I made myself put the computer down and close my eyes. But I couldn't fall asleep, no matter how tired I was. All I could think about was these poor crack addicts and wondering about what ever happened to them since the time the wrote their post (most of the stories were written at least 5 years ago). I fell asleep some time after 3 in the morning. Woke up at 8, and what was the first thought that came to me? Crack. That's right, I wanted to get out my computer and read more. By this point, it's no longer research since most of them are the same. I mean, different personal stories, but they all start out with "I never wanted to smoke crack" and end with "I just can't stop"...filled in between with personal recollections of a specific night or their memory of living through an OD. So...what do I do? I grab my computer and spend an hour reading more. Now...just to clarify. I don't enjoy reading their pain. It's more like reading a really sad book. It makes you sad, makes you cringe, makes you think you should put it down, but you can't. The emotions have overtaken logic by that point. And I think I keep reading in hopes of finding that happily ever after. Of finding the few stories that ends with how long they've been clean, how they've managed to put their life back together. But even with those, I have this need to want to know what's happened since then...but I guess I'll never know. So in a nutshell...crack is whack, crack is a train wreck, and apparently, it's addictive even without ever being near it. I am proof that anyone tempted to try it, offered to try it, or around anyone doing it should run as far away as possible. Because just like smoking it, I seemed to have developed an addiction over night. Please...PLEASE! Stay clean people! Be smart. And if you're going to smoke something...please make sure it's not crack! And this is my PSA!