We, the addicted, were the underside, the wreckage of booming America. The social excrement of high-rise buildings, multi-billion dollar corporations and white picket fence suburbs. The anti thesis to the idea of capitalism. America was shameless and shining and we were the shamed, the ones who kept out of sight and whom no one wanted to see. The urban poor, humbled and humiliated, unsure of our worth.

Stuck in the grip of our disease, watching ourselves do things we knew we shouldn't be doing nor wanted to be doing in the first place, but doing them anyway. Caught in the lie, by our own consciousness, scarred by the guilt and shame. Damaged by our inability to deal with life and heal our wounds. Hooked on a chemical invented by men in white lab coats.

Getting high offered more than a moment of exultation; it stretched time and was a way of slowing things down and bringing them into focus. Drugs were a way to shape the day and set a schedule, a chemical alarm clock set to 6-8 hour intervals. In a world of which we expected nothing, drugs gave us what was expected, predictably, without surprises. The next use was something to look forward to, and what was promised was delivered. Drugs gave structure to a an otherwise structure-less life.

To give up drugs was to shed the illusion that life was fine and to take on what might be another illusion: that life could be better.