I got kicked out of my parent’s house at 18. I don’t know if I had to live in the ghetto but let’s just say it was the cheapest place out there that didn’t care that I had no rental history and was eighteen with no co-signor and could only pay in cash and needed a ninety day lease. I ended up overstaying by a few months on a month to month lease. Will never do it again. Nothing even happened to me. Everyone left me alone but several times per week an ambulance was there and a overdose victim was being wheeled out. There were several “accidental drownings” at the pool where men who were fully clothed were murdered…I mean were swimming at 2am. Did the police care? No way. They were standing around filling out paperwork like, “What are we doing here??” Like I said, nothing happened to me but nonetheless you become obsessed with escaping. When I finally had enough money to leave, I knew, “Never again.” It’s just an exhausting life.
I grew up very poor and roomed with a crack head for a few months. I didn’t know he was on crack until I started finding pieces of steel wool inside pieces of modified tire gauges in my closets and cabinets. Then came the stolen checks that he and his “friend” (also a crack head) took when I was at work and cashews by forging my name. Finally the violence in the last month of my experience when he went a bit nuts and hit me with a glass ashtray up side the face and then a few more slugs to the jaw. He did work construction but his binges would last 2-3 days and he was very emotionally unstable. I was young and just thought he needed compassion. But after the violence and theft I learned I needed to get out of there before something worse happened. I found out that his dealer was also involved in trafficking young white girls and that was also part of their “enterprise”. You grow up really quick in those environments. But you are right in how it’s not always what people see in movies and media. I was very naive about the usage in the beginning because he could hold down a job, be personable and fun.
Sadly it isn’t the seniors. The building has “partnerships” that place people here - the transitioners (from either rehab or jail) and the hard-to-house (users or crazies).
Addiction became a mental illness that allows them welfare disability and “persons with disabilities” are lumped in with seniors for govt/medical/insurance levels…
So we have a seniors building full of old and vulnerable that, becuase of low income, get stuck here - with the tweakers and crazies.
I’m over it to be honest. Constant aggro to use English slang. One other thing I’ve noticed about ‘hood life. Vengeance. People can’t let shit go. Decades of grudges. Instant payback for small shit - your sister’s prank for example. Vengeance belongs to the Lord and the ‘hood. Native Americans had it bad too. We all feel it but the ‘hood lives it and breathes it.
A recent GF I slowly found out was a crack user. I tried everything for 2+ years to break up with her. But she was relentless in coming back & pushing my buttons to take her in. I paid for everything and her habit, which she called her "vitamin C." I finally had to move away. She knows the town I'm in but not the address. I'd never let that adjacent life she led come back in.
Avoid a user like the plague. It will add zip zero nada to your life, & the user will ask for money daily, steal cash from you, & steal items to pawn. Once I bought a bike for her (Baht 1,500) & 5 days later she sold it for 300. You can't 'help' a user, don't delude yourself on that. Best just to steer clear.
Uh... no, crack (rock cocaine) tends to be beige and not transparent at all. And again, it's highly unlikely you'll see it in Thailand.
Methamphetamine in its pure form is shardy and glass-like, though in Thailand it's often sold in red pill form (yabba--made in Myanmar). Sounds like you need a drug education course. I mean, good on you for not knowing this stuff, but if you are indeed in Thailand (you quoted prices in Baht) I doubt your girl was crackhead, as in someone addicted to smokeable rocks of cocaine. That's just not really a thing there, in my experience.
Lol I read the prior posts several times trying to find who said what that made you come out and say Thailand!!! I just assumed he had meant to say bought instead of Baht or whatever! But you are absolutely spot on with the distinction between the differences. I’d bet it was yabba. Many people try to remove the red coating on the pills before smoking but it usually ends up a dingy color somewhat brownish powder.
Hello Ed. It's nice to meet you. I landed here accidentally and I'm impressed by your story. THIS is such an important conversation that the whole world should be focusing on a lot more. Drugs (good or bad)
are DESTROYING LIFE on earth. Substances and chemicals being used to control people, animals, and environments. While the war is going on in the street, the government has created Methadone/Suboxone clinics. For a weekly fee they can get that medicine for their daily lives. I was on methadone for 14 years and it was a terrible MISTAKE. It's a trap! 🪤 Jesus gets credit for not giving up on me,and lifted me up and away from that poison,to being able to tell about it today. THAT'S just the simple TRUTH. The doctors were the ones that guided me towards it, as I found myself addicted to pain medicines from injuries I had gotten. So basically the doctors got me addicted and then sent me to addictions specialists, that only gave me more drugs. A worse drug at that! Although I can admit that when I was on the methadone, I would have argued until I was blue in the face that it was harmless and good for me. What an ignorant idiot I was.😔 That's all it was,was them playing on my ignorance. I fell for it too. Speaking from experience, that is the WORST drug I have ever suffered withdrawal symptoms from, coming off of. The withdrawals from the pain pills wasn't even close to the withdrawals I went through with that crap. It literally took forever to get completely out of my system. Like almost 2 years later I still FELT it's lingering effects in my body and mind. As well as, it was slowly eating away at my SPIRIT. Making me comfortably numb. Wether any of us realize it or not, that is what we should be fighting for, before we leave this Earth. Our SPIRITS,are what the force of evil is after. I've had to live around, go to sleep and wake up around, violence, addiction, crime, and heartbreaking living. 💔. ONLY the STRONGEST will survive, and live to,TELL ABOUT IT. 🙏🏼 Not many get the chance to. The ones of us who have survived it need to START TALKING! Don't listen to the lies in our heads, ya know that feeling of shame and fear of judgment, that comes up,making us want to be quiet about it? Don't listen to it! Fear comes from the devil. There is no reason to fear telling the truth. SHARE it with everyone who will listen. If we do, it's going to save a life somewhere, somehow, some way. Making it all worth it. Not to mention it helps your internal LIGHT OF THE SOUL shine a lot brighter, as well.🕯️❤️🔥💡🙌🏼
#7 is key for me. I learned that while living in Florida.
A few years ago, here in Pittsburgh, a house caught fire and burned to the ground. No one was hurt. The occupant said he was in the kitchen when the fire started. He said he threw what he thought was a bucket of water onto the fire. It wasn’t water. It was ether. So, who would keep a bucket of ether in the kitchen? And how could you not keep track of that?
These are rhetorical questions. I told my friend that I know what happened, without knowing anything else about the case.
My dad always told me not leave loose change visible in my car because desperate people would break my windows to steal the change. 30 years later, I still follow that advice.
I lived next to a gay drug dealer. Frequently the hallway would be full of naked boys rolling around. He clearly took sex for favors and the boys could be painfully young. Police refused to do anything. It was a expensive building.
Also, in my opinion, drug addicts tend to be either rich or poor. There are a ton of rich druggies, and they end up poor. There are also poor crackheads. The middle, I am not so sure, but they may simply fall into poverty faster.
I am all in favor of full legality. I want cocaine and heroin sold in liquor stores. This would solve 90% of drug problems.
No place has really tried this save for Switzerland, where they sort of tried, and it worked. In Oregon they engaged in "harm reduction" where they allowed vagrancy but did nothing to lower the price nor increase the accuracy of the drug supply. Even here in Illinois where weed is sold, the state screwed it up so badly that most people still buy illegal weed.
What we need is wholesale legalization. I want Philip Morris selling exactly 10mg shots of heroin, NOT police ignoring vagrancy. We need to NOT make taxes excessive. This has no benefit. Similarly, misguided efforts at social engineering are counterproductive.
The goal is to avoid senseless overdose deaths, like my neighbor who bought crack and died because it was packed full of fentanyl. Similarly, we get a great benefit of denying drug profits to criminal organizations. We have caused tremendous suffering not only in Latin America, but right here on the South Side of Chicago where I live. This removes that funding source for criminals.
We will still have addiction, but we will not have excessive overdose deaths and criminality. Now we will need to invite the police to enforce quality of life violations, but we should be doing that anyway.
My next solution is to reopen mental health facilities closed in the 1960's and 1970's, or what most people call the homeless problem.
I have a solution for housing cost inflation as well, at least in urban areas. I can summarize it as "get rid of height and density limits in zoning." I would build 100,000 studio apartments each in Manhattan, Los Angeles and San Fransico. I would build them near public transit, and I would sell them to the highest bidder so all of them were market rate. Then we measure the impact on rents. If it is mild, build 200,000 units. The key is to make lot's of cheap, small housing. Asian cities do this with ease, and it means that people can actually afford to live in big cities.
I got kicked out of my parent’s house at 18. I don’t know if I had to live in the ghetto but let’s just say it was the cheapest place out there that didn’t care that I had no rental history and was eighteen with no co-signor and could only pay in cash and needed a ninety day lease. I ended up overstaying by a few months on a month to month lease. Will never do it again. Nothing even happened to me. Everyone left me alone but several times per week an ambulance was there and a overdose victim was being wheeled out. There were several “accidental drownings” at the pool where men who were fully clothed were murdered…I mean were swimming at 2am. Did the police care? No way. They were standing around filling out paperwork like, “What are we doing here??” Like I said, nothing happened to me but nonetheless you become obsessed with escaping. When I finally had enough money to leave, I knew, “Never again.” It’s just an exhausting life.
Accidental drowings though. Damn, that shit sounds like a legit mob movie lol
IMO likely a drug thing or a beef. I’ve never gone back there but saw on Google Maps they filled in the pool and built a playground above it.
This is the best thing I’ve read on Substack all week.
Hey thanks!
I grew up very poor and roomed with a crack head for a few months. I didn’t know he was on crack until I started finding pieces of steel wool inside pieces of modified tire gauges in my closets and cabinets. Then came the stolen checks that he and his “friend” (also a crack head) took when I was at work and cashews by forging my name. Finally the violence in the last month of my experience when he went a bit nuts and hit me with a glass ashtray up side the face and then a few more slugs to the jaw. He did work construction but his binges would last 2-3 days and he was very emotionally unstable. I was young and just thought he needed compassion. But after the violence and theft I learned I needed to get out of there before something worse happened. I found out that his dealer was also involved in trafficking young white girls and that was also part of their “enterprise”. You grow up really quick in those environments. But you are right in how it’s not always what people see in movies and media. I was very naive about the usage in the beginning because he could hold down a job, be personable and fun.
Damn, you lived with a crackhead though. I'm happy you made it out alive.
Hey great article. Stuff I did not know. And you made me laugh. Fyi the link to crackhead quotes is buster.
Thank you! I went through and fixed all the links. They were all jacked because of how substack changes things.
It's been ages, but I think I once read that many people become doctors specifically so they can access drugs.
This was a great read. I'm going to check out a few of the other articles you linked!
That’s a lot of work to get drugs, but no one outworks a crackhead.
Well, I don't think they were trying to get the drugs for themselves. $$$
I was a NYC Midtown South crackhead. I miss those days. https://open.substack.com/pub/gbray/p/my-crazy-hairdo?r=1d6qya&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
This is a stunning window into a different world right next door. Thank you for posting this.
Thank you! I've got more coming!
Still laughing - sounds like my building. 14 out of 19 inhabited floors has a user/distributor/dealer. In a “seniors” building. It’s all so true.
Damn, the old folks were getting down like that though. Wow haha
Sadly it isn’t the seniors. The building has “partnerships” that place people here - the transitioners (from either rehab or jail) and the hard-to-house (users or crazies).
Addiction became a mental illness that allows them welfare disability and “persons with disabilities” are lumped in with seniors for govt/medical/insurance levels…
So we have a seniors building full of old and vulnerable that, becuase of low income, get stuck here - with the tweakers and crazies.
I’m over it to be honest. Constant aggro to use English slang. One other thing I’ve noticed about ‘hood life. Vengeance. People can’t let shit go. Decades of grudges. Instant payback for small shit - your sister’s prank for example. Vengeance belongs to the Lord and the ‘hood. Native Americans had it bad too. We all feel it but the ‘hood lives it and breathes it.
A recent GF I slowly found out was a crack user. I tried everything for 2+ years to break up with her. But she was relentless in coming back & pushing my buttons to take her in. I paid for everything and her habit, which she called her "vitamin C." I finally had to move away. She knows the town I'm in but not the address. I'd never let that adjacent life she led come back in.
Avoid a user like the plague. It will add zip zero nada to your life, & the user will ask for money daily, steal cash from you, & steal items to pawn. Once I bought a bike for her (Baht 1,500) & 5 days later she sold it for 300. You can't 'help' a user, don't delude yourself on that. Best just to steer clear.
Damn bro I legit sorry to hear that. Addiction is the worst when it strikes people close to us
Crack cocaine, in Thialand? Surely it was yabba (meth).
Yes, I've learned crack is transparent & glass-like. What I saw is a dry brown substance, so it's likely 'cannabis resin'.
Uh... no, crack (rock cocaine) tends to be beige and not transparent at all. And again, it's highly unlikely you'll see it in Thailand.
Methamphetamine in its pure form is shardy and glass-like, though in Thailand it's often sold in red pill form (yabba--made in Myanmar). Sounds like you need a drug education course. I mean, good on you for not knowing this stuff, but if you are indeed in Thailand (you quoted prices in Baht) I doubt your girl was crackhead, as in someone addicted to smokeable rocks of cocaine. That's just not really a thing there, in my experience.
Lol I read the prior posts several times trying to find who said what that made you come out and say Thailand!!! I just assumed he had meant to say bought instead of Baht or whatever! But you are absolutely spot on with the distinction between the differences. I’d bet it was yabba. Many people try to remove the red coating on the pills before smoking but it usually ends up a dingy color somewhat brownish powder.
Hello Ed. It's nice to meet you. I landed here accidentally and I'm impressed by your story. THIS is such an important conversation that the whole world should be focusing on a lot more. Drugs (good or bad)
are DESTROYING LIFE on earth. Substances and chemicals being used to control people, animals, and environments. While the war is going on in the street, the government has created Methadone/Suboxone clinics. For a weekly fee they can get that medicine for their daily lives. I was on methadone for 14 years and it was a terrible MISTAKE. It's a trap! 🪤 Jesus gets credit for not giving up on me,and lifted me up and away from that poison,to being able to tell about it today. THAT'S just the simple TRUTH. The doctors were the ones that guided me towards it, as I found myself addicted to pain medicines from injuries I had gotten. So basically the doctors got me addicted and then sent me to addictions specialists, that only gave me more drugs. A worse drug at that! Although I can admit that when I was on the methadone, I would have argued until I was blue in the face that it was harmless and good for me. What an ignorant idiot I was.😔 That's all it was,was them playing on my ignorance. I fell for it too. Speaking from experience, that is the WORST drug I have ever suffered withdrawal symptoms from, coming off of. The withdrawals from the pain pills wasn't even close to the withdrawals I went through with that crap. It literally took forever to get completely out of my system. Like almost 2 years later I still FELT it's lingering effects in my body and mind. As well as, it was slowly eating away at my SPIRIT. Making me comfortably numb. Wether any of us realize it or not, that is what we should be fighting for, before we leave this Earth. Our SPIRITS,are what the force of evil is after. I've had to live around, go to sleep and wake up around, violence, addiction, crime, and heartbreaking living. 💔. ONLY the STRONGEST will survive, and live to,TELL ABOUT IT. 🙏🏼 Not many get the chance to. The ones of us who have survived it need to START TALKING! Don't listen to the lies in our heads, ya know that feeling of shame and fear of judgment, that comes up,making us want to be quiet about it? Don't listen to it! Fear comes from the devil. There is no reason to fear telling the truth. SHARE it with everyone who will listen. If we do, it's going to save a life somewhere, somehow, some way. Making it all worth it. Not to mention it helps your internal LIGHT OF THE SOUL shine a lot brighter, as well.🕯️❤️🔥💡🙌🏼
Awesome lessons. Thank you for sharing
In other words, there are whole kingdoms with the same players, if you have a clue, get away!
#7 is key for me. I learned that while living in Florida.
A few years ago, here in Pittsburgh, a house caught fire and burned to the ground. No one was hurt. The occupant said he was in the kitchen when the fire started. He said he threw what he thought was a bucket of water onto the fire. It wasn’t water. It was ether. So, who would keep a bucket of ether in the kitchen? And how could you not keep track of that?
These are rhetorical questions. I told my friend that I know what happened, without knowing anything else about the case.
My dad always told me not leave loose change visible in my car because desperate people would break my windows to steal the change. 30 years later, I still follow that advice.
I lived next to a gay drug dealer. Frequently the hallway would be full of naked boys rolling around. He clearly took sex for favors and the boys could be painfully young. Police refused to do anything. It was a expensive building.
Also, in my opinion, drug addicts tend to be either rich or poor. There are a ton of rich druggies, and they end up poor. There are also poor crackheads. The middle, I am not so sure, but they may simply fall into poverty faster.
I am all in favor of full legality. I want cocaine and heroin sold in liquor stores. This would solve 90% of drug problems.
That's true.
The game really isn't a middle class thing.
And I never realized that until you mentioned it.
That’s not working out where they’ve tried it.
No place has really tried this save for Switzerland, where they sort of tried, and it worked. In Oregon they engaged in "harm reduction" where they allowed vagrancy but did nothing to lower the price nor increase the accuracy of the drug supply. Even here in Illinois where weed is sold, the state screwed it up so badly that most people still buy illegal weed.
What we need is wholesale legalization. I want Philip Morris selling exactly 10mg shots of heroin, NOT police ignoring vagrancy. We need to NOT make taxes excessive. This has no benefit. Similarly, misguided efforts at social engineering are counterproductive.
The goal is to avoid senseless overdose deaths, like my neighbor who bought crack and died because it was packed full of fentanyl. Similarly, we get a great benefit of denying drug profits to criminal organizations. We have caused tremendous suffering not only in Latin America, but right here on the South Side of Chicago where I live. This removes that funding source for criminals.
We will still have addiction, but we will not have excessive overdose deaths and criminality. Now we will need to invite the police to enforce quality of life violations, but we should be doing that anyway.
My next solution is to reopen mental health facilities closed in the 1960's and 1970's, or what most people call the homeless problem.
I have a solution for housing cost inflation as well, at least in urban areas. I can summarize it as "get rid of height and density limits in zoning." I would build 100,000 studio apartments each in Manhattan, Los Angeles and San Fransico. I would build them near public transit, and I would sell them to the highest bidder so all of them were market rate. Then we measure the impact on rents. If it is mild, build 200,000 units. The key is to make lot's of cheap, small housing. Asian cities do this with ease, and it means that people can actually afford to live in big cities.