WHEN THE DRUGGIES CAME CALLING

EDITOR'S NOTE: The author of this story wishes to remain anonymous.

MY BLOOD RAN cold, racing to a heart that was straining to comprehend the
situation unfolding before me. I had awakened with a start. I found myself
staring bleary-eyed and disoriented into the twisting darkness that hung
before me.

As I rose out of my dorm bed that night, I went with the knowledge that
something was wrong. Very wrong.

I got up, dressed quickly and flew to the door. I pressed my naked eye to
the peep-hole. In doing so I peered through a distorted lens into the
nightmare that would consume the next three hours of my life.

I opened the door to see one of my best friends from the dorms - I'll call
him Jack - peering a wary head through a mostly closed door across from
mine. In front of him stood a figure, large and heaving, fists clenched,
stubble unshaven in the flickering halogen light at 2 a.m. He was
accompanied by another, smaller, male - good looking, casually dressed, but
strapped with a more relaxed, thuggish attitude.

Jack's eyes, now wide as dinner plates, silently pleaded with me to cross
over, to walk the two, easy steps from my door to his - that distance that
now seemed like an infinity - in short, to help him.

As it turned out, these two had come to cut up my friend's face. They
wanted a fight, or a hack session, or whatever two guys, a knife, a
screwdriver and some methamphetamines could get you.

They wanted blood and 150 pounds of flesh to beat it out of. Specifically,
they had come for Jack's roommate, a guy I'll call Michael. Michael was
more inebriated than he'd ever been and lay, head teetering precariously on
the rim of his toilet, unable to stand. Through a perverse set of
circumstances I'll never understand, Michael's obsessed ex-girlfriend had
slept with the larger of these angry men and talked them into disrupting
the gentle slumber of the dorms.

The three-hour standoff ended peacefully. But it came close to being uglier
than it was. Much uglier.

This is not a story that most people can relate to. I know that. What's
important is the role drugs played in this. Drugs like methamphetamine, the
drug that largely contributed to this situation. In this case,
methamphetamine was like a trick birthday candle, a spark for the flame of
violence that kept these men angry and barely able to contain themselves
for three hours. Methamphetamine hijacked their moral sensibilities as well
as their ability to listen and reason.

Violence didn't start with drugs. Violence didn't start with drug abuse.
Violence is as ancient as humankind. Violence is probably a complicated
phenomenon linked to experiences such childhood abuse, poverty, rape,
frustration, anger, the death of a loved one or a failing school system.

Drugs are often a catalyst for violence. Addressing teen-age substance
abuse is a concrete way we can begin to address the issue of youth and
violence.

This is not an attempt to demonize drugs as a whole. What we can say safely
is that some drugs are bad for some people at some times. Drugs tend to
complicate our lives, and while they can provide a much-needed reprieve
from life's full-throttle pace, they can open the doors to darker halls
within. Drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine and alcohol can spark the
flames of depression, psychosis and rage within teen-agers who otherwise
might find the strength to maintain control.

I discourage drug use not because it will screw up your system (though it
can). Youthful abandon has shown me that concern for our personal safety
isn't really high among teen-agers, myself included. So don't refrain from
using drugs, especially hard drugs, because they're bad for you. Stop using
drugs because they're bad for me.

No one I know gets better with drugs. Refrain from drug use because I'm
tired of my girlfriends getting raped and my guy friends getting beat like
junkyard dogs in drunken brawls. I'm tired of friends cutting themselves
with glass, burning themselves with cigarettes or taking their own lives
while under the influence.

Like I said, none of these were caused by drugs. But drugs and alcohol were
often contributing factors without whose presence these tragic events might
not have happened.

It takes time to heal the rage of someone who's grown up unloved and
abused; time that sometimes frustrates both parents and teens alike who
care and want to see violence end. The hard truth is that nothing - and I
mean nothing - but a total and comprehensive effort by every person, at
every level to end violence, will actually end violence.

If it seems overwhelming, it is - and it isn't. It means that as a member
of this society you can do just about anything nice for someone and have a
meaningful impact. Start today. Smile. Treat someone like a peer, an equal.
Offer assistance to those in need. Support your local youth alcohol and
drug treatment centers. Support youth after-school programs. Support our
schools.

Try.