When was was making my third overflow comment to Deunanknute, I figured that might be discourteous or hard to read.  Anything that long merits its own blog.

I was what you'd call a poly-drug-user. I was the first person I knew to move out of their
parent's house. I had masses of people over every night. I had one side of the delapidated
duplex and a much older friend was in the other side. We would call several dealers
every night. Clint had X. Hector had glass quality meth before anybody even knew what it
was. Johahv had the coke. West Campus Tom had the weed and hash. High quality blotter acid could be obtained 24/7 from the homeless around UT campus. We'd take orders from people at the house, spend an hour driving around making our pick-ups. Sometimes we'd even get it delivered. If my life was a beautiful tapestry, there'd be a big-ass cigarette burn
from 1986-1994. I still get the urge. When I get really stressed out, I know for a fact that I could get some black tar H, put it on top of a bong hit, and in the space of three
heartbeats I WOULDN'T GIVE A FUCK. Not at all. Not one tiny little fraction of a fuck.

Sometimes that has a very strong appeal.  Believe it or not, the hardest thing for me to quit was cigarettes.  I still smoke weed.  I smoke a few cigars a month (Monte Christo White #2's from the Paiute reservation down the street).  I rarely drink any alcohol at all and don't remember the last time I got properly drunk.  I'd never advocate that somebody do a drug of any kind, but I don't feel qualified to give you a "hang in there, buddy" advice.  I've still got my crutch.  Weed is a tiny, somewhat benign crutch.  But I know it's still a crutch.  I'll never go back to mixing crack, meth, and heroin and smoking it off of a spoon heated up on the gas stove through a paper towel roll just to see what would happen (in my defense, I was on acid so didn't know what was going on).  But I'll keep using my weed-crutch.  There's no dishonor in using a crutch if you're a cripple.