Today has been a good day.

So I’ve been off the past two days for my typical weekend and yesterday was pleasant, however unsettling in that my friend had work yesterday at eleven. I woke up early and a friend and I went and got coffee and talked, and then tried to wake up Dan for work, whereupon he told us that work said they didn’t need him. We knew it was a lie.

Of course, we couldn’t force him to go to work. I decided that I was going to have a heart to heart talk with him later in the evening and so I did. But…not until after it seems he inebriated himself with drugs. Which was another point of discussion I needed to have with him. Being raised by hippies and in the so called "drug culture" I’m by and large okay with drugs. They’re not for me, they are certainly not a means of escapism nor should they be abused. I digress slightly.

It turns out that Dan (the friend who skipped out on work) is terrified of work for reasons of his past involving authority figures. I was aware of what had happened to him and what not, but I had no idea that it had forced him to become so afraid and unwilling to find work and stay with work. I comforted him on this and asked him why he felt the need to lie to us, though I had a pretty good idea why he did. Again it was out of fear and panic, he was afraid we (A) wouldn’t understand, (B) would pass judgment and look down upon him, and (C) we’d force him to go to work. Taking a slight break from the employment aspect of the conversation I’ll move on to the drug half.

He’s psychologically addicted to DXM, a non-narcotic hallucinogenic. He admitted to me that he had a problem, and that he wanted help, serious help with it. A positive step certainly. He was/is petrified of us (his friends) because of what we’d think of him because of this addiction and the feelings that we wouldn’t understand him, his condition, his reasoning, and that we’d abandon him. Or else, make him stop taking the drug or we’d leave him.

I cannot speak for the rest of us (our small group of friends), but I certainly wouldn’t do that to him. I would never leave him. He’s like a brother to me–I love him. I understand exactly why he’s addicted to it. "Boredom." "Depression." "Escapism." "Helplessness." He feels that every day is the same, there’s nothing new, nothing to look forward to, nothing exciting in his life. Every day is a shade of grey. He’s unhappy with himself and his life and doesn’t know how to get out of the rut, so when he’s tripping, he’s happy and doesn’t care. So he trips just so he doesn’t feel depressed.

He started crying and agreed with me. I told him that maybe he just needs someone to talk to who doesn’t know him enough to care to judge him, so that he won’t be afraid to tell them everything that he’s so afraid to tell us because of fear that we’d leave him.

I also told him that in terms of money he can donate plasma/blood for money and that right now the important thing is for him to get to a place where he is comfortable with himself in such a way that he can live with himself and eventually find work.

After all was said and done he and I went to a small diner up the block, had breakfast and coffee, talked some more and then we came back here and cleaned the entire downstairs to a level of perfection.

We also spent the morning/afternoon talking about life in general and everything and about how we as a group of friends are more like family than friends. None of us are terribly close to our actually families–we’re all we have and/or need. I was in a very spiritual/helpful/optimistic mood today. Anyway…I just needed to kind of get that out of me.
–RK