Al had me drive to a part of town I hadn't been to before, where the buildings were mostly warehouses with boarded-up windows and the street gutters were littered with ripped-open condom packages. It was broad daylight, around 4 in the afternoon, but the stark light made the scene more uncomfortable and freaky than pitch darkness. After pulling up to one warehouse, reputedly the shared residence of a once-famous punk band that had fallen on hard times, Al told me to stay in the car while he went inside with a couple hundred of my dollars.

"These guys are a little paranoid," he said. And then disappeared.

I sat in the car, imagining what I would say if a cop passed by -- and this was the kind of neighborhood where cops did roll by, often -- and ask me what I was doing. What was my cover story? What would I say?

A few minutes later, a car did pass, going about 10 miles an hour, and both the driver and the passenger gave me a long hard look. I just leaned back in my seat, avoiding eye contact, feeling the sweat break out on the back of my neck. Where was Al? Why was I doing this? Was this the stupidest thing I'd ever done in my life, or what?

The answer, obviously, was yes. But the adrenaline of scoring overrode whatever tiny reservoir of common sense was still lurking inside me. I was addicted -- to that sense of control, that sense of total focus -- and if that meant going completely out of control to get there, so be it.

Al finally returned. Was he gone an hour or just ten minutes? I have no idea. All I know is that he made the deal. I gave him a cut and got back home.

And it was all good.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Except I knew it wasn't. I knew, all along, that I would have to quit. I could see other people around me getting fucked up by the drug, displaying the same patterns of selfishness and paranoia that I was developing -- the hoarding and the secrecy. And when I saw some old friend clumsily sneaking a line when she thought no one was paying attention, or getting agitated at the thought that she wasn't getting her fair share, it alarmed me more than when I saw that same behavior in myself. Is that what I looked like? I wondered.

Somehow, I never let the physical impact of the drug get too out of control. I'm not sure why, but it's possible that the same obsession with work that drove to me to speed kept me from submerging completely into its embrace. There was a limit to how much I could do and still keep it together. My body required time to recuperate if I was still going to meet my work obligations -- and I never failed to toe that line.

But even as I avoided becoming a tweaked-out wreck, alarm bells were ringing. My girlfriend -- now my fiancée -- and I were both having a little too much fun. She and I discussed what was going on -- I shared all my furtive secrets of the past year in an all-night, speed-fueled heart-to-heart. We agreed to a pact a few weeks later -- in the middle of our honeymoon.

We were going to clean up. Quit. Put that shit behind us, together.

As far as I know, she didn't do another line of speed from that moment onward.

But less than a month later, I was back to it. I was on to a huge story that needed to be done on an absurdly short deadline. A friend of mine was helping me out. He laid out some lines. I didn't even think twice.

In the months that followed, I can remember coming to bed before I was sleepy, because I knew that if I stayed up any later working she would start to wonder if I was back on the drug. And of course she would be right, because I was. And I would lie there, wide awake under the blankets, concentrating on regulating my breathing so as to seem asleep. It is not really a productive use of one's time to fake being asleep. But it seemed to make sense at that moment.

Of course she found out. And was angrier than I'd ever seen her -- I think it was the first time I'd ever really disappointed her. If I could go back in time and change anything in my life, I think I might go back to that first pact-breaking line and slap myself around a few times. You know what they say: The first cut is the deepest -- there's really no coming back from that initial breach of faith. Not all the way, anyway. That kind of damage may not be the kind that can ever be fully repaired. Over the course of the next year, I did finally fight my way clear of the hold that speed had over my waking, and sleeping, hours. How did I get free? I'm not sure -- I'm not even sure that now, some 15 years later, I am free. I just stopped myself from scoring. I drank a lot of coffee.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Speed is much in the news these days. The tweaker who blows himself up in his jerry-built meth lab has become a kind of cultural cliché, like the burned-out stoner, the coke-addled yuppie, or the blissed-out E raver. But in the 21st century, speed has come a long way from where it was when I fell under its spell. Meth: It's not just for white trash any more. The intelligentsia are starting to pay attention. It's a gay man's party drug, for crying out loud!

I haven't touched the stuff in more than a decade, but I don't doubt that speed abuse is spreading. What I don't see is a whole lot of appreciation for why. Understanding why people do speed is more complicated than just noting that, as with any recreational drug, speed is fun, and when fun is combined with the likelihood of physical addiction, you have a problem. But speed isn't just about fun, and addiction isn't something that happens just because you try something once, and boom, the shackles are in place.

For some of us, speed answers deeper needs. I think one reason why it used to be situated mainly in blue-collar circles was because speed is a workingman's drug. Gotta pull another eight-hour shift at the factory? Speed can help with that. Gotta drive another thousand miles in your big rig? Speed is great for that.

Speed, for me, was that workingman's drug, updated for the hypertechnological age. It's a busy time, these days, busier than it's ever been, and it is hard to keep up. In a 24x7x365 digitally networked wireless world there's always another e-mail, another voice mail, another item on the to-do list.

The more powerful our computers and information-management programs, the more we try to do -- and the more we are asked to do, because of course, there is a huge economic incentive to have fewer people do more. That's called productivity -- and everybody likes productivity. You can go all the way back to good old Max Weber and "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" -- we get closer to God when we get lots of stuff done. Speed, man, it's holy.

We're a nation that's hooked on speed for very good reasons. It is no coincidence, I think, that speed abuse is burgeoning at exactly the same time that the pressure on each and every one of us is ratcheting up.

After all, you'd better be productive if you want to flourish in the outsourced, downsized, globalized and completely deregulated 21st century economy. Just the thought of competing against a couple billion Chinese and Indians makes me want to reach for the razor blade, and I'm sure I'm not alone. Take out that second mortgage, work that second job, learn that extra skill -- got to add value if you want to survive, but where are you going to find the time?

I suppose there could be another way. A good Zen Buddhist might encourage us to assume the lotus position, eliminate our desires, and purge ourselves of need. Speed isn't going to solve anything, anyway, even if you can achieve the unlikely feat of controlling your habit so you don't kill yourself. There's always going to be more to do, more competition, more distraction, more pressure. Just don't do it, the sage would tell us. And while you're at it, ease up on the caffeine, why don't you?

- - - - - - - - - - - -

If someone laid a line out in front of me right now, I'd be hard put to say no. And there are times, when the deadlines shower down and the hours start slipping away, that a little voice in the back of my head says, "If only I had some speed..." There's always that delusion of drug grandeur -- I can stay on top of this. I can control it.

But when you wake up in the middle of the night sweating because your body is riding a drug high that never really happened, you should listen to the whispers of the demon. I'm lucky I did, but I still miss it.

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