I Don't Get It

In high school, we used to do the Gator, the dance named for Samuel Jackson's character in Jungle Fever. He played a crack addict, albeit a jovial and hilarious one, who danced for money to feed his habit.

Not so funny now.

I just got done watching an HBO documentary called Dope Sick Love. A camera crew followed two couples living on the New York streets for eighteen months. During this time, the viewer got a chance to see how these four people lived on a daily basis and what they had to do in order to survive.

This is a very difficult post for me because drugs make me wholly uncomfortable.

My first memory involving a serious discussion about drugs occurred when Len Bias died; I was 13, just past the age where my sports-as-metaphor-for-life mentality solidified.

The Len Bias story was, and still is, incomprehensible to me. One of the most talented ballplayers was given an opportunity to play for arguably the best basketball organization of all-time with arguably one of the best players of all time. In less than two days, he was dead. Because of drugs and one dumb decision.

The next year, Sports Illustrated ran a story about Gary McLain and his story with cocaine throughout his collegiate career, including the 1985 Final Four. While he had the talent to play in the NBA, his career as an addict was more important at the time. He got lucky and didn't die.

If those stories weren't enough to scare the everliving crap out of me, I don't think anything ever could.

I started this documentary yesterday afternoon and finished it this morning. A 90 minute documentary ended up taking over 16 hours to watch because certain parts of this movie made me physically nauseous. I had to stop the DVR and work on small projects around the house in order to get away from the reality of what I was watching.

I was disgusted to the point of appetite-loss at what they had to do in order to earn money for drugs. And then to watch them inject them into their veins.

What struck me at the beginning was how ordinary these four people appeared. They were fairly intelligent despite any formal education. They were witty, resourceful, generous, and full of every emotion you and I feel at regular intervals.

The main difference was that they couldn't go for more than a handful of hours without chemicals. And despite most efforts to quit, never could.

One of the girls was sentenced to Riker's for a month for assault. While she was away in temporary "shelter" (with minimal care) for what ended up being only 18 days, it was amazing how her physical appearance improved. Her face filled out a bit, her skin cleared up, even her hair and nails looked healthier.

Of course, within days, she was back looking like a nightmare.

The documentary ended up with an interview with one of the girls days after she got out of rehab. She couldn't find her boyfriend and didn't seem terribly upset at it. While this new opportunity to change her environment didn't keep her from lighting up within hours of exiting the program, it did allow her to pause and reflect on a moment from her childhood.

As she walked through a subway terminal, she commented that as a child she didn't understand why people lived there. Why didn't they have a house and a bed to crawl into a night, she used to ask her dad. Twenty years later, she stopped asking and knew the answer. She had become one of the persons she didn't understand as a child.