My cocaine highs: A personal testimony

I first used cocaine in Galway in 1990, when I was nineteen years old, recently liberated from home and school, and enthusiastically experimenting with just about every illegal substance I could lay my hands on. At the time, coke was probably the hardest drug to score in the city. Save for occasional droughts, there was usually a steady supply of hashish, grass, amphetamines and LSD around (ecstasy was still just a rumour), but cocaine – good cocaine – was a real rarity.

Needless to say, as an aspiring beat poet/gonzo writer, I was seriously on the look-out for some. The Galway club scene was much more parochial back then but it was still a serious party town. I was just a fresh-faced kid but, working in a club as a barman, I quickly got to know just about everybody.

Eventually, some reasonably good quality coke came my way. As with your virginity, you never forget your first time with white lady cocaine. I can still remember the sheer sense of exhilaration. I’d seen the procedure a million times in the movies. My acquaintance – and supplier – had chopped out two not-ungenerous lines on a small mirror, a fifty-fifty, one for each nostril. “Do them together,” he advised (mischievously, in retrospect). “You’ll get a better hit.”

I laughed nervously when he handed me the rolled-up twenty. Finally!! My rite of (nasal) passage. I watched my reflection zoom in closer on the mirror, looking ridiculous, banknote jammed up my nose, my finger pressing in my nostril, took a deep breath… SNIIIIIIIIIFFFFFFFF… and… SNIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFFFFF… and… ZAAAAAAAPPPPPP!!!

The rush came on almost immediately. My face went completely numb, and I suddenly felt truly… brilliant! Think of that scene in Titanic when Leonardo DiCaprio leans off the front of the boat, excitedly screaming “I’m the king of the world!” into the wind. Now multiply it by a thousand. That’s still nowhere near as good as I felt. King of the world? I was Master of the fucking Universe!! GET OUTTA MY WAY!!!!!!

I felt great – totally energised and super-confident. It might have been chemically enhanced but, for the first time in ages, I was happy – deliriously so. The rush wore off after about twenty minutes, but the feelings of happiness – not to mention pride at finally having done some cocaine before any of my friends – carried through to the next day. I didn’t even have a hangover. I decided that this drug definitely lived up to all the hype, was a lot of fucking fun, and resolved to do more as soon as possible.

The next week, I chipped in with some friends and asked my acquaintance if he could get me some. He told me to wait a few weeks and then there’d be plenty available. The next time I saw him was about a month later, being led out of a courtroom in handcuffs on the RTE news, charged with cocaine possession. The amount involved was peanuts compared to today, but a very big deal at the time.

A few coke-free months later, I did a significant amount – about half-a-gram – for the first time (again, given to me for free). The feelings of exhilaration and self-confidence were the same, but this time I did something useful with them – I sat down and wrote something. I found that cocaine gave me great sharpness and clarity, and was a drug ideally suited to writing. I didn’t just write something, I also mailed it to a publisher the very same night. That act directly led to a small but significant publishing deal a month later, which made me no money but certainly changed my life.

I won’t say cocaine launched my writing career, but it certainly gave me the confidence to go for it. Over the next few years I used cocaine intermittently, but rarely in a big way. Ecstasy had arrived with a bang, the club scene had exploded and, slowly but surely, cocaine was becoming more readily available. It was still prohibitively expensive and I was a humble freelance writer, living hand to mouth – but every now and again, a friend would have some or I’d get a decent cheque and feel like treating myself. It was always great fun, always a welcome addition to a night out.

When I moved to Dublin in the mid-90’s, cocaine was fast becoming mainstream, especially amongst people of my age group who were tired of ecstasy – a drug that reduced you to an eyeball-rolling, teeth grinding freak – and ready to move on to a more adult and sociable drug. Moving in media circles, it didn’t take me long to get a coke connection. I think I was given a dealer’s phone number the first day I arrived.

It was usually just thirty minutes away – £100 a gram, including courier delivery to wherever you happened to be. Deals tended to be of dubious quality, often heavily cut with glucose – if you were lucky. Still, it got you high and everybody was too busy riding the Celtic Tiger (not to mention each other) to bother complaining. It seemed to be everywhere and just about everybody seemed to be doing it. I could name you dozens of journalists, musicians, DJ’s, promoters, celebrities, lawyers, advertising execs, academics, barmen, waiters, TV producers, businessmen, hairdressers who were in on the act, partaking on a fairly regular basis. I certainly never saw anybody refuse a line.

Coke in Galway had been a party thing, but coke in Dublin had a much more obviously criminal context. The people dealing weren’t fun-lovin’ ravers making a bit of cash on the side – they were serious gangsters (or at least there were gangsters right behind them).

Although I used – and usually enjoyed using – on a semi-regular basis, I didn’t really develop a serious habit until the summer of 1997. It sort of crept up on me. I’d had a fairly turbulent time emotionally (a relationship had ended, and I’d just run in the general election as a cannabis legalisation candidate), was utterly drained and didn’t really want to deal with reality. Cocaine seemed an ideal solution – a way of fooling myself into feeling fine. And I still saw it as a great writing tool. Unfortunately, that was a false economy. I was often spending more on the coke required to write an article, than the article was worth to me.

In many ways, cocaine helped me overcome feelings of shyness or insecurity and gave me the confidence to really push myself professionally. It also energised me, allowing me to stay up all night to get a story finished. I was working harder than ever before, contributing to several newspapers and magazines, and almost every penny was going on booze and coke.

For obvious financial reasons, it couldn’t last forever, but for a few months, I was using daily and constantly wired. I was using other drugs as well – especially alcohol, dope and ecstasy – but cocaine was my main thing. Physically this was eventually extremely wearing. I felt like shit a lot of the time (except for directly after I’d snorted a line). Sometimes I’d get the cocaine sweats so bad that people would ask me if it was raining outside when I walked into the pub. On a few occasions, my heart began to thump so furiously I was sure it was about to explode.

The mental effects were just as serious. My personality began to change, my behaviour became obnoxious and erratic, my thoughts were definitely darker, and I was hugely paranoid – constantly convinced that I was under drug squad surveillance (not unreasonably, given my druggy profile and the dodgy company I was occasionally keeping). But that’s what happens when you do too much cocaine. You go a little crazy.

Following a few near scrapes with dealers I owed money to, I found myself faced with two options. Either quit buying cocaine or start dealing it to cover my use. Morality aside, dealing wasn’t really an option. I knew a lot of potential customers but my profile was way too high for me to get away with it. Having little choice, I quit buying and started trying to get my act together.

I didn’t completely stop using. There was always some around and occasionally I’d take a toot. One of the perks of having stood up publicly for drug legalisation is that lots of grateful drug-users are more than happy to share their stash with you.

I had another brief period of snow-blindness towards the end of 1999, but only because I came into the promise of some serious money. There was a film deal in the offing, and I started to spend the money upfront. It was madness and I should have known it. On the plus side, I became so self-obsessed that I wrote a successful autobiography. Swings and roundabouts, I guess.

Eventually, as I grew older and wiser, I realised that I needed a complete break from the lifestyle. I moved to a friend’s house in a remote corner of the countryside, where I couldn’t get The Guardian, let alone cocaine, and concentrated on my writing instead. Aside from occasional forays to Dublin or Hot Press assignments abroad, I spent more than a year-and-a-half off the scene and it did my head the world of good. I soon found that I didn’t really miss my old life very much. I still don’t. Incidentally, I feel safe writing this because it’s all in the past, and nowadays, at the grand old age of 32, I’m living an entirely different, coke free kind of life.

Despite all the trouble and stress it has caused me, I can’t deny that cocaine also had quite a positive effect. I’ve had some of the best nights of my life on coke. In fairness, I’ve also had some of the worst. I do regret some of the things I’ve done or said under the influence of the drug, but then there were times when it gave me confidence when I badly needed it. And while I’ve heard a lot of horror stories and seen quite a few casualties, the vast majority of the people I knew who were using it back when I was, didn’t have problems with it. Many of the same people are still using, but live busy and productive lives as well. To suggest that it’s any other way is to miss the point completely.

Ultimately I don’t see it as an evil drug. It’s a potentially addictive and powerful stimulant that needs to be treated with respect, but really it’s just another commodity – no better or worse than tobacco or alcohol or BMW’s. It’s the drug trade that’s evil. And it’s the prohibition that allows the trade to exist. If the authorities genuinely want to see an end to the cocaine business as we know it, then they’re going to have to sort out the problem of poverty in South America. And if they genuinely want to see an end to problematic drug abuse then they’re going to have to create a world so perfect, nobody wants to seek escape from it.

Given that neither is a likely option, there’s really only one effective solution to the drug problem. Legalise, regulate and educate. It’s the only sane way to go. And unlike all of those laughable drug “experts” who’ve never been high in their lives, I definitely know what I’m talking about.