My Bubble

I’ve done a lot of stuff.  I’ve been to New York City to see the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I’ve been backstage at EPCOT.  I’ve been on the Warner Brothers movie lot.  (Not on the regular tour, mind you.  I had credentials and ate in the commissary and got to stand in the soundstage where they filmed the pirate ship scene in Goonies, just sayin’.) But today I am going to share one thing that I have never done.

I (pause for dramatic effect) have never been high.

That’s right kids. I have never smoked pot.  I have never done a line of cocaine.  I’ve never taken Ecstasy.  I’ve never even taken too many pain pills and gotten a buzz.

I’d never given much thought to it until the other day, when I saw a Dateline rerun about drugs running rampant through college campuses. I remembered the first time that I saw that particular episode. It was in a hotel room in Pittsburgh.  A friend, whom I shall call Suzette, and I had driven in the night before to attend a concert and spent the night after at the Marriott downtown.  We were getting dressed and ready to leave and head home. (Okay, we were going to IKEA.  But focus.) Because she and I must always have background noise, we had the TV on and were listening to Chris Hansen give his special report about hard drugs being everywhere on college campuses.  Suzette put down her mascara wand, looked at me, and said “Why weren't we offered any?”

She said it sarcastically, but it apparently stuck in my head somewhere underneath Net Present Value and The War of 1812.  I thought of Suzette’s words the other night and thought to myself, “Yeah.  Why weren't we?”

Because the fact that I have never been high is not the result of triumphantly and defiantly “Just Saying No.” Not only have I never been high, I have never found myself in a situation where doing illegal drugs was even an option.  I have never stood up for myself and walked out of a party due to my principles. I've never had to.  And truthfully I don’t know that I would have done that.  I’m destructive when I’m bored and I have an addictive personality.  And I love, really love, to have a good time.

But now I’m wondering, is my situation that unique?  According to Dateline, it is.  How did I manage this?

One could make the argument that the opportunity just never presented itself. The neighborhood I grew up in was nice, but bad things happen in nice neighborhoods all the time.  Did my neighborhood just not have troublemakers for me to be influenced by? I didn't like high school and I didn't have a lot of friends there, so was it just my exposure to a very small, limited group of people that prevented me from ever finding myself in a bad situation?

Maybe, but fast forward to college.  I knew how to have a good time.  I went out. I drank, both underage and once I was of age. I went to fraternity parties. During breaks I went out in Cleveland, first in the Flats and then later to the Warehouse District. My weekends started on Wednesday night and a lot of times didn't end until Chapter on Sunday night.  Still no drugs.

Fast forward a few years more, and now I’m a banker. According to Wolf of Wall Street and Margin Call, the financial industry is full of drugs. If that is in fact true, I never saw any of it. My early to middle 20’s were just like college.  The fact that my liver survived my time at Bank One is shocking. Weekends started on Wednesday and ended after Desperate Housewives on Sunday night.   There was a lot of shady stuff in the banking industry back then, but none of it involved drugs.

Life settled down for me a bit after 30. But I’m still a social butterfly. I jump at almost any opportunity to go out and do something fun.  And I know a lot of people and I've made a lot of new friends over the years. I've traveled a lot and seen a lot of places. Party at Tao Las Vegas?  Bottle service and bachelors, but no drugs. Hollywood Boulevard? Things you can't un-see, but still no drugs.

It makes me wonder then. I've been in so many situations where I should have come across drugs, and I didn't.  I can’t explain to you why. I can only say that it has been a really good thing.  I have some social anxiety issues and mediocre confidence, the kind of thing that is quickly remedied by a glass of wine. I don’t want to think about what could have happened if I had access to something stronger. Has it been luck? Always being surrounded by good people, even if I’m not in the best places? Some kind of divine intervention? Regardless of the reason, I've been fortunate enough to be shielded from something that destroys so many lives.

And for that, I’ll be grateful.