The Thing About Uniqueness
Berlin has three things to see: the TV Tower, the Brandenburg Gate, and a guy on a bike who sells drugs. When you finally settle into the city mentally instead of just renting an apartment there, it takes about two weeks before someone introduces you to him. He knows someone who knows someone. Before long you’re standing in a bar somewhere and this guy shows up with kind eyes, you talk about life and love and death, he hands you some bags, he disappears. Until next time.
In 2009, 1,331 people in Berlin died from drugs. The capital leads the nation in overdose deaths, year after year. But no one I know lets this fact change their plans. The party nights in the trendy districts are punishing—loud, exhausting, relentless. Without speed or LSD or ecstasy, you can’t sustain it. Everyone knows this. Everyone knows where to get it and how.
No one thinks of themselves as dependent. Taking pills or powder is just part of it, like Red Bull and kebab at 4 a.m. It’s fine to do once. To stay up. To push through the fatigue, the hollow feeling, the weight of your own head. The image of a junkie in the corner doesn’t match the person you think you are. But everyone I know has a friend who meant to quit and didn’t. Who got stuck somewhere between once and always.
Demonizing drugs as a thing for addicts and losers is easy but wrong. They’re embedded in every layer of society—beer, cigarettes, pills, heroin. The law says no, which sounds serious until you realize it doesn’t stop anyone. It just makes everything quieter and more matter-of-fact.
A little experiment is fine. We’re here once. What’s the harm. Try this once, try that once. The problem is when once becomes routine. When Tuesday morning you’re doing a line with your breakfast cereal, just to see. When you’re popping stimulants just to function. When weed takes up more time than cooking or sleeping or anything else that’s actually supposed to sustain you.
The trick with anything that can grab you is keeping balance. Between trying something and depending on it. Between playing and needing. Between existing and disappearing. If you’re going to let something control your consciousness, you don’t just accept the consequences—you have to stay aware of the line. The one between experiment and habit.
I still go to Berlin sometimes. I still know where to find it. I still know the people. And I still tell myself it’s just this once, just for the weekend. I’m pretty sure I’m lying.