...cocaine. I've been around the block a few times, but one thing I've never done is cocaine. It was fairly intentional - I'm not into stimulants for one, and me and my friends never had the money to waste on stuff like coke. I've only been around it once and never tried it. I'm actually grateful for my ignorance on the subject. That said, I'm currently working on a sequel to my last novel, and my MC is going to be encountering coke at parties and the people he is working with. I have no intention of getting the MC high or hooked, but other peoples coke use is going to affect him. These folks are rich, so their actions and problems surrounding their drug use are not going to be financial. Problem is, like my MC who has never encountered it before, I don't know much about it either. I understand it's quite the pick-me-up, but beyond that I imagine there are plenty of negatives. What's it like being sober in a room full of people who are all coked up? Do people ever get in coke induced meltdowns, like a bad trip where you intended to become euphoric but instead you're freaking out or hysterical? What sort of physical characteristics would identify someone who is currently high on it? I want it to be funny and scary at the same time. Touchy subject probably, but it's a reality in our world, and one I'm glad to have no real experience with.
If you don't go freaking nuts with it, then not really. Sometimes you can get jittery, but it's kind of like that with any stimulant, coffee included. Cocaine is numbing, so if you snort a lot, then you'll probably do a lot of weird swallowing for a while because of what's gone down the back of your throat. Maybe a bit of stomach tightness, but most of the downsides come with what it's been cut with rather than the actual cocaine. So if your guys are rich, then at worst they'll probably just get the trots as one of the most common things it's cut with is baby laxative. Of course, this is all based on experience with 'moderate' usage, so personal mileage may vary. I know I've heard stories of people going nuts while using, but I've never personally seen it and I suspect it's kind of like those guys that start fights after a couple of drinks in that they want to start fights anyway, but use the beers as an excuse. I tend to clean a lot. That or I'll get deep into something that's really finicky and demands some concentration, like doing puzzles and playing Tetris or cooking. I usually also get far more social and engaging, which can be pretty terrifying for some people as I can be a pretty intense personality when sober and drugs and alcohol kind of exacerbate that.
Cocaine isn't so bad if taken in moderation. It's not really like the movies, where folks are beside themselves crazy and doing things they'd never do sober. Coke is quick up, and crash down. You wake in the morning with something of a hangover that's very similar to drinking too much. Pounding head, and whatnot. If not taken in insane amounts, you can party with the drug and be good as new the next day. One thing though, doing a decent amount of cocaine had one side effect I didn't very much like; it is not at all a good sex drug. I usually need no more than a light breeze to fall upon my cock to get hard as a rock, but while high on coke I might as well have been a monk! My time with coke was short and sweet, and a very long time ago. But I've no regrets about giving it a good go.
I really don't like being around people who do coke (since I don't indulge myself). I feel like it makes them hyper, like they have ADHD, and gives them a totally false sense of confidence. I can see how that would be fun for the person taking the drug, but in my experience it's annoying as hell for someone who isn't high. It's maybe similar to being an introvert in a room full of extroverts. They're too loud, they won't have serious conversations about anything, they're trying so hard to be charming that they end up being annoying, etc.
This will fit perfectly into the scenes I am envisioning. My guy is sort of a naive introvert who has been cast into a world of the rich and famous and will be seeing and experiencing things like this for the first time. He likes to drink a bit and is somewhat of a pot-head, but coke has never been his thing... then suddenly he's around people doing coke at every other occasion. I want it to wind up being somewhat of an annoyance to him and what he's trying to accomplish.
Early in my career, I temped at a company whose boss was an avid user, and I worked at another now-defunct company that was fueled by the stuff. In the case of the one guy, a lot of sniffling and constant movement come to mind, along with a hair-trigger temper. Already given to screaming, on coke he was even worse. When he wasn't screaming he was gregarious, but he was slimy as hell, so it didn't come off very well. "Superman complex" is definitely a thing. He thought he was a great guy who could do anything, while in reality, he was an insufferable asshole. At the company that was fueled by it, I was the only non-user, which was interesting. On Mondays they were all in a foul mood, which had the interns walking around on eggshells because the personalities ranged from crabby to snappish to full-on top-of-the-lungs tantrums. At work events, they were mostly fun to be around, except the ones who were full-blown addicts. A friend of a friend was a hardcore addict and when combined with the other substances he was taking, it made him paranoid a la Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx during his shooting-at-little-men-he-saw-in-the-frontyard-trees period.
Most of the restaurants I've worked in had cooks using coke while on the job. One or two places, management was selling it. I never asked about it too much, though one guy said it, "made him feel like a god." People would just work a little faster and be chatty while they were doing it. It's way more effective if you have some skill at what you are doing, because people need to stay out of your lane while you are working high.
At loud, drunken parties, the effects of coke or other drug use might not be especially noticed beyond that.
It's a room-full of intense people. It's not insane. It's not glazed eyes and sweaty skin that's stretched too tight or maniacal laughter. This isn't meth, it's coke. I've never seen this. I've seen people become broken toys doing G, doing K, but never coke. Except maybe for the drunk people. Coke and liquour go hand in hand. There's a belief that one cancels out the other so you can do both all night. There's a modicum of truth to it, but only a modicum and it only applies to those who know when to stop. The person who becomes an aggressively coked-up+drunk problem at your blow party is the exact same person who would become a drunk problem at your drinks party, so the coke is only latterally to blame. If it's decent blow, other than the social dial being turned up a number of notches for the whole party, swallowing is a big tell. Coke is a stronge analgesic/numbing agent and the numbing effect makes you swallow a little compulsively.
There might be a parallel narrative to proceedings. Your character may or may not comprehend why random folks are zipping off or clinging to Derick because Derick's the man with 10 grams in his pocket. Definitely you might have some fun with the earnest rambling stream of consciousness super confused loving but egocentric jibber of party guests, sniff...turns his back...enormous snort of despair..I mean who wouldn't snort like a pig at a party? Where's Derick. Hi Derick, i really like you, Derick. By the way @The Dapper Hooligan's coke sounds very low quality cut. I'm not a snob, only I'm saying probably it was baby powder
I think most points covered. @Iain Sparrow comment on sex is true. Coke is a quick hit, that then falls away. The best hit is the first line taken that night with subsequent hits giving diminishing returns leading to doing more hits in shorter spaces of time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaethylene Coke + Alcohol = Coca ethylene this gives a bigger euphoric kick over doing coke sober. God complex comes in here. At a Party its easily spotted and should be shown in your story. Conversions will start calm but will get noisy and go off at tangents as the God complex hits. Brain storming, or workload is often sighted where coke can help. This is mainly myth, with ideas re-read sober turnout to be rubbish. Workload, well the quantity output high but quality low with many errors. I’m a semi-retired Banker Wanker and have done it all, trust me. Unfortunately, you’ll never get over its addiction quality. My industry was rife with its use and 3grams a day a common level. At this point though you never get the endorphin hits and you take coke just to stay level... The High no longer exists... Norfolk
Oh, most definitely. This is The North, mate, probably twice as far from cocaine's natural habitat than Miami or Hollywoodland. That's why my upper of choice was crystal meth. It was cheap, easy to clean, widely available, and healthier than a lot of alternatives. ETA: and yes, I have just as many teeth now as I did before I started smoking it.
Perfectly put. The people I was around were not casual, occasional users, and I noticed that coke amped up the personality of the person, whatever that personality may be. Sweet party girl becomes more party. Angry guy got angrier. Happy guy got more gregarious and chummy. Creepy guy got more intensely so. Of course, the levels of all these things depend on how much they're doing, how often, and with what other substances. The people I was around varied from danger zone to addict. ETA: I didn't know any casual, occasional users. Oh lord, I forgot about the tangents. Yes! This! Lots of nodding and wide-eyed blinking on my part as I tried to make sense of what the coked-up boss was saying and trying to follow his tangents enough to take legible notes of his "brilliant ideas" because he always wanted to read them later...along with his tangents being punctuated with "[Shenanigator], did you get my joke just now? Hey I thought that was funny. Didn't you think it was funny? They all thought it was funny." I wrote this paragraph in frantic run-on sentences to try to convey an idea of the pace. This, and if addiction progresses, add in the frustration of not being able to "find" that euphoric high no matter how hard they try, the moodiness of the crashes, and a hefty dose of depression.
On the other hand if its not decent blow a queue for the toilets and people crapping in the sinks and urinals because the cubicles are all are taken is also a fairly large tell (low price coke is commonly cut with baby laxative, which can have obvious effects. High quality coke is usually cut with milk sugar so its not really an issue.) Also big pupils - because its a stimulant it makes your pupils go wide (although this is also true of speed and meth so its not a tell purely for coke)
Why do they call it "blow" if the objective is to snort it? Isn't that like the complete opposite of blowing?
Drug words are strange. When I was at U.F. and rolling was still a thing, I often wondered why they were called rolls and why doing it was called rolling. Some people called them beans, which makes a kind of descriptive sense, I guess, but doing it was universally called rolling. I never felt like I was actually rolling. I felt a lot of things, but rolling wasn't one of them.
lol you guys know way too much about this subject, among other things! I can tell you everything you want to know about weed and psychedelics, but stimulants have never had an attraction to me. I'm already hyper enough as it is, and a cup of coffee is all it takes to send me over the top. Anything beyond and you would be peeling me off the ceiling.
