Pubdate: Sun, 04 Dec 2005 Source: Northwest Herald (IL) Copyright: 2005 Northwest Herald Newspapers Contact: http://www.nwherald.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2762 Author: Rich Atwater ADDICTS NOT ALL UNIQUE Lyle was a cocaine dealer. He told people he didn't use his own product because it didn't make economic sense, but he was lying. He told people he'd used a little in the past but had never been a regular customer. This was a lie, too. He gave up trying to fool his parents about the money. They gradually figured out that he wasn't making a car payment on the new Camaro with the money he made delivering pizzas. They finally figured out everyone that showed up to "visit" him at night wasn't part of his close social circle. They figured out that he must be doing something illegal, but in the beginning, they weren't sure what it was. Lyle had always been a pretty good kid. He hadn't been in trouble with the law in high school, but he and his brother had never had much good to say about school. By senior year Lyle quit, he said, to join the military only to find that they wouldn't take him until he finished anyway. Disappointed and bored since all his friends had left for college, Lyle found a new set of friends and started to party regularly. Within the year, Lyle had started using cocaine and other assorted drugs. Coke was his favorite and easiest to get, but expensive, so he started selling small quantities to offset the cost. To sell, he had to have "product" around all the time. As time passed, he was less and less able to keep much coke around to sell, because it all ended up going up his nose. In order to maintain his stocks, he began to purchase larger quantities from a higher level distributor and became indebted up to his eyeballs for the coke he needed to sell. He needed to sell more coke because he was using more coke and because he had more around to sell he ended up doing more coke. As his parents got wise, so did Lyle, and he moved in with his closest coke buddy to avoid confrontation. By now, the police in his town were watching him closely, and the local narcotics task force was preparing to pounce. Lyle didn't know if he was paranoid or if they really were out to get him. In his confusion, he was totally unprepared for the arrest. His lawyer told him to get into a treatment program as soon as possible, preferably before his first court date. Lyle continued to insist his problem was dealing not using, right up until his first unannounced drug test. His positive result for cocaine metabolites blew the lid off his cover, and it wasn't much longer before Lyle was able to admit he was a drug addict like the rest of the people in treatment. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman