Once upon a time, I was a confused teenager deathly afraid of even experimenting with the very substances that would come to rule my life. Desperate to fit in somewhere, to be accepted, or perhaps just to be noticed, when the other fifteen-year-olds that I hung out with started to drink at parties, I pretended to drink and then feigned being drunk.
The first time I was offered a tab of acid, I faked swallowing it and then acted as if I, too, were seeing purple dinosaurs dance across the walls. Pretending to smoke pot the first few times was a little more difficult, but I didn't inhale.
My instincts were right; I had much to fear from drugs and alcohol. Like many women, I ignored my instincts and listened to my own shadows.
Predictably, things worked out for the worse. The great irony, of course, was that toward the end of my first spiral of addiction, much of my energy went into pretending that I was not under the influence of substances.
I'm so grateful not to have to pretend in either direction anymore when it comes to substances. Trust your true instincts; they seldom steer you wrong.