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This is the dilemma Vern Webb Sr. faces in the opening scene in my novel “Skyscrapers.” His second wife Pamela reports that Vern’s namesake son has been found unconscious on somebody’s lawn, and Vern explodes. Vern Jr. is actually following habitual teen behavior regarding alcohol: binge drinking, which is five drinks or more at one time per week, or heavy drinking, which would be binge drinking multiple times each week. This is of course extremely dangerous behavior even if the teen does not drive while drunk, so Vern’s response is furious. When he later confronts his son, he actually gets somewhat physical, yanking Vern Jr. out of a chair and shoving him back into it.
The answer to dealing with addicts is not physical abuse. It also is not enabling their behavior. Vern Sr. knows that Vern Jr.’s best chance is to go back into rehab. He gets his son to agree. But his son knows something is amiss; what he does not know is that his father is a former addict. Many teens get drunk together, a sort of ritualistic showing off, which would account for binge behavior once a week. Those who are heavy drinkers, bingeing more times a week, are already alcoholics. They need help such as rehab, but only if they will take rehab seriously. They have to want to shake the habit very badly, because as anyone who has ever had an addiction knows – even if it was a coffee addiction – habits are hard to shake.
In 2012, 52.1% of Americans twelve or older self-identified as current alcohol drinkers. This adds up to 135.5 million alcohol drinkers, which should come as no surprise. Many of these people have enjoyed beer or wine all their lives, and handle it responsibly. This is a much larger number than the 23.9 million Americans who are currently illegal drug users, with marijuana being the most common choice. Marijuana use is on the increase, going from 14.5 million users in 2002 to 18.9 in 2012. Of course this number will rise as states legitimize the use of medical marijuana.
Surprisingly, the use of illegal drugs is increasing in the aging population, going from 3.4% in 2002 to 7.2% in 2012 in adults 50 – 64, and going from 1.9% in 2002 to 6.6% in 2012 in adults 55 – 59. This seems to reflect the era in which these adults grew up, where drug use was quite common and even advocated. Remember Timothy Leary’s “Turn on, Tune in, Drop out?” (He was addressing the Human Be-In at the Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, 1967).
In “Skyscrapers” I made the illegal business of drug dealing central to the plot. Vern Webb Sr. was laundering drugs through his legitimate business, Midwest Industries. The plot against him was initiated by a former business associate in illegal drug dealing in Manhattan, who jealously plotted to take over his drug business. The other CEO in the book, Eleanora Torquemada Smith’s first boyfriend, Diego Diaz, has grown up to be a major drug dealer but early in life she rejected him and his lifestyle. The drug culture may seem overplayed, but the city called Powhaten in the book is modeled on Chicago. Chicago, in reality, is a hub for drugs coming from South America, the Middle East, and the Far East. It has drug cartels run by African-Americans, by Hispanics, by Russians and by Asian groups, competing with each other.
Addicts are the drivers of this business. If there were no demand, there would be no need to supply drugs, and an entire drug/violence culture would have no reason to exist. Therefore drug dealers (not the small expendables who stand on street corners selling packets) but the big honchos in the business, have a vested interest in getting as many people hooked as possible. As the figures show, a great many people are addicted. The results can be deadly.
Yet think back to Prohibition and the question of alcohol deprivation. The entire country was thrown into violence when alcohol was denied to the general populace, and things calmed down when Prohibition was repealed. Legitimate drinking is regarded as a right, not a privilege. Illegal drug use is regarded as a crime. If 52.1% of American drink, they run the gamut from people keeping warm in duck blinds to people ordering $50 bottles of Chateauneuf du Pape. Alcohol, though just as deadly as other addictions, is relatively ignored unless the drinker is caught driving a motor vehicle.
What am I trying to say with the focus on alcoholism and drug dealing in “Skyscrapers?” I’m trying to say that facilitating the addiction of others is predatory behavior. To drink or smoke or snort are personal choices that can legally be made by adults, although just like teens, adults can over-indulge their way into awful situations including fatal car crashes, jail terms, shootings and brawls. Inviting someone to use a substance to which they may prove vulnerable is really cruel and unusual punishment, because addicts suffer. The addict picked up in the train station in the novel can’t think properly and I know, having lost my sister to severe alcoholism, that the physical inroads of abuse are equally severe. If a person can’t escape the addiction fairly soon, too much is lost to ever regain one’s capacities. That is a lot to pay for what seemed like harmless drinking or puffing in one’s youth. 135.5 million Americans think they can handle alcohol, and 23.9 million think they can handle illicit drugs without harming themselves or others. Let’s hope they’re right, because human vultures, in the form of professional drug suppliers, dealers and launderers stand waiting to turn handsome profits from the human physiological ability to become addicted to certain known substances.
NB: Data from U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Publication No. (SMA)13-4795
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