I grew up and still live in a relatively small town, the kind of place where as a child you go out in the morning and come home when the street light come on and everybody thought that was normal.  It did not matter where you went or what you did as long as you were home shortly after the street lights come on.  

In my town there was not all that much to do so like most people I started drinking and smoking pot real young, 12 actually.  The drinking was natural for most of the kids in my town and the pot well everybody here smokes pot.  There is literally so much pot that half of the closed factories end up being pot farms!   

Growing up I worked in the biggest bar in my town, I worked there every summer doing cleaning, repairing, bar backing and running the grill during street festivals in the summer.  From his connections and the people I met I got to be in pretty tight with the local bikers.  I never wanted to be a biker, in fact the thought of the lifestyle kinda scared me.  I was all to aware of the violence and killings that were common place.  

In high school I was the resident guy to talk to about getting pot, I got it right from the bikers so I had the best prices plus nobody would fuck with me because of who I was and who I knew, mostly because of who I knew!  With this relationship I always got invited to their parties and to hang out, kinda had to do it otherwise they would not trust me.  Trust is everything with gangs and if you have it you had better keep it!  So i went to their parties and usually had a good time, never really got tuned because I always wanted to have my wits about me in case things took a left turn which often happens at these parties.  

So I was at a party at the house of one of the richest guys in my town.  He owned a tonne of stuff and nobody really knew where most of his money came from and as far as I know nobody ever asked.  I worked in one of his record shops for a few months one year and he knew I was into classic Canadian Rock so he asked if I wanted to meet DW, of course I did.  He took me upstairs to the top floor of his house and to this huge rec room with pool table, big screen (this was before everybody and their brother had one).  At a table at the back sat Mr. DW and two gorgeous chicks, old enough to be his daughters daughters but just my age.  The biggest pile of blow I had ever seen sat before him and his face was covered in the shit.  He greeted us with open arms and a huge smile, introductions were made and partying commenced. 

About an hour later I got up to leave, pretty spun and ready to get some air.  He asked me my name again and I told him.  Bad idea, for some reason he started to get all weired out and walked past me and locked the door.  He said he couldn't remember what it was but something about my name made him uneasy and I was not aloud to leave until we figured it out. 

The next twelve hours or so are a blur, too much coke and booze.  Not to toot my own horn but he sure kept those girls busy too.  I never really felt scared but it sure was weird!  He got up and said he was hungry and left the room in search of food, the girls and I left - FAST!  We quietly walked through the mostly sleeping house and outside, I said thank you and goodbye with hopes of never seeing any of them again. 

I then swore off coke and decided I needed to make some changes (I had just been held hostage for 1/2 a day).  About 3 months later I met my wife and the rest is all history!!  I gave up most regular usage of most drugs, except pot and gave up dealing which got me out of the strange world of gangs!!