My Name is Andy, and I'm...SOBER!

As strange as this may sound, I've never done drugs. I've had plenty of friends that could hook me up if I so desired, but I've had no need to smoke, shoot, or snort anything out of the ordinary. I didn't even start drinking alcohol until I was twenty-three years old. I had a few sneak-a-drinks as a kid but I never had more than one drink nor did I ever get drunk. On my twenty-first birthday, I did have a couple of drinks at the insistence of friends. But I'm not talking about alcohol here. I'm talking about DRUGS. Good old-fashioned, piss off Nancy Reagan, start an intervention, waste all your money toking up on DRUGS!

Most of my friends are shocked to find out I havent even puffed on one marijuana joint. I suppose it seems illogical to have a fire-eating friend who has worked for circuses and carnivals, showered with a horse and has never boofed a fatty even once.

It is a hard thing to admit publicly, being a non-user of drugs. I cant use terms like clean & sober or drug-free. Those terms are reserved for people who used to abuse drugs and are now free from the bonds of addiction. I fail to get high even once and that doesnt warrant a good for you or a round of applause from people also dealing with painful, constant sobriety.

Drugs are so hip and cool, it is socially unacceptable for me to not be in the club. Ask around, most everyone you know doesnt use drugs, but does smoke a little pot once in awhile. Those who dont use ANYTHING are likely to be the friends you dont hang out with often. Perpetually sober people are boring and conservative losers. Perhaps this is why so many are actually shocked to find out that Im clean. After all, I am SO COOL!

Whats worse is how people act around me when they find out about my sobriety affliction. Many are afraid to light up or talk drug-speak around me, fearing that Im some undercover narcotics officer. Others become considerably more polite around me if they do indulge. They ask if I mind if they smoke and are quick to offer me a toke. Ive even been told that theyd walk me through my first time, as if the reason I havent had any drugs is because Im terrified of freaking out. Some volunteer to vent my apartment or spray the Glade to cover up the offending odor. I try and get them to smoke in the bathroom or kitchen hoping that when they leave Ill have a clean toilet and shiny dishes.
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I dont care if people use drugs. I have no political or social agenda, no opinion about them whatsoever. I prefer that my friends dont use the harder stuff around me and I really dont want my precious cigar humidor to be their stashs hiding place. I dont care what adults do in the comforts of their own time. Just dont kill me or get me arrested and DONT ask me for bail money.

I always have to give an over-explanation for my life without unmentionables as if Im doing something wrong. Theres my problem with drugs, the stigma attached to NOT using them.

I am already paranoid enough, funny enough, hungry enough, and crazy enough without them. Bizarre things happen to me on such a regular basis that I dont need drugs to make my life any more interesting. To put it bluntly (HA!), most people think Im already on drugs.

A big reason I abstain is that I have to stay sharp on stage and on my way to the gigs. I have too many talented friends who have shown up late, performed smashed, hurt themselves or lost work because of their habits creeping into their work. Ironically, a lot of these folks are considerably farther along on the rich and famous scale than I am. That may be the only reason TO start up. I dont like working with these guys when theyre high and therefore, dont want to be one of those guys. More importantly, I eat fire! Should a guy sticking flammable objects in his mouth be strung out?

The closest I ever came to actually trying pot was in Jamaica. Pot is everywhere in that glorious land and everyone has some to share or sell. My wife hadnt enjoyed any in years and thought that while in the land of the leaf she should try the good stuff. Somehow I had to be the one to make the purchase. Me. Let me tell you, making a drug deal when youve got absolutely NO IDEA WHAT THE HELL YOURE DOING is itself, a strange trip. I didnt know what the going rate was at home so why the hell should I try haggling with the hotel pool guy? What made it funnier was that my wife only wanted one joint, an amount so inconsequential to a Jamaican that he couldnt help but laughing at my request. One joint, Mon? Thats not enough to watch one sunset, he said with a smile. I made my request and he graciously agreed to come up to our room with the goods.

I went back to the room all excited that Id made a drug deal. I wondered if Fisher Price made a My First Joint kit. We waited for our supplier to arrive. After a knock on our door, my connection was there with a quantity of pot sizable enough to cure glaucoma for hundreds of people! He entered the room, happily cut the product and even rolled the joint. Now thats SERVICE! The joint was as large as my middle finger and from all accounts, would have easily made three or four normal-sized joints back home in the stingy States. Even better, there was plenty of pot left over to make at least 3 more joints of that size. He charged us the equivalent of about 15 US dollars (a bargain, Im told) and told us to keep the rest. We tipped him for the effort (you tip everybody in Jamaica) and laughed wondering if wed tipped the appropriate amount for a drug deal.

That monster-joint didnt get smoked until the next day. I waited for a review and did not partake. For the next few days I played with the remaining marijuana like a kid with a new toy. I rolled the stuff into two sizable joints just to see if I could make a good joint, having gleaned a little rolling technique from watching a friend of mine once. I dont know if the joints I rolled were any good. They stayed in the drawer of my night stand, likely enjoyed by the next guest of that room. Im sure it was amusing to watch me smelling the pot, feeling the texture, rolling and re-rolling joints for a few days, only to pull out a Cuban cigar (as illegal a substance as I was willing to smoke) a few moments later.
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Why didnt I smoke the joints? I have no idea. I do wonder what I was missing then and what Ive been missing all these years. There must be something to all this drug hullabaloo. I say its high-time I find out.

Ive decided to form my own twelve-step program. Ill call it AL-A-NOT. Ill help people make the transition into the fuzzy-headed world of narcotics. A signed poster of Robert Downey Jr. will be on the wall. A circle of coherent, non-twitching people discussing Meg Ryan movies will fill the room.

The first step will be admitting that we dont have a problem. Someone will stand up and say his name. Well say HI in unison and when the subject admits his sobriety well start booing and throwing things at him, shunning the BRAIN CELL LOVER.

Well play a vintage copy of the Grateful Deads Working Class Dead and try to enjoy it without wondering when the songs will end. Eventually well be strung out and broke, watching bad movies based upon bad Hunter S. Thompson books. Well wonder why P.J. ORourke is suddenly a conservative, and laugh at Pauly Shore and Bobcat Goldthwait. The Wizard of Oz, Willy Wonka and H.R. Puffinstuff will take on new meanings and well be issued DVD copies of Trainspotting and Dazed & Confused. Well read Carl Hiasson, Gregory Macguire, and Lemony Snicket books KNOWING what the authors were on when they wrote them.

My God, it will be beautiful!

Look at all the pretty colors. Whoa! Dude, The Banana Splits are like, HUGE mutant animals and they all are late for the bus. Dontcha get it, man? Were the animals and the bus is like...LIFE and we want it to slow down so we can get on and Life wont pass us by. LOOK OUT! Its Injun Joe! Hide the stash!

Dude, if you, like want MORE info about Andy "The Spliffmaster" Martello go to his radical website, www.andymartello.com. There's, like, a TOTALLY cool plate spinning game in there and lots of info about "other things to smoke" in Andy Land. Whoa! I'm trippin'.

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