Meth

[bluedog225]

I just had my first “business” dealing with a meth head. Wow.

Non stop talking.

He’s 50 easy, and still lives with mom. Sh!t everywhere.

He says he buys abandoned storage containers for a living and resells. From the inventory, I think it’s true. He knows the retail price of everything. And he’s pretty close on the prices.

He has about 1500 lbs of galvanized stuff piled on his driveway from a company that did something with cell towers. Big, thick galvanized plates, hundreds of u-bolts, antennas, channel (not strut unfortunately), 2” electrical conduit, on and on and on. I need to go back with my trailer.

I asked what the most interesting thing he found was. He said a kilo of cocaine. Then he described in detail how he got a friend to sell if for him and how they divided up the proceeds. Tmi. Absolutely no filter. As a client he would be a disaster.

He’s got a couple of brand new milwaukee pack-outs full of new misc milwaukee hand tools, batteries, and a strange number of lights.

I’m trying to convince myself they are not stolen.

[Chip-skiff]

Lots of meth-heads in Wyoming. It's the drug of choice for people who work long shifts at surface mines, on drilling rigs, etc. in a state where industrial safety ranks very low. Given the widespread alcoholism and the number of guns here, I'm sure it amps up the domestic violence problem as well.

[hawkeye54]

How many miles to your nearest 'big-box' store, Tom ? ( I can't try to convince you either way )

[AndyG]

I just had my first “business” dealing with a meth head. Wow.

Non stop talking.

I worked on the website for a local man who ran a chauffeur business. His mate, another private hire organisation, told me the tale of his website developer.

Lots of drunken talk (not by me!) later, I learned that other website developer had his house broken into, and all his tech stuff is now in the bottom of a nearby loch. Due to "reasons".

... "Let's be careful out there!"

Andy

[Paul Pless]

meth is all consuming

[johnw]

I just had my first “business” dealing with a meth head. Wow.

Non stop talking.

He’s 50 easy, and still lives with mom. Sh!t everywhere.

He says he buys abandoned storage containers for a living and resells. From the inventory, I think it’s true. He knows the retail price of everything. And he’s pretty close on the prices.

He has about 1500 lbs of galvanized stuff piled on his driveway from a company that did something with cell towers. Big, thick galvanized plates, hundreds of u-bolts, antennas, channel (not strut unfortunately), 2” electrical conduit, on and on and on. I need to go back with my trailer.

I asked what the most interesting thing he found was. He said a kilo of cocaine. Then he described in detail how he got a friend to sell if for him and how they divided up the proceeds. Tmi. Absolutely no filter. As a client he would be a disaster.

He’s got a couple of brand new milwaukee pack-outs full of new misc milwaukee hand tools, batteries, and a strange number of lights.

I’m trying to convince myself they are not stolen.

Well, it would be a good cover for selling stolen stuff. And if you buy from him, he'll know you've got it. How sure are you it won't get stolen again?

[bluedog225]

Maybe. He offered to let me go with him to buy storage units. Teach me the trade. Maybe it’s time for a new career.

[Katherine]

How were his teeth?

[AndyG]

^ Valid point.

[bluedog225]

Funny, I didn’t notice.

[LeeG]

oh boy

[Joe (SoCal)]

I'm ashamed to add to this thread. My greatest achievement was when we hired this novice groomer who had incredible work ethic. She was living in a bad situation so I helped her get an apartment next to us. I wrote letters to the property management company and vouched for her. She grew with us. When we got van 3 in Vegas we took her to the grooming show and paid for everything. I signed her up for grooming seminars. I set up child care for her son and Renee and I treated her and her son like family. I gave her raises and she was doing wonderful, but she was lonely.

She met a looser, who I knew was bad news, he moved in, she got pregnant, they fell behind on the rent. I took her aside one day and said she can choose to do whatever with her life and if she wanted I could train her to be my admin and she can work from home. I also offered to pay the rent she was behind. I had one stipulation, she had to dump the looser. She looked to me as a father figure she never had.

She eventually chose the looser and they got evicted and moved to Washington state to live with his family. She had the baby and then got pregnant again. It was on this second pregnancy he put her in the hospital and was sent to jail. She contacted us to tell us all of this and ask if she could come back and work for us. I loved this girl and said we could work something out.

He got out of jail and she went back with him. We lost communication about a year or so ago. Renee was in contact with her sister who she knew on Facebook. Currently she and him are full blown meth addicts and the sister has her son and the parents of the looser have the other kids.

I know the grip that Meth has and the downward cycle, my heart is literally broken over this

[Dave Wright]

I'm ashamed to add to this thread. My greatest achievement was when we hired this novice groomer who had incredible work ethic. She was living in a bad situation so I helped her get an apartment next to us. I wrote letters to the property management company and vouched for her. She grew with us. When we got van 3 in Vegas we took her to the grooming show and paid for everything. I signed her up for grooming seminars. I set up child care for her son and Renee and I treated her and her son like family. I gave her raises and she was doing wonderful, but she was lonely.

She met a looser, who I knew was bad news, he moved in, she got pregnant, they fell behind on the rent. I took her aside one day and said she can choose to do whatever with her life and if she wanted I could train her to be my admin and she can work from home. I also offered to pay the rent she was behind. I had one stipulation, she had to dump the looser. She looked to me as a father figure she never had.

She eventually chose the looser and they got evicted and moved to Washington state to live with his family. She had the baby and then got pregnant again. It was on this second pregnancy he put her in the hospital and was sent to jail. She contacted us to tell us all of this and ask if she could come back and work for us. I loved this girl and said we could work something out.

He got out of jail and she went back with him. We lost communication about a year or so ago. Renee was in contact with her sister who she knew on Facebook. Currently she and him are full blown meth addicts and the sister has her son and the parents of the looser have the other kids.

I know the grip that Meth has and the downward cycle, my heart is literally broken over this

You acted in a wonderful and benevolent manner; I admire you for it. When personal one on one efforts like yours fail, is it any wonder that efforts by various government and private charitable agencies fail so often too? Seems to me we have to inculcate a society wide ethic of zero tolerance for dangerous drug abuse. How do we do that? Most people aren't drug addled - how do we make that the norm for everyone?

[JimD]

Did meth quite a few times in the early 1970s. I was 15 when my 'friend' offered me a syringe full. He might as well have been offering me an ice cream cone for all the thought I gave it. Cool! I said. Stupid kid.

[bluedog225]

I went back for some more galvanized stuff. He’s not a fellow I wanna stare in the eye too long, but his teeth were absolutely perfect straight and uniform. He was much calmer this afternoon. I met his ex-wife she’s delightful. Perhaps I misjudged the fellow. Lots of goodies for my shipping container solar panel project. He even had 50 feet or so of 2 inch underground armored, flexible conduit that was in pretty good shape. I’ll have to go back with the trailer for that. He wasn’t going to let go of the Milwaukee pack out and all those new Milwaukee tools cheap.

I have enough galvanized plate steel. Forever.

[lupussonic]

labrador-dogs-of-different-colors.jpg

[wizbang 13]

Thing is…. Gubmint been lying to the people for so long… pot,war, ya know,everyday things . .meth comes along , gubmint sez bad.
Why believe them now?

[L.W. Baxter]

...
I know the grip that Meth has and the downward cycle, my heart is literally broken over this

i have a ruined employee meth story as well.

one of my first employees circa '98 was a local youth who walked onto the jobsite looking for labor.

sean was an excellent worker and a prospect to become a successful contractor himself, and live out the dream of prosperity in the land of plenty.

about a year into his employ, he missed his first days of work, without calling in. when he showed up he told me he had been binge cleaning his apartment. i didn't really hold his absense against him, but was astounded by this excuse. wtf?

i learned later that obsessively thorough house cleaning is an impulse driven in some users by meth.

sean must have been about 20 y.o., he and his girlfriend had a baby in the next year. his job performance started to degrade, and the absences increased. i was slow to understand the perplexing signs.

i had to fire him though, on a day when i knew beyond a shadow of doubt that he was high on the job, working at height without any clue how to proceed. as i was instructing him i looked in his eyes and realized the dream was over for him.

our relationship ended very sour the following january when he called me very angrily demanding his w-2 form "right now!" i was not late, but he apparently had important and immediate plans for the child tax credit that would come with his tax return.

a few years later his mugshot was in the paper for child sex abuse. i gathered it was some cruel molestation of a baby. almost certainly while under the influence of satan in chemical form.

not even once, kids. don't touch that stuff, not even once.

[UCanoe_2]

I participated in an adopt-a-highway cleanup over the weekend. We were warned not to pick up soda bottle meth cookers discarded along the road, and to call the Sheriff's Office for proper hazmat disposal.

soda bottle meth cooker wpid-WP_IM_1342471110367__0.jpg

[Joe (SoCal)]

L.W. Have you ever seen Breaking Bad ? There was a scene where Jessie and Mike have t go to a meth house to get something inside. Mike was going to go in hard and Jessie said wait in the car and he goes in the trunk and pulls out a shovel. He walks over to the front lawn and starts to dig. The closed living room curtain opens a bit and the meth addict pears out to see him shoveling. Jessie keeps shoveling making a bit of a hole. Eventually the meth addict opens the front door and continues to watch jessie dig a hole. The meth addict sheepishly asks what he's doing ? Jessie responds, you know what I'm doing. Meth addict says your gonna go pretty deep eh ? Yea. Then jessie says you wanna dig some ? The Meth addict jumps at the chance and starts digging the hole. Mike and Jesse then go in as the Meth addict sweatily continues to dig the hole. Jessie tells Mike I know Meth addicts.

[L.W. Baxter]

i did recently binge a few seasons before it devolved into long expository talky scenes set in living rooms and offices. (same thing happened to peaky blinders). i didn't make it to that scene.

breaking bad is one of those problematic bits of entertainment. problematic because it is extremely entertaining, and makes villianous, anti social, and destructive behaviors, extremely entertaining. the protagonists being anti-heroes doesn't keep them from being heroes, thrilling us with their exploits.

we can't measure the effect of breaking bad on our meth-plagued culture, but i do feel certain it didn't help. not that entertainment should lead us out of our problems, but hopefully it doesn't do too much harm. i dunno.

[Osborne Russell]

There's this thing where people who are clearly intelligent, hard-working and ambitious suddenly decide to devote it all to some drug or other. Like it was a better reward for their efforts.

[LeeG]

labrador-dogs-of-different-colors.jpg

I remember my daughter’s young yellow lab mix running through 4’ high grass and jumping up every 20yds or so above the grass to get her bearings and a couple times looking goofy wild w ears at angles.

[Joe (SoCal)]

i did recently binge a few seasons before it devolved into long expository talky scenes set in living rooms and offices. (same thing happened to peaky blinders). i didn't make it to that scene.

breaking bad is one of those problematic bits of entertainment. problematic because it is extremely entertaining, and makes villianous, anti social, and destructive behaviors, extremely entertaining. the protagonists being anti-heroes doesn't keep them from being heroes, thrilling us with their exploits.

we can't measure the effect of breaking bad on our meth-plagued culture, but i do feel certain it didn't help. not that entertainment should lead us out of our problems, but hopefully it doesn't do too much harm. i dunno.

The creator Vince Gilligan had a different take on the story arc. It was supposed to show the the main character Walter White dissolving from a respected high school teacher, family man and how he slowly step by step becomes a vicious and violent meth overload. Hence the title "Breaking Bad" It was and wasn't fully intended to be a an anti-hero but a hero dissolving into an anti-here and in the end he gets what every criminal gets - dead. Although yea the ride was fun and cringy at the same time.

[LeeG]

There's this thing where people who are clearly intelligent, hard-working and ambitious suddenly decide to devote it all to some drug or other. Like it was a better reward for their efforts.

A former classmate of my daughter has gone missing leaving three young children with grandma. A few years ago she was about to go to the store and found her kids estranged dad asleep in the car so she drove to the store and when she came back to the car she realized he was dead. He had od in the car the night before. Hell of a reward.

[LeeG]

i did recently binge a few seasons before it devolved into long expository talky scenes set in living rooms and offices. (same thing happened to peaky blinders). i didn't make it to that scene.

breaking bad is one of those problematic bits of entertainment. problematic because it is extremely entertaining, and makes villianous, anti social, and destructive behaviors, extremely entertaining. the protagonists being anti-heroes doesn't keep them from being heroes, thrilling us with their exploits.

we can't measure the effect of breaking bad on our meth-plagued culture, but i do feel certain it didn't help. not that entertainment should lead us out of our problems, but hopefully it doesn't do too much harm. i dunno.

I couldn’t watch it. Just couldn’t. I tried a couple times. The movie, not meth.

[Jack Loudon]

I wonder who all these people are who have money for drugs; hundreds of billions of dollars per year here in the US? I assumed most druggies were of the homeless jobless variety but now it seems many of them must have some kind of job. It's ironic; you're working a low-paying crappy job and life sucks, so you escape by spending all your money on drugs, further sealing your fate.

[leikec]

I think in Texas right now there are two kinds of people—those who are desperately trying to get the hell out, or alcohol, firearms, drug, or right wing religion addicts who can only feel fully actualized by living in some type of cult society.

And there may be three or four people who stick around for smoked meat. See cult reference above…

Jeff C

[L.W. Baxter]

The creator Vince Gilligan had a different take on the story arc. It was supposed to show the the main character Walter White dissolving from a respected high school teacher, family man and how he slowly step by step becomes a vicious and violent meth overload. Hence the title "Breaking Bad" It was and wasn't fully intended to be a an anti-hero but a hero dissolving into an anti-here and in the end he gets what every criminal gets - dead. Although yea the ride was fun and cringy at the same time.

well, he would say that, wouldn't he.

but what was the real effect of the show on people who watched it?

i have seen you post a picture of yourself looking like the meth cook, eh?

i have heard people saying some version of "i am the one who knocks", a great and thrilling line...denoting the potence of our psychopath antihero. you can almost feel the mass cheer going up for him the moment the line is read.

or, when he out-violences the the violent gang leader, leaves the building a smoking ruin. tell me, was that a moment for introspection on the decline of our hero, or a moment of triumph for the watcher, invested in the protagonist?

as for the effect on meth use or the meth trade? i don't reckon it had much or any effect on our demographic. but, young, urban street kids? i dunno. but, i do believe the show created some cachet for crystal meth that it did not otherwise have.

problematic.

[WX]

I wonder who all these people are who have money for drugs; hundreds of billions of dollars per year here in the US? I assumed most druggies were of the homeless jobless variety but now it seems many of them must have some kind of job. It's ironic; you're working a low-paying crappy job and life sucks, so you escape by spending all your money on drugs, further sealing your fate.

Very few people intentionally set out to become a drug addict.

[Joe (SoCal)]

No, the essence story arc is he looses his morality, but yea it's a TV show, its for entertainment. I've played Grand Theft Auto but I'm not about to go out and car jack anyone. I watch Billions but I'm not about to start a hedge fund. I watch The Bear but I'm not moving to Chicago and open a Italian beef shop, I love Ozark but I'm not about to be a drug cartel money launderer. There are a million anti hero's in TV and film we all can't all just watch the Waltons and Little House on The Prairie. In the end Walter White becomes Heisenberg and dies in the end of the series as he should.

"I am the one who knocks" is a killer line, because it turns the tables on the old fear of the knock on the door being something ominous and feared. I dressed like him for a Halloween party in NYC mostly because I kinda look like him in the series, and it was a killer costume. I don't dress like him daily and halloween is for theater and usually something frightening, Heisenberg is as frightening as Freddy Kruger.

I will admit with my more recent understanding and intimate knowledge of the horrible effects of the drug in my personal life I would probably not do it again. Also the people I know who've gone down the Meth rabbit hole Braking Bad had absolutely nothing to do with it. It's similar to the idea that violent video games make for mass murderers - the data and stats just don't confirm that trope.

[Paul Pless]

walter white's story arc is the same as that of michael corleone

[Chip-skiff]

Growing up in Vegas and having a graveyard shift job on the Strip, I got a bigger dose of evil and corruption than I wanted, before I was 18.

So all the TV garbage criminal crap– candy for you repressed suburban office drones– doesn't enthrall me in the least.

[Canoeyawl]

People will do things for drugs they would never do for the money

[epoxyboy]

I wonder who all these people are who have money for drugs; hundreds of billions of dollars per year here in the US? I assumed most druggies were of the homeless jobless variety but now it seems many of them must have some kind of job. It's ironic; you're working a low-paying crappy job and life sucks, so you escape by spending all your money on drugs, further sealing your fate.

Well I know how a friend's daughter paid for hers . She'd sold everything else and lost her home and kids by that point. Six years later, there's a fragile retreat from the dark side.

Pete