Coke And Mirrors.(a story about drug abuse in the hairstyling industry)

Byline: Chris McMillan

An L.A. beach bum rose to become a famous Hollywood hairstylist. But perhaps his greatest success was beating drug addiction.

I've always known I could become a drug addict. I was raised as a good kid by a good family in Manhattan Beach in southern California. But I had an uncle who was an alcoholic and smoked pot. All I remember about my uncle is that he was bad news. At family get-togethers, there was always underlying conversation about him. No one ever came out and said it, but I knew he was really messed up. To me, he was a cautionary tale--in my family, you never wanted to end up like my uncle.

But when I was 17, he offered me a joint, and--maybe because I was a teenager and thinking it would be cool or rebellious to try, or maybe because I just chose to ignore the cautionary tale for a minute--I got stoned for the first time. And I loved it. I think a lot of teenagers try drugs once or twice and move on, but for me, pot was more than that. I loved it for all the cliched reasons. I had a few friends who liked to get stoned, too, and we would sit around and watch cartoons for hours. We'd go to the beach stoned and it felt wonderful. The marijuana mellowed me out, and I could lose myself. I felt like I could see the world from a new, more creative perspective.

This was around the same time that I was getting interested in hairstyling, so I found ways to justify smoking pot every other day. I told myself that I was pursuing a creative career and smoking pot brought out my talents. Right from the start, I was able to make it seem OK.

A couple years later, I started working in a hair salon in Manhattan Beach. At the time, I was drinking and smoking pot occasionally, and trying to get my career off the ground. Because of the nature of the hairstyling business--the big personalities, the money, the creativity--there were always drugs around. Plus, this was the 1980s. Whenever I wanted drugs, they were there. So I gave coke a shot, since I thought the pot was working out so well for me. And the cocaine was even better--it made me feel alive, energetic, excited. I'd spend the day in the salon, make some good money on tips, and at night, spend all of it on more cocaine.

If I had $100, I'd spend $90 on cocaine, $8 on liquor, and $2 on ramen noodles. That was my diet.