http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2004/08/30/2003200921
Taking crystal meth is said to make you feel like a robot programmed to have sex. It can also destroy your life
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , NEW YORK
Monday, Aug 30, 2004,Page 15
Bobby Darnell, a 34-year-old Texan who has lived in New York since 1996, does not fit the stereotype of a club drug user. For six years, he was an administrator for nonprofit groups, and he has sung in the New York City Gay Men's Chorus since 1998. "The chorus is mostly people from small towns, not club kids or fashion people," Darnell said. "That's sort of what attracted me to it."
But four years ago he began casually exploring the club scene and tried crystal meth, the street version of the powerful stimulant methamphetamine, for the first time. After he lost a job to cutbacks in 2001 and found himself at home with nothing to do but look for work, he began to spend long hours on the Internet, and fell into a pattern of casual sexual encounters that sometimes included crystal meth, which intensifies sexual drive and lowers inhibitions.
"I never did it for days and days at a time, just for a couple of days every two or three weeks," Darnell said. It took a long time for him to recognize that he had a problem. But by then, he had driven away all his old friends. "I would cancel things, and then people just stopped calling after a while. Everyone in New York is so busy, it's very easy for someone to disappear."