Cracked

To feed my addiction, I routinely ventured into some of the same drug-plagued neighborhoods where I covered nighttime murders and nonfatal shootings -- violence that was usually fueled, directly or otherwise, by the crack trade. I made buys in dark crack houses and dangerous back alleys. I smoked my way to the edge of financial ruin. At the same time, I helped chronicle the bloody toll the drug was exacting on the street.

My first front-page story for The Post appeared in February 1990, when four young men were shot to death and two others were wounded during a gun battle in a small nightclub on the corner of Seventh and S streets NW. A police detective told me the two primary combatants were drug dealers. I was quite familiar with the block; it was one of my favorite locations to cop -- that is, purchase -- crack. As I arrived at the scene of the shooting on a frigid, snowy night, I scanned the area, hoping that none of the street's crack slingers, who would probably recognize me, were around (they weren't -- police had swarmed the corner).

In the waning months of 1989, and the first days of 1990, I -- like probably every other local news reporter at the time -- chased after rumors of then-Mayor Marion Barry's alleged crack use. By chance, I was the first Post reporter at the Vista hotel the night the FBI and D.C. police busted Barry smoking crack in a videotaped sting. I spent the night at the Vista, courtesy of The Post, which obtained a room in the hope that I might be able to score an interview or two with hotel staff. I didn't get anywhere with that, but as I watched the nonstop local TV news coverage of the stunning arrest, washing down my room service dinner with two stiff rum-and-Cokes, I did reflect that maybe I ought to think about tamping down my own usage.

Years after the fact, I realized that my passage mirrored what was happening in the parts of the city wracked by drug dealing and the concomitant violence. Some neighborhoods in the eastern half of the city seemed on the verge of being devoured by crack-inspired violence, with shootings over drug turf and deals gone bad begetting retaliatory attacks, which, in turn, sparked more payback. My addiction grew dramatically in 1990 and 1991; so did the street violence. In 1989, the city recorded 434 murders. In the two ensuing years, nearly 1,000 people total were murdered in the District.

At the time, I thought my job provided a physically and emotionally draining front-row seat to the bedlam. In retrospect, of course, I was wrong. I was in the thick of the chaos, a self-inflicted casualty in waiting.

Off and on during my long recovery, I thought about writing about what had happened, but something -- shame? lack of distance? -- held me back. Then, this past February, I had dinner with an ex-girlfriend -- a terrific woman whom I hadn't had much contact with since she cut me loose two years earlier. Seeing her had reopened the emotional wound, and I was feeling down. I wandered into the office of an editor friend and plopped myself into a chair to talk. The conversation meandered from my dinner that night into a broader discussion about the vagaries of dating. My friend advised me that complete honesty about one's past is the best approach with any potential girlfriend. I balked. Some women would perceive me as beyond repair, damaged, I said. My friend said, "Come on, how bad could it be?"

"You don't know what I've been through," I said.

But I sensed she was right. Then, a month later, I reached a milestone: 15 years without crack. It seems like two lifetimes. Finally, I have the distance I need to tell the story.

As a sunny afternoon gave way to twilight one September day in 1988, I canvassed a neighborhood on the western edge of downtown Los Angeles, working on a story for the L.A. Herald Examiner, where I'd gotten a job after graduating from the University of Southern California. At the time, the neighborhood was a mixture of no-tell motels, slum apartment buildings and fast-food joints.

On a landing outside a motel, an attractive young woman waved me over and, I thought, flirted with me. Eventually, she asked if I "partied," street slang for using drugs.

Why are you asking?

The woman said she had some crack. I could have a hit -- for free, she said. A savvy marketing move.