Even when I was an abject alcoholic scumbag, years deep into my booze problem, riding the subway IN THE MORNING with visibly urine-soaked pants, I remained terriﬁed of coke, even though, as we know, booze kills more people than every other drug combined and then multiplied.

Chris, despite his rock-star looks, was quite down to earth and fun to be around. I got a charge out of talking to someone that “cool.” He would have correspondingly “rock”-y chicks visit him at the halfway house. They had dyed blond hair, tight outﬁts, and big fake boobs.

Most nights, a gang of us, including Chris, would go and occupy a corner of a little frozen yogurt shop in West L.A. You’d have guys just out of jail, actual rock stars, guys who’d been living on the street, and tall, gangly me in my two casts from a recent car accident. Every night I’d get chocolate and vanilla swirled in a cup with crumbled Heath bar on top. My urge to eat sweets in the months after quitting drinking was INSANE. A lot of other people I’ve spoken to have said the same thing; they developed a crazy sweet tooth in early sobriety.

I don’t remember what Chris would order at Yogurt Town, but we probably went there 10 times together. Then I left the halfway house, and a short while later he shot up the speedball that killed him. The last time I’d spoken to him he was excited about some session work he was going to do with David Bowie.

The second friend to die was Arturo. He was a short Mexican bass player from Austin. I liked him right away because he had a Danzig tattoo. Anybody who felt strongly enough about the bands of Glenn Danzig to emblazon his weird goat/devil skull on his shoulder was A-OK in my book.

Arturo was just a little cutie pie, really. He was warm and pleasant and fun to be around, but Arturo was also a crack smoker. One day Arturo came to me with a quandary. He told me that he’d met a guy at group therapy and went to his house. They hung out a bit and the guy showed him some records and gave him a soda or something. Then he asked Arturo if he’d like to jerk off with him. “No touching each other or anything; we’ll just jerk off together. No big deal.” Arturo declined and later that day he asked me what I thought. He said, “I don’t know—is it rude that I told him no? He’s a nice guy and everything.”

I wanted to cry. What a little snuggle mufﬁn he was! He was really young and despite drug addiction hadn’t been out in the world enough or seen enough good behavior modeled to know that it is a major-league-wacky anomaly for straight dudes to take out their dongs and play with them together even if they don’t touch. I told him that jerking off was off the table for social situations. I told him that was nonnegotiable and that even if he, Arturo, and I were friends for years to come, I would never ever ask him to jerk off with and/or near me. I told him that as “nice” as the dude might be in other areas, it was a very, very awful idea to jerk off with someone you’ve just met at a group therapy meeting at a hospital.