I JUST CAN'T believe my luck. I'm standing in Walgreens trying to fill a prescription for Percodan, and the pharmacist asks for an ID. I whip out my passport, and a flattened, extremely stinky half-smoked joint flies onto the counter. Fuck.

"Ahh, what's that?" the pharmacist asks, peering at me from behind an enormous pair of '80s housewife demishades.

"Uh, a cigarette," I stumble. I'm already sketched on picking up the prescription because although it's fully legit, I hardly think I can trust myself with a whole bottle of terrific drugs. Regardless, I pay and skip out.

The next day I cancel the creepy foot operation I'm supposed to have (broken bones grown funny from too much ballet and past-life raving), but I am sadly "stuck" with the drugs. The receptionist at the doctor's office calls, demanding that I mail back the prescription, unaware that I already had it filled. What to do? I've got 40 Percodan sitting in my medicine cabinet at home, and if you add a pint of brandy and an 8 ball of coke to that, I've got one live-ass Valley of the Dolls situation going on. I am half psyched, half terrified. A paranoid coworker tells me that I will most certainly go to jail – that the International Pharmaceutical Tweeker Network will send out a warning about me to Walgreens worldwide and will sic the cops on me the next time I try to fill a prescription.

I go home and flush them all down the toilet. I know myself – I have zero faith.

A day or two later I go to my regular doctor for a checkup, and she pretends to be really, super-duper pissed off at me for being a smoker. "You smoke?!" she yells. "Yeah," I say, lowering my head. "How much do you smoke a day?" I lie: "Like two or three."

She snorts disapprovingly. "I just cannot believe you smoke." I start to feel like a 12-year-old who's just been busted for stealing eye shadow at Rite Aid. "You need Zyban." Zyban? Sounds like something Mork and Mindy would freebase on planet Ork – either that or an exceedingly dull "neu" (eat me) electro laptop guy. She furiously writes out a prescription for Zyban, which turns out to be the magic antismoking drug that's basically a hardcore antidepressant.

I am excited as I leave I leave her office – call it a placebo effect – and head straight back to Walgreens. Surprisingly, the cops don't show up to bust me for the Percodan incident, and within five minutes I'm walking home with 30 days worth of gnarly drugs. Isn't life amazing?

Could it be that I am less interested in quitting smoking than I am in being high 24-7? I pound two Zybans when I get home and within an hour I feel as if I'm rushing on E – well, extremely weak E. And the best part is that they – the Man – want me to take it! No more buying shaggy looking weed from leftover hippie freaks. From now on, it's all about government approved, wildly fun Zs.

Shortly after swallowing the first two, I go outside and light a smoke. The sun resembles the most glorious apricot; the trees are perfectly iridescent, fluttering in a soft wind. I walk to a café and start picking crumbs off the counter. This, if you ask me, is classic speed freak behavior.

The next day I'm riding the bus to work, and as we stop at Market, a homeless guy starts waving at me. I start to giggle and wave back. Zyban has me feeling pretty fucking great. He waves back, and I repeat the same. Then he comes over to my window and tries to sell me some shit. But I'm already holding.