Lily Allen on Cocaine Use

Lily Allen on Cocaine Use

Lily Allen’s comments on how she believes cocaine and drug use in general has been sensationalised are typical of someone her age and limited experience. She has cleverly identified that not all drug users are committing crimes and getting into trouble, she says:

"The only story is that drugs are bad and they will kill you - you will become a prostitute, a rapist or a dealer. But that's not true. I know lots of people that take cocaine three nights a week and get up and go to work every day, no problem. But we never hear that side of the story. I just wish people wouldn't sensationalise this thing that just exists."

What Lily Allen doesn’t see is what goes on behind the scenes with this type of drug use; because it is naive to believe that you can use cocaine 3 times a week and have ‘no problem’. In fact Lily is describing my client group, who are all middle class, employed successful people, however what she doesn’t see is the depression and anxiety that cocaine use (even at moderate levels) can cause. She won’t see the paranoia or feelings of ‘emptiness’ that would occur if you used cocaine 3 times a week. She wouldn’t know about the problems that cocaine use would cause in a relationship or the unproductively at work. Cocaine is a drug that creates artificial feelings of glamour, invincibility, excitement, passion and euphoria, it makes the user believe and feel something they are not.

They become a reflection of the artificial qualities of the drug, the feelings the drug creates are not real, they are false and the user experiences a massive low when they ‘come down’ from that feeling.

So there are a lot of consequences from using cocaine 3 times a week in our experience. Lily Allen is right in saying that you don’t hear about what really happens with casual drug use, but it certainly isn’t ‘nothing’.