I can tell a story without the happy ending. A decade or so ago, I was playing in a band and our bassist (a good friend of mine) had rediscovered his love for crack. I was honestly oblivious. He was losing weight, but he was just joking about it, "Look at me. I'm Greg from 15 years ago!" I thought he was on a diet.

But no. He was on crack. Greg was an extremely successful man. He was director of IT for a firm. He was married to a lawyer. Had a couple of daughters, and his wife had just given birth to his son. They had a vacation home. He drove a custom van, played on custom-made basses and amps. He would constantly rip on me 'cause I thought investing in Google stock was a bad idea, and he'd tell me how much he was up every day 'cause of his wise investment.

I was alerted to his crack addiction when his wife showed up to band practice the day before a gig. She dragged his ass to rehab. I was pissed 'cause me and another band member shared bass responsibilities for that show. It was awful, we sucked. But we didn't have time to cancel, so the show went on.

Greg's wife told me that he had discovered a crack source (and "the wrong crowd") hanging out at our practice facility. After unsuccessfully sending him to rehab twice, she had kicked him out of the house. He had blown through all their savings. His Google stock was gone. He tried to live in their vacation home, but they had to sell it to pay for his crack habit. Me and a couple band members did the math and counted he was probably smoking about $2000 a day. Two thousand dollars. Every day.

So I wasn't surprised to see him hanging around there again very soon after his wife kicked him out. He told me he couldn't wait to start playing music again. I told him I didn't think it was such a good idea just yet, but left the door open for the possibility of working him back into the band.

I remember a time I showed up early to band practice, and there was Greg. Wasted in our practice room. I guess he was living there, but he knew our practice schedule so he would sneak out before we were going to show up. So I asked him for his key and told him I don't think it's a good idea that he hang out there anymore. I also pretty much told him that he was out of the band, which really killed his spirit. I still feel like an ass for that conversation. But I was trying to be a good friend. Trying to remove him from the crack element.

Next time I saw him, he had sold his van and was driving a motorcycle. He asked me to let him into our practice room to get some of his gear he still had in there. He sold it all, of course. Or some of it may have actually been stolen. There are more stories about that, but I won't get into it.

Greg eventually killed himself. I still can't believe it to this day. That guy had everything going for him. A beautiful family. A successful career. Friends. I mean, it was truly a blessed life. But crack ruined it all. He ended up dead, dirty as hell, found spending his last days in the apartment of a sketchy crack dealer. He never knew his son. Isn't there to see how his beautiful family has grown. All because of some stupid rock. That's what it's like to be addicted to crack.