Lifestyle

You Should Probably Avoid Partying With This One Thing Over The Weekend

by Zara Barrie
Kylah Benes-Trapp

Greetings, sweet kittens. It's me, Zara, your digital big sister.

While I love the weekend as much as the next free-wheeling, high heel-wearing, winged liner-sporting, booze-swilling, red-lipsticked PARTY GIRL, 99.9 percent of the mistakes I've made in my life have taken place during the weekend. I've spent one too many Mondays spiraling down the dark vortex of weekend guilt, regret and shame.

But hey, don't fret. Because I'm going to be here every Friday to stop you from the awful weekend fuckups that are screwing up your life. Here's this week's Very Important PSA.

Keep your nose clean.

And I'm not talking about "blowing your nose" because you've fallen ill with the flu. I'm talking about drugs. I'm talking about le cocaine, specifically.

Look, we don't discuss cocaine enough because it's this dirty little secret that's rampant in the party scene, and we like to pretend it doesn't exist. It's ugly, it's vile and it makes you talk too much, confess your deepest secrets and wake up in the morning wildly soaking in a proverbial pool of shame. It gives you shame shudders like nothing else.

Look, buttercup, I'm not saying I don't GET the temptation. The first time anyone ever showed me that wicked white powder, I was 16 years old and blackout drunk at a high school party. Some shirtless dude with tattoos said to me, "It's like doing a line of caffeine. It will sober you up."

What blackout drunk, 100-pound 16-year-old doesn't want to be "sobered up" when she knows she's stumbling all over the party, making a total ass out of herself and already threw up behind the couch of some really rich cool girl's parent's house? It's tempting.

And it's totally become the norm in certain circles. More circles than you would even begin to realize, my innocent darlings. It's in the 40-something fine dining crowd. It's in the high-brow London crowd. It's in the sorority crowd. It's everywhere from Ronkonkoma to Rodeo Drive. Pretty girls who go do yoga and wear Lululemon leggings and Instagram their kale salads put that white shit up their nose on the weekends, so WHY SHOULDN'T YOU?

Well, your big sister is about to tell you why. It's always a bad idea to dip into the dark and dirty drug pond.

First of all, blow is toxic. Who the hell knows what it was cut with? Baby laxatives? Rat poison? Your body is truly your temple, and I don't want rat poison going inside that sacred sanctuary of yours. It's sacrilegious.

Second of all, it's dangerous AF, honey! You're mixing an upper and a downer, which is sending your precious heart spinning into all kinds of directions. Not to mention, it's wildly addictive. And it's an addiction that can sneak up on you, like a pickpocketer on a downtown-bound subway.

But, you know it's dangerous, and you know it's addictive, and you know it's toxic because you're smart. And I would never doubt your intelligence. It's just not my style.

But look, here is some other shit I'm going to tell you. It's shit I wish someone had told me in the bloom of my troubled youth.

You're annoying when you're high on blow.

Seriously, you talk at the speed of light about subjects that people who aren't hopped up on coke don't care about. We're all drinking and partying, so we don't want to get into a hyper-intense talk about your relationship with God right now.

Plus, you don't listen when you're on it. It makes you super narcissistic, you cut people off and it's rude. Also, no one — NO ONE — is funny when white powder is up their nose. You instantly become unfunny and too intense, and your energy is frightening. (Just saying.)

Also, it ruins the night for the rest of us. The ambiance is instantly killed when you start playing with cocaine. Suddenly, a weird, uncomfortable vibe penetrates the blissful party air. Half the party goes into the bathroom, alienating themselves and trying to hide the fact they're jacked up on blow. But, they're doing a poor job at it.

We all know why seven people are huddled into the bathroom of a club at once. Don't fool us and tell us you're all "fixing each other's makeup." Because you just reemerged with eyes the size of saucers that are blood-red, and your mascara is halfway down your face. Your lipstick is smeared.

You don't look made-over. You look like a mess. That's another thing: Drugs make even the prettiest of girls ugly. Nothing is attractive about a clenched jaw and massive, jet-black pupils.

So, babes, keep your nose CLEAN this weekend, pretty please. You're too fucking classy to stick that poison up your nose. I understand everyone else in the party is doing it, but you've never been like anyone else, so why start now?

All the "connections" you think you forge with people and all the "deep" conversations you engage in when you're high on drugs aren't real. They're all fake. They wouldn't hold sober or drunk, even. And that's depressing.

And you'll feel depressed about it the next day. In fact, you will come down HARD the next day, and your body chemistry will be thrown off for at least the next three days.

Girl, you're in your prime! Don't go killing brain cells and messing with your serotonin when you're in your prime!

Cut out the nasty habit now. Because I know people who are deep into their 30s and 40s and still messing around with that shit, and it's not a good look. It's never a good look no matter what your age is, but the longer you keep playing with that fire, the more it's going to burn the hell out of face and your brain.

It will stop you from having a stable relationship. It will age you. It will make you increasingly nervous and neurotic. It will make your hangovers worse than drinking straight-up sugar juice and plastic-bottle vodka.

And honestly, it kills your spirit. It dims your light. And that breaks my heart because you're so full of light.

So when that really cool girl who works in PR, the one you desperately want to be friends with, strolls up to you in her stiletto heels and asks you to come into the bathroom, just politely decline. You don't have to be a dick about it and lecture her or be a smug bitch. We don't need to judge. God, if I judged everyone I knew who had ever done coke, I'de have, like, one friend left. (No joke.)

Just smile, bat your lashes and firmly say, "I'm good on the drinks" and walk away in your high heels. If she guilts you, remember she's only guilting you because she feels guilty about doing it and wants to feel better about herself by watching someone as fierce as YOU doing it.

That doesn't make her a bad person, though. We've all done things like that. But at a certain place in your life, you don't have to be dragged down into the drug vortex to be cool or accepted. And don't do it to sober up. Drink some water. Go home. Lay off the shots.

And if you're tempted to snort the white powder, close your mascara eyes and imagine me, your lesbian big sister, watching over you like a guardian angel and wearing a vintage Chanel bag. I'm wearing a strapless silver cocktail dress by RED Valentino or Alice + Olivia or some other girly chic brand like that. I have fishnets on, even though it's the middle of the summer. I've just had a fierce blowout, and my lips are painted crimson. I'm sitting alone in the dark corner of the bar sipping a whiskey neat, tapping the glass with long, black nails. I'm staring at you, but I'm smiling.

"Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it," I purr through my smiley pout.

And I'm smiling because I believe in you, and I know you're strong enough to resist the temptation. Message me if you have to! You're mine now, kittens. And I won't ever neglect you.

XO,

Zara, your internet big sis