Life at UNCW

I went to school at theUniversity of North Carolina at Wilmington . I've always wanted to write down a kind of mini-memoir about my time there, and what better place to do it?

Wilmington, North Carolina is the greatest town on earth in many ways; it is the worst place in probably just as many. It is the town James Frey went to college in, recounted in his amazing memoir A Million Little Pieces. Having lived there, it is easy to see how the Wilmington environment could have sped his own life's downward spiral along. The ironic thing about life as a student at UNCW is that most people I knew were excellent students, despite severe drug and alcohol habits. I say habits instead of addictions because most have been able to overcome them since leaving town, without the help of rehab.

Wilmington is a picturesque, sleepy little beach town with minimal tourists and beautiful beaches. It is also a seedy, drug-infested place, as I suppose most towns in America are. More cocaine and ecstasy is brought to port in Wilmington than either NY or Miami, simply because the security is so lax. Because of that, there is a thriving network of organized drug rings, most existing to traffic the supplies around the country, but a few there specifically to service Wilmington.

It would not take all the fingers on one hand for me to count how many people I knew who did not smoke, pop prescription pills at the bar, or eat handfuls of x. I knew so many girls who refused to smoke pot because they "didn't do drugs," but would have no issue with putting a roll on their tongue. Why is that? What is it about a pill that seems so safe?

I don't want it to sound like school life was all hard drugs, even though that was a big part of it. In coming, scattered posts, I am going to tell as many stories as I can remember of my time there, both good and bad. This is more for me, I guess, that anybody out there who may stumble upon it. I made many mistakes in that period of my life; I hope writing them down, along with what I did right, will help me learn from my past.

We'll see.

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