I was a cool person at one time. I used to do cocaine.

I started taking cocaine and drink ... I turned into a babbling fucking wreck.

I used to do drugs, but that was way back there.

I was making frequent use of cocaine at that time ... I had been the first to recommend the use of cocaine, in 1885, and this recommendation had brought serious reproaches down on me.

I took drugs on several occasions at social events more than 20 years ago. At the time I was a young journalist. It was a mistake. I look back and I think I wish I hadn't done that. I think all politicians have lives before politics. Certainly when I was working as a journalist I didn't imagine I would go into politics or public service. I didn't act with an eye to that. The question now is that people should look at my record as a politician and ask themselves, 'Is this person we see ready to lead now?' I have seen the damage drugs can do to others and that is why I deeply regret the decisions I took,

I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.

I had thought about cocaine in a kind of day-dream.

I know this is not a very popular idea. You don't hear it too often any more … but it's the truth. I have taken drugs before and … I had a real good time. Sorry. Didn't murder anybody, didn't rape anybody, didn't rob anybody, didn't beat anybody, didn't lose – hmm – one fucking job, laughed my ass off, and went about my day. Sorry. Now, where's my commercial?

I just love cocaine.

And, well, for most of my life I’d been way too far up my own ass to be of any use to anyone — something that only got worse after Kitchen Confidential. I don’t know exactly when the possibility of that changing presented itself — but sometime, I guess, after having made every mistake, having already fucked up in every way a man can fuck up, having realized that I’d had enough cocaine, that no amount in the world was going to make me any happier. That a naked, oiled supermodel was not going to make everything better in my life — nor any sports car known to man. It was sometime after that. The precise moment of realization came in my tiny fourth-floor walk-up apartment on Ninth Avenue. Above Manganaro’s Heroboy restaurant — next building over from Esposito Pork Shop. I was lying in bed with my then-girlfriend — I guess you could diplomatically call it “spooning” — and I caught myself thinking, “I could make a baby with this woman.

many of the most famous people in our culture have achieved their dreams but have still not found a way to enjoy them. They often turn to drugs because they feel unfulfilled. This is because they are missing the distinction between achieving one’s goals and living one’s values,

I was a confident fuck-up. I did drugs, and I went to concerts, and I snuck out of the house and I did all that stuff that rebellious teenagers do.

I share my story in an effort to encourage others, especially successful professionals who are less at risk than people on the margins of society, to get out of the closet about their own drug use. If they did so, more people would see that there are far more respectable drug users than our criminal-justice regime and popular culture would have us know.

I had a bad PCP [angel dust] experience when I was 14 and I got panic disorder. And of course, I wasn’t telling anyone the truth. It’s not like you go to your dad or your doctor and say, “Yeah, I smoked PCP and I’m having a bad time.” So I became more or less agoraphobic because I’d have flashbacks. From 14 to 16, I didn’t have any friends. I stayed home most of the time. Up till then life was pretty great. The world was big and I felt I could do anything I wanted. Suddenly, I felt like I couldn’t do anything. But in the isolation, my imagination really had time to run. I never did any drugs until my late 20s. Unfortunately, being a child of two alcoholics, I started drinking a lot, and that’s what eventually got me back into drugs. You often hear that pot leads to harder drugs. But I think alcohol is what leads you to everything, because it takes away the fear. The worst drug experimentation I ever did was because I was drunk and didn’t care.