Drinkers. I used to be one, big time, for many years, but now that I don't really drink, I find being around drunk people very tiresome. That maudlin, overly emotional, false I-love-you-man crap gets real old, real quick. At my beloved aunt's wake last week, it was sad that it turned into a drunk fest, because I had been looking forward to sharing memories and telling stories, but all anyone seemed to care about was imbibing as much alcohol as they could swill down. It also sucks when they want to have a "deep, meaningful" conversation, because you just know they aren't going to remember much or any of it the next day, so it's pointless.
Then there are the mean drunks. The reason my ex is an ex, (well, one really big reason), is that he is an alcoholic who would turn vicious almost without warning when he drank around me, which was early and often. I'd see the light go out in his eyes, and he'd go from being stupid and maudlin and sentimental one moment, to the cruelest, meanest person imaginable the next, and I was always the target of his alcohol-fueled rage. That happened way less frequently back in the day, when I used to match him drink for drink, but once I stopped drinking, he ramped up the horrific cruelty and anger towards me. To add to the joy, I grew up with both a natural father who was an alcoholic, and an adoptive father, with whom I lived, who was one, also. Thus, being around drunken men triggers many bad memories for me. I had no choice as a child, but now that I am an adult, I choose not to be around that whenever I can avoid it.
Crackheads. Once again, my ex is a "shining" example of why I don't care to be around them. In my experience, that drug turns people into idiots, even more stupid than drunks, if that is possible. The nonstop verbal vomit, when they will just *not* shut the fuck up, makes me want to punch them. It was only tolerable from my ex when I was using my opiates; otherwise, I could not stand to hear him Hold Forth without pause, and once I told him that. I said, "Ex, I can only somewhat tolerate that crack-induced diarrhea of the mouth when I have taken a Lortab, and right now I am out and feeling like crap anyway, so I really need you to go away and shut the fuck up."
Also, why can't crackheads go get what they know they will need for the evening in one trip instead of running back and forth to the dope man several times in a night? For a (short but horrible) time, Ex permitted two crackhead "friends" to move into our home, and we also had my daughter and her boyfriend, crackheads both, living there, as well. On any given night, I'd hear that front door open and one of the vehicles start up about every half hour as one or the other of them made yet another run into the dangerous ghetto to get another 20 or whatever piddly-ass quantity they decided they wanted. That was in the summer, and, not wanting my child to be around that, I let him spend many or most nights at grandma's. I was always worried that all the in-and-out activity would attract the cops, and lived in fear of that knock at the door.
Then there was the fact that, of the six of the crackheads staying in my home, only one of them worked a normal job, and that was Ex. The rest of them hustled up all kinds of ways to get their crack money, and unfortunately, it turned out that one of those ways was stealing my shit. Not that I didn't spend more than I should have on my pharmies, but that money came from the job at which I worked my ass off. In a short span, my expensive mountain bike, every piece of nice jewelry I loved, and most of my DVDs/CDs were stolen and either sold or hawked for drug money. Cash was taken from spots I thought safe. My own daughter stole her little brother's birthday money, his DVD player, and other things of value to him. It was a grand day when I lost it and kicked all their asses out, once I realized we were being robbed blind. My own Ex was no prize, either. A couple weekends, I watched him smoke away his entire sizable paycheck in the span of two, maybe three, days, and if I hadn't also been working, we would have been homeless and there would have been no food for my son. My daughter "rented" her lovely, late model car to a crack dealer, and my Ex got a gun stuck up in his face when he went to rectify that situation. Then she did it again and Dude wrecked it in the midst of committing a heinous felony. There is no way I'm naive enough to think that "only" crack would be the catalyst for some of those situations, and I realize that you could insert the name of any addictive drug and see people lie, cheat, and steal to obtain it, but dang, the high from a hit of crack lasts, what? Thirty seconds? The only thing "positive" I'll say about it, (and this is counter intuitive but true), is that it made my Ex into a much nicer, calmer person. Alcohol turned him into a raging asshole, while crack mellowed him, and I'd be inclined to think the opposite would be true, but there it is.
People who smoke weed only annoy me when they insist it's just sooooo much more superior to anyone else's DOC because it's "natural." It all comes down to chemicals, regardless, so that illogical argument is both false and tiresome. That faraway stupid look some of them get on their faces is exasperating, too, but I can live with it, because they really are not harming anyone. I'm sure there are aspects of my pharmie use that others would find ridiculous, so that's why I try to keep it on the DL as much as possible. Nobody I didn't want ever to know about it would even know it now, except my Ex got pissed off at me when I left him for acting like an asshole one time too many, and in one of his stupid drunken bursts of rage, he called everyone who mattered to me and spread my personal business all over the place.
tl; dr: Drunks and crackheads.