t his job. However, immediately after taking the drug, he is elated and talkative, and has renewed confidence in his own abilities. Most experts are agreed that peer pressure plays an important part in getting people to try cocaine for the first time. In fact, most forms of substance abuse begin as a result of addicts pressuring their friends to join them. In The Boost, Lenny tries cocaine for the first time because his friend Joel talks him into it. Later, Lenny uses a bit of peer pressure of his own in order to get Linda to also try the drug for the first time.
The next step in the pattern of cocaine abuse is the development of a habit. Later, the use of the drug becomes an obsession. The reason for this is that cocaine is powerfully addictive. Studies on animals have shown that "cocaine is the single drug that animals do not have to be trained to use, and that they will choose it over food and water to the point of starvation or dehydration." In a test involving monkeys, "one monkey pressed a bar 12,800 times to obtain a single dose of cocaine." Studies such as these show the extent to which cocaine has the power to dominate over everything else. In addition to animals, humans have a tendency to become obsessed with the drug once they have become hooked. In this respect, one study has revealed that addicts are almost always willing to continue using cocaine despite the fact that it is extremely expensive and causes "unfavorable psychological or physical effects." Abe Brown, writing in Current Health 2, has noted that: "Once addicted, all a person thinks about is getting and using cocaine. Family, friends, possessions, health. All become unimportant."
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