Every time I pull back the curtain on what really goes on in Sydney’s cocaine-soaked upper-middle-class social scene, I get flooded with DMs, emails and comments, all saying the same thing: surely, Jana, it can’t be that bad.
And I always think to myself… I’m barely scratching the surface.
Cocaine is so ingrained in the social scene here that turning up to a party where a plate with a few neatly chopped lines isn’t doing the rounds would almost feel… odd.
Take a dinner I once went to. Six of us knocking back martinis and beef rigatoni, casually clocking an outrageously good-looking actor sitting at the table next to us.
Now, while the rest of us were gossiping and enjoying ourselves in a relatively innocent fashion, two people at our table were on a very different mission.
They were hunched over their phones, frantically trying to find ‘a bag’. For anyone not across the Aussie lingo, that’s a gram of cocaine.
With their regular dealers nowhere to be found – perhaps courtesy of a police raid? – they resorted to texting everyone in sight. Friends, acquaintances – even the dentist wasn’t off-limits. What began as an ordinary dinner soon became an exercise in desperation.
Frankly, it got irritating. Four of us were sitting there in carb heaven and the other two were carrying on like the world was about to end because they couldn’t get high.
Daily Mail columnist Jana Hocking writes about the last taboo among upper-middle-class cocaine users: doing lines at children’s birthday parties
Eventually, they were successful.
Then came the debate over who would pay. Apparently, $300 is outrageous… but only after you’ve already decided you want it.
Off they went to ‘do a block’ with a dealer. Which, once again, for those not familiar, means that they hopped in a random drug dealer’s car, while he drove around the block, exchanging drugs for cash – in a bid to ward off watching police.
I thought that would be the end of it. It was not.
They spent the rest of the night doing laps to the bathroom, popping back to the table louder, faster and increasingly unbearable with every line.
Because that’s the thing about coke. You think you’re fascinating, but really, you’re just talking in circles, and no one can get a word in. It’s all loud, chaotic gobbledygook.
Look, I understand a cigarette break.
But leaving a perfect plate of pasta to take something that kills your appetite and turns you into a ranting bore… that was only going to be fun for two people: the ones snorting it.
‘While the kids are all playing together in the backyard, Mum and Dad are sneaking into the house to do a quick line in the walk-in wardrobe,’ writes Jana (stock image posed by model)
For the rest of us, it was a punish. Night ruined.
And the thing is… that’s not even surprising anymore. That’s a pretty standard eastern suburbs gathering: two-thirds of the guests just want to have a good time, and the other third are hell‑bent on making it a ‘session’.
Annoying, yes. But standard.
What is shocking is where it’s turning up now.
Because these are people who never quite left cocaine behind in their 20s and 30s. And instead of growing out of it, they’ve simply brought it with them – into adult life, into grown-up events: New Year’s Eve with families. A random Tuesday trivia night. Even children’s birthday parties.
Yes, I’ve witnessed this – more than once.
While the kids are playing in the backyard, Mum and Dad are sneaking into the house to do a quick line in the walk-in wardrobe.
And when I wake up in my lovely, quiet bedroom after a big night out with friends who have families, I find myself thinking: how are those couples coping this morning? Dealing with kids, a hangover, and a comedown?
A woman rang me one Sunday morning, laughing about how the night was still going. When I asked about the kids, she breezily replied, ‘They’re at the neighbours.’
A few days later, I dropped over to pick up some sunglasses I had left at their house – and I caught the mother snapping at the kids. I thought… nope. That’s not on.
Sure, they were being boisterous, but nothing wild. And yet, because she was coming down hard, they were the ones copping her lack of patience. It didn’t sit well with me.
Because for all the rock ‘n’ roll, glitz and glamour people think cocaine brings, no one talks about the aftermath.
A big Saturday night becomes a short fuse on Sunday morning, and by Tuesday, something people call ‘the comedown blues’ really kicks in. Cocaine floods your brain with feel-good chemicals on the night, but a couple of days later, those levels drop right down. You’re tired, a bit flat, more anxious than usual, and suddenly everything feels harder than it should.
Hence, the yelling at the family dinner table.
And all of it comes with a price tag. Not just physically or emotionally, but financially. Hundreds of dollars disappearing in one night, while real-life responsibilities stack up in the background.
I’m noticing it even among financially stable acquaintances who are paying ridiculously high private school fees. But has it stopped their cocaine use? Of course not. Because there’s always one person who’ll cover it. There’s always someone willing to foot the bill in the moment.
I’ve even seen friendships fall apart over it. One guy I know was given the nickname ‘Snuffleupagus’ – yes, like the Sesame Street character with the long, elephant-like snout – because he had a habit of sniffing up everyone else’s cocaine… and never once reaching for his own wallet.
Perhaps it was his way of budgeting?
What unsettles me now isn’t the drug-taking itself, but just how routine it has become among those with families and responsibilities.
What was once associated with the underground party scene is now seamlessly woven into everyday life, hidden in plain sight.
If you want to understand why Australia has the highest number of cocaine users per capita in the world, don’t look to our wild nightlife scene (you won’t find it). Instead, the ones keeping the habit alive are the 40-somethings with the most to lose.
The ones raising kids, servicing mortgages and juggling high‑pressure careers.
The ones who should have grown out of it by now, but haven’t. They’ve just become far better at hiding it
You sometimes don’t notice it in the moment – when the music is pumping and the champagne is flowing. It shows up the next day: frayed tempers at the dinner table, raised voices, everyday moments inexplicably tipping into drama because someone can’t quite handle life that morning.
And if that isn’t enough to make you slow down, I’m not sure what will.
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