Real-life advice from guy who’s seen, done, and survived just about everything

I have been clean from cocaine and heroin for a year, and I think I can start smoking some pot. What’s a good strain to keep from getting back on the coke and smack?

—Mark, Alamosa, CO As if there were a strain for that, you nincompoop! Coke and heroin take you over the way fire takes over a building. For me, it was 10 years before the slip dreams stopped and I was pretty sure it wasn’t snapping at my heels anymore — and I waited almost five years after that before I smoked pot. Give yourself some time with sobriety.

What advice would you give about living with the existential dread of being a hippie in America? I’m as gentle as Mister Rogers, but because of my appearance and the associations it brings, I’ve faced intimidation in certain situations.

—Carl Thomas Hriczak, Niagara Falls, NY Have any black friends? They’ll tell you all about it. I think it’s very educational for a white person in the American scene to be treated like a second-class citizen. Rather than resenting it or trying to avoid it, you should experience and learn from it.

I’m a professor at a small liberal-arts college. A beautiful young woman in my class was very flirty with me throughout the semester, and now the class is over. Would I be a fool to invite her to dinner?

—Name Withheld You’re holding all the power. It bends the relationship. And, to use an old expression, don’t shit where you eat. It’ll compromise your relationship with that student, and with all your other students, who are watching and will know. If you’re a teacher, you have a role to play. It doesn’t involve taking someone out and trying to get her in bed.