When The Addict Who Dies Is Someone You Love
This past Monday morning, I was driving to the airport for a television appearance when my friend Jeremy called. He said he had some very bad news. My first thought was for his parents, or his grandfather who had twirled me around the dance floor at Jeremy’s wedding. I was preparing to comfort him during my commute.
“Joey’s dead.” He said.
I didn’t hear him at first.
“Joey,” he repeated and added is last name for clarification, “I think you need to pull over.”
And I did need to pull over.
When an addict dies, you aren’t supposed to be surprised — people make sure you know that. “Come on — you can’t be surprised,” they say, “He was killing himself for years.”
But I was surprised. I was shocked to my core. Because yes, Joey, was an addict, but he was a human and he was my friend and I am not someone who walks around expecting the friends who were just calling your phone one day to be dead the next.
There had been times where I was sure it was coming. 20 years ago, in high school, when I’d be summoned to the emergency room countless times, or 10 years ago when I’d get frantic calls of depression and alcohol fueled paranoia from a high-rise apartment window in the middle of the night. But even then, if it had actually happened, I would not have been prepared.
So I sat in my car on the side of the road as tears streamed down my face and my brain that was no longer functioning could only think, “That fucking asshole. Of course he’d do this now. He’s ruining my trip and fucking loving it.”
When somebody dies everybody wants to know why. They want to know, not only to satisfy curiosity, but to know how to react. The amount of sympathy shown and grief permitted is inversely proportionate to how “self-inflicted” the death seems. Cancer? Full sympathy, an angel lost. Addiction or suicide? Less sympathy, an avoidable and shameful tragedy. They stop being people and become cautionary tales.
And when people ask what happened to Joey, I tell the truth — it was likely a bad combination of sleeping pills and alcohol. It was an accident in the way in which falling off a tightrope is an accident. But that’s not all I want to say because how he died is not all he was and I’m so afraid that people will go away not understanding what really happened to Joey. Not really understanding who he was.
Joey was an asshole. A grade-A asshole who offended almost everyone he met. One time he offended my brother by loudly proclaiming that one of my brother’s kids was far better than the other and insisted that my brother was deluding himself by loving both kids the same.
Joey was the most loyal friend in the world. In 20 years of friendship he did not stop loving our group of friends (Jeremy, Jordan, George, Erika and my brother Aham) for one minute. He moved across the world to Thailand and then China and still called at least once a week. He checked up on all of us through each other, “How’s Ijeoma,” he’d ask, “She’s not dating another asshole is she?” “Have you seen Jeremy lately?” he’d admonish, “These friendships are important to maintain.”
One time Joey had a small lump in his chest and was immediately convinced it was breast cancer. He went to Planned Parenthood, got a breast exam, and was told he had a staph infection. Months later, when he suspected he had another staph infection, he made me drive him back to Planned Parenthood, because “they were so good at diagnosing it the last time.”
I met Joey in freshman drama class at age 15, when he whispered a horrible joke in my ear.
Joey kicked a bad meth habit in his early 20’s by joining the Navy and struggling through withdrawals and bootcamp at the same time. Then he went to college and got a degree. This inspired me to pack myself and my young son up and go to college as well. I don’t know if I would have done it without him, and I don’t think I ever told him that.
Joey was the first boy I ever kissed. We’d eaten Taco Bell before making out in my car and he smelled like burritos and he kept burping. It was horrible. Eventually a cop banged on the car window and threatened to fine us.
For my 25th birthday, Joey and my brother recorded a song in my honor that I’m far too socially conscious to quote now. But my favorite part was Joey’s trumpet solo. He had never played trumpet before but was convinced it was something he could just “do” and when it didn’t turn out as planned, he was convinced the trumpet was at fault. It was such an amazing collection of squeaks and honks that I literally wet my pants laughing and had to rush to the bathroom.
He also painted a birthday banner with the most unflattering portrait of me imaginable.
There were months and sometimes years at a time where Joey was so caustic and angry and self-destructive that I couldn’t talk to him.
I didn’t pick up any of Joey’s calls the last month he was alive. He’d want me to feel bad about that, and because of that, I feel a little less bad.
Joey said, “I love you,” at the end of every call.
Joey wanted to quit drinking more than he’d wanted anything else in his entire life.
I hadn’t received a sober call from Joey in over a year.
Joey was newly married to a lovely woman and as close to happy as his drinking and bipolar disorder would allow.
Joey didn’t start taking sleeping pills until the last time he tried to quit drinking, because he couldn’t sleep without alcohol. But by the time he started drinking again he had two addictions.
I promised to marry Joey if we were both single by the time I was 30 and I didn’t, and he never let me forget that I’d reneged on our deal.
Joey got a vasectomy in his early 20’s because he loved kids.
Joey became a teacher because he loved kids. He was a good teacher and his students are really grieving right now.
The last thing Joey ever wanted to be was an alcoholic, he grew up seeing what it turned you into and seeing himself become that person was his own personal hell.
Sometimes Joey would call me and describe his outfit for the day and say, “Does it make me look like a douche? Ok, but what if I add these Heelys?”
Sometimes Joey would call just to say that he hoped I’d find love.
Joey was an atheist and is therefore not in any way reading this now, but he would have insisted on a write-up anyway.
Joey did not know how to live.
Joey did not want to die.
Joey knew that we loved him. He knew that after 20 years of this rollercoaster we were always going to love him and I hope he thought of that for at least a second before he went to bed Sunday night.
I want to say all of that and more every time somebody asks, “How did he die?” I want to say that he was the best and the worst and the funniest and oh my god he fought so damn hard and this fucking disease turned him into someone he never wanted to be and even then he was still Joey and somebody I loved and somebody who deserved love and he ruined my trip and I hope he’s fucking happy.
And I miss him.
Fuck.
