11/30/2016

Memories of my younger days. Dropping acid a countless number of times and doing ridiculous things that I just don’t have the energy for anymore. It never was just a small trip, or a single hit of acid. Sometimes when I think of these times I wonder if this life is the trip and one day when I’m old and grey I will wake up back in the room that all of this started and this was all just a part of the trip.

I remember the way the snow glistened when you walked outside. There was this one strange trip where we drove over to this complex to visit someone. As we walked out of the car and through this desolate playground in the stark cold midnight hours — as I looked around it looked like an elementary disaster. There were toys, toy cars, dolls, strewn all over the ground that without careful notice you would trip over. I stared in amazement for a moment taking in the grandiosity of the sight, and finally someone pulled me into the apartment. I remember not knowing the person we were visiting, and who knows what everyone said.

The first time someone had give me some free tabs, and I remember staring at my cat for a couple hours. The best might have been the last time, some people might have considered it a bad trip — but not me. I sat on the front porch and looking out you could see a massive storm coming. As the cloud become closer skulls and demons flew out of the clouds at me, striking blows towards me, but never hitting. My parents were inside cooking dinner, and doing their after work chores.

As these phantoms flew towards me, I cackled in maniacal laughter. Nothing could stop the outpouring of laughter as the realization that they were unable to actually harm me. In hindsight hours must have passed staring into the approaching storm, just laughing. It was a very dark trip, the rest is a blur.

My brother used to come downstairs mid trip and hide under blankets. Sometimes my friends, and I would randomly ask him how he was doing while we would be dosed up and having conversations that made no sense to a casual observer, but provided great insight to ourselves.

The most vivid memory is when my brother came home with a sheet and cut it up in the kitchen. He handed me two, and our other adventurer two and we went outside and left my brother in kitchen. Smoking our cigarettes on the attached gazebo we heard a blood curdling scream. With that sound we extinguished our cigarettes and ran inside to see what was wrong only to find my brother hunched on the floor looking at every inch of our kitchen bottom. We asked him why he screamed only to have him deny it, and then explain he dropped some on the floor and our mother was going to step on it initiating her own acid trip. The fear was that she would then blame one of us and murder us in our sleep. I don’t know why we just didn’t vacuum the floor in that case. Shortly there after we began a lucid adventure, and never heard anything else about it.

In retrospect I don’t understand why acid was so readily available to us in our teens. There was more acid in that small town than I have ever seen anywhere else, as a matter of fact it completely disappeared for a long time, or maybe I just wasn’t looking in the right places. Some kids in our home town would take a sheet at a time, but I was never that brave.

There was a joke in my later years that after a heavy night of drinking, when you’d wake up with the DT’s every so slightly and think back on the night before that a good night always incurred “brain damage”. The joke isn’t quite as funny through sober eyes, but this is a true part of the past. This happened, it all fucking happened, imagine the fucking worst — and I guarantee it fucking happened. That’s me screaming out at a past version of myself trying to change the things we did.

I don’t know whether to cry or laugh. Some of the things are still pretty hilarious, others a bit sad I suppose.

Happy birthday, bub.

Definitely not taking care of myself nutritionally today for some reason. Almost verbally assaulted a gentleman at the bank who made me wait 30 minutes for an appointment to close my account. Yes, I have a junkie bank account. Shitty interest rates, awful monthly fees, the sole purpose of which was to move money around stealthily to purchase drugs. Do I feel awful about this? Yes. Is it true? Yes. Is there anything I can do about this? Yes.

They teach us about advocating for yourself at the facility. For instance, email your primary care physician and have them notate that you can not under any circumstances be prescribed your drug of choice. If you don’t know the class of drugs that your particular drug is, then just tell them what you are addicted to. For a long time I thought doctor’s didn’t know shit — I’ve read all the manuals and instructions on the internet and books, so I know what I’m doing more than they do. That, in reality is not actually the case. Doctor’s are actually a lot more helpful when they know the entirety of everything you are doing.

During my long term opiate abuse — or just overall substance abuse — these dry patches would appear in my nose. Were they from the crank and coke? Were they from detoxing [withdrawing] every six days for two days? Who knows, but since stopping the abuse a lot of pains, aches, rashes, and overall my health has increased significantly.

It’s painfully obvious how ravishing this sickness is, and has been. My wife thought the situation with my health was terminal and on some levels was a little relieved when everything was revealed. My stoicism crumbles at the thought of her thoughts during those periods.

Minding the hunger is extremely important. The emotions come in rollercoasters, as I’m sure you — the reader — has noticed. Baby steps, I whisper to myself.

Took the afternoon off, and actually got to enjoy some free time today. Watched a movie, ate a bowl full of dorito’s, and still didn’t relapse. It’s the small victories.

Had a slight freak out when my counselor emailed me saying I was absent Monday. Went down a dark hole and was trying to remember Monday which was a challenge in and of itself. Anyways got it resolved, and moved on.

Thinking of things in the past, this morning seems like years ago. I get random text messages all day long “are you OK?”, “is everything OK”, “how is the relapse party going” etc etc, which is all pretty comical. Everything is OK, guys! Thanks for asking!

It’s hard to imagine, but this new sober person is really quite boisterous. Someone actually had to tell me to exercise self restraint, and work on impulse control — it is embarrassing to admit, but it was really quite impressive. Me, boisterous? Loud? Courageous? These just weren’t qualities that normally come to mind in my self image. Quiet, calm, reserved, shy, bashful, nervous, anxious — you know, that weird guy in the corner. I honestly don’t know why my wife married me, and right now she is probably thinking the same thing. Well anyways, I’m glad she did — I just hope she enjoys the man that walks tall, is told to quiet down, and never backs down from a fight is a guy she wants to be with for the next 40 or so years.

So, I guess that’s what is on my mind right now. My finances are still fucked, not a reason to relapse. I still have no job, not a reason to relapse. Have to go hang out with mopes every morning, not a reason to relapse. My counselor has no idea my attendance record and probably could care less if I am sober or not, and that is definitely not a reason to relapse.

There was an alumni speaker that came into the facility a couple of weeks ago (and by a couple, it clearly means one or two) and she was talking about what her life was life on drugs and alcohol, and what life was like afterwards. There was a point in her story where she was at a crossroads surrounded by her girlfriends celebrating some life achievement or goal. Something happened to the lady telling the story though, and she realized her surroundings and told herself “this is not my relapse party”. I think about that a lot — what does a relapse party look like? There has been plenty of people relapse in these short 25 days that I have been present to actually acknowledge something like that happening. What does the actual party look like? What does my relapse party look like?

I have these grand images of my relapse party — everyone I know comes over and we are all hanging out at the house. There are glittery signs hanging above the hallways that all say “RELAPSE” on them, and we are all having a merry old time. The doorbell rings and even older friends come by to say hello and participate. There is crank in the bathroom, on the kitchen table and pills galore. People are smoking weed on the balcony, there is probably even a couple kegs in the backyard.

The reality is probably much darker then that. It probably starts in much the same way that the original addiction started. Hey bud, have a pill! The soft voice of caution pushed aside, and down the hatch. It’s been two years, lets celebrate with a beer, and here is a joint. Don’t worry your wife will never find out, she has the kids today.

And then your whole life just slips away.

If I were to be honest, it’s been a shitty day. There were moments of calmness sprinkled throughout the day, but for the most part today has been awful. I hate to leave you in despair, everything will be fine. I will not use, no matter what.

The brain is a funny character, it’s using tricks straight out of a horror movie. Waves of loneliness, depression, and sadness just come out of nowhere. And the brain tries to say all of this is normal, you know what you need to do in order to fix this. But it’s all a trick, smoke and mirrors.

Let’s play this movie out — I go and score something. With the limited funds that I have now (wife took all of the credit cards, bank accounts, and debit cards), but today I have the Amex. So, in order to score there would have to be a tremendous effort, hours of making money appear out of nowhere. Pawn something, sell a piece of gear for a lot less than what it’s worth — an extraordinary effort would have to go into this. So it’s 730PM now, that brings us to about 900PM-930PM, my wife would call or look at my location on her phone (we share locations), and call ask what I’m doing in the hood. I’d make up an elaborate lie to the person that I love, and get a shitty score (low quality drugs), and be back at my house craving more all night long. It’d probably have to be a stimulant for as little money as I have, or an intravenous shot which sounds awful right now. So then I contract HEP C from a rolled up dollar bill if I could scrounge one, or from a needle I shared with a junkie on leavenworth.

Yeah it all sounds pretty awful and like I would have to put pants on which I am just not willing to do right now. There is a certain constitution one needs to ascertain before they are going to be able to kick. I have to have resolve every day to not use and if I let my defenses rest for a single second then it’s off to the races.

The movie played out sounds like an awful relapse party. Often times people will come in to rehab from a relapse and it’s not like they went nuts, they just dabbled and then came back. What is the point to that?

Right now it does seem pretty shitty to not be able to use to hide from the world. My brain is justifying, and legitimatizing using in every way possible. To that I say “brain, my dear, go fuck yourself”.