The first time i was arrested for posession and consumption, i was court ordered to go to a state "sponsored" rehab center, and move back in to my parents house. I remember coming home from jail for the first time, and [not having seen the inside of my bedroom or my house in months] feeling so awkward standing in the middle of my room. I must have stood there for 20 minutes, just glaring around wondering where all my shit had gone. I felt the same as the times i'd taken too many valium and drank a bottle of cough syrup before school, and got sick in Gym class.
I'd be so slow changing clothes and getting my shit together in the locker room that the Seniors would already be piling in to the locker room for the next class by the time i was done. Then i'd be the one, 5 foot tall dorky little freshman, high out of his goddamn mind trying to swim upstream through the one way parade of bigger, scarier kids flowing into the locker room for gym class. I'd catch an elbow to the gut or a slap on the back of my head...but i was to incapacitated to give a fuck. i'd just put my head down and keep pushing through the testosterone infused football players who thought it was fun to try and rip my tshirt off in one fluid motion as they passed me by.
I had the exact same feeling standing in my room for the first time in months, staring at where my Who records were stacked, or where the model airplane my Dad and me built when i was 5 used to sit...the only things left were naked slabs of furniture...nothing on the shelves. No speakers, no notebooks, no comics or action figures. Not a drawer in my dresser...everything had been torn from my room and replaced with the bones of what had been my LAST resort for a place to sleep at night.
So naturally, after about a day or 2 shit began to hit the fan just like it used to when i lived at home. Constant screaming and slamming doors. Knocking holes in the walls with my guitar, I would punch the door to my closet so frequently the paint chipped off and it started to crack in half. So after a week of me living at home for the first time since i was a little boy, my bedroom looked like a hotel room after Keith Moon stayed the night. I had spray painted all of the walls, and carved shit into every piece of wood i could fit the word FUCK on to.
After a few weeks of sobering up and constantly fighting with my parents, my manic depression started working the night shift. I'd just lay in bed all night, staring at the gouges i'd put in my walls, and the paint on the ceiling. Listening to Godspeed You Black Emperor or some other horribly depressing shit. Then a few months had passed and my manic depression was working the double shift; day + night...I'd slump through school ignoring all my friends, not eating for days at a time. I'd just stare at the pages of my notebook and write more heroin infused dribble about fetuses, sunflowers, train rides and towns i'd never been to.
Then one night i was laying in bed with my giant ass headphones from 1984 when i realized the current fabric making up my life was not worth living for. simple as that. no talkin me out of it, no "it's gonna get better mannnn", fuck that shit. This sucks, i don't have to be here. Fast, logical, done.
So i got up, wedged the chair from my desk under the doorknob [later i realized this was really pointless...] and grabbed the pair of scissors from the radio station mug on my drawer-less dresser.
I sat cross legged on my bed with my headphones on, no shirt, and the only light on was the blue light bulb i had spray painted and put back in the lamp standing on my bookshelf. I grabbed the scissors by one blade, put the other's tip at the base of my palm and pulled it sharply up my wrist to my forearm. I didn't open my eyes and switched hands, but as i placed the tip of the scissors under the palm of my other hand i felt a hot sensation on my legs. I opened my eyes and looked down to find the blood pouring from my wrist down onto my legs and soaking the bed. I immediately dropped the scissors and curled over my arm putting my head down on the matress, listening to the violin section of some god awful 20 minute instrumental/post grunge anthem.
I remember waking up the next morning being cold and wet. I woke up so light headed i had to crawl to the chair in my room from my bed only 4 feet away. I sat up in the chair and realized i'd left the window open all night, and now the cool, damp, grey spring morning was floating into my bedroom. I unjammed the chair from my door and snuck into the bathroom downstairs. In awe of my red stained skin i did my best to clean up and not splatter any onto the white tiles surrounding our shower. I cut the bottom off one of my tube socks and wore it over my left forearm to hide the 8 inch gash traveling lenghwise up my pale arm.
This was the 1st of countless times i decided i didn't want to be here the next day. One of the only times i woke up in my own bed after a suicide attempt, staring at the shadows cast by the blinds on my floor, or hanging out the window on the side of my house on a rainy morning trying to wash some cold water onto my face.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
one more for the road
As with everyone who's done or doing dope, there's always a last time. One last time to take a ride, one last time to see the beauty, one last time for eternal bliss...
My last time came as a surprise to even me.
After developing a steady habit for 4 and a half years, i had nothing else to live for. Not in a negative sense, more in a sense of time. Time; mine was all spent up. I was consumed - every waking minute of my life labored on the highs and lows of my heroin addiction. Did i have enough? Can i get more? How do i get the money? Where am i?
and most of all, the fuck you.
I started doing heroin for many reasons, but the bulk of them boiling down to me hating life. Life as a whole - hated every fucking bit of it. I hated me, i hated you, i hated school, i hated getting made fun of and beat up on, i hated my family, i hated people looking at me, i hated feelings...
and all i did was feel... i felt awkward, i felt stupid, i felt out of place, i felt lonely...i felt absolutely fucking miserable about myself, my surroundings, and my situation - and the only thing that would take that away seemed to be heroin. nothing mattered.
NOTHING
not the assholes at school, not how uncool i was, not the music i listened to, not my job, and certainly not my friends...no responsibility, no pressure, just sky.
nothing but blue sky, hot sun on my skin, a pack of camels, and a few bags of dope...nothing mattered.
Of course, there came a point where things weren't dissappearing anymore. no matter how much tar i smoked, or china white i packed up my nose, things started working their way under my skin...and i was miserable again. except now, i was miserable and incapacitated for 6 hours at a time. Dosed off under some park bench in the shade, or on the train to the end of the line. The obvious choice was suicide.
Turns out i was no good at that either. Slit wrists, bottle full of pills, somehow i'd always wake up in the hospital.
I came closer to dying from doing to much dope, and almost got my chance to kick God in the balls a couple of times i didn't even mean too.
So there came a last time. and i didn't even think it was going to be the last time, but as luck would have it, it was a tuesday. [tuesdays were my favorite day. i'd always manage to make a good score, eat a good meal, and find somewhere to sleep on tuesdays]
It was a hot sticky summer, and i remember this particular summer the city flooded with china white...which burnt like hell to shoot or smoke, so i was mostly snorting up thick rails of this synthetic shit every few hours.
We'd lay around all day in my friend T's basement cause it was 95 degrees outside, so we'd just wait for the sun to go down. Naturally, every 2 and a half or 3 hours, i'd slink upstairs to the bathroom and cut another rail on the dirtiest sink known to mankind - until around 8 o'clock at night.
Around 8 the scorching summer sun fell behind the houses, and the asphalt started cooling off in the july evening. We piled in to T's car and drove to the rich side of town to meet my then girlfriend of 3 weeks and her friends. She snuck out of her house and met us around the corner, T parked, and we jumped the fence onto the private golf course.
If you've never snuck onto a private golf course at night in the summer, you're missing out. The place is like a perfectly manicured dreamland of lakes, sand, thousands of lightning bugs, free water, and soft grass to lay on, have sex, and look at the stars.
So after our juvenile amusement with chasing lightning bugs, climbing trees, giggling and having sex wore off, we all wound up laying in and around one of the biggest sand traps near hole 5, staring empty at the sky.
I was laying near T, and my best friend was behind me with the girls still wandering around smoking weed.
It was really over in the blink of an eye, and to this day i do not know why i did it. But in a very heavy handed 4 or 5 seconds, i reached into my shoe [for years i stashed my shit under the soles of my shoes], opened the smokey tinted bag, and flicked it like a cigarette butt into the wind and watched it flip and tumble into the sand trap. gone.
i put my head down on my knees, T looked over at me with a puzzled "what the fuck?" look on his face, and my best friend behind me [noticing the weight of what i had just done] put his hand on my head, messing my hair around and said the exact words "i'm proud of you for that".
Realizing what i had just done, i layed back, closed my eyes, and with tears running down my face, felt my girlfriend lay her head in my lap, and pulled my hands to her chest.
Needless to say, i fought through wednesday on cigarettes and whiskey - again, baking in T's basement all afternoon, and Thursday morning, woke up sicker than i've ever been...and it only got worse for the rest of a fucking week.
Some people have given me various spiritual and religous reasons for why i tossed my last bag, frankly - i think it's a bunch of fucking bullshit. i ran out. i was dry, i was beat, i was exhausted, i weighed 85 fucking pounds...i was done.
God didn't throw that bag, i did.
My last time came as a surprise to even me.
After developing a steady habit for 4 and a half years, i had nothing else to live for. Not in a negative sense, more in a sense of time. Time; mine was all spent up. I was consumed - every waking minute of my life labored on the highs and lows of my heroin addiction. Did i have enough? Can i get more? How do i get the money? Where am i?
and most of all, the fuck you.
I started doing heroin for many reasons, but the bulk of them boiling down to me hating life. Life as a whole - hated every fucking bit of it. I hated me, i hated you, i hated school, i hated getting made fun of and beat up on, i hated my family, i hated people looking at me, i hated feelings...
and all i did was feel... i felt awkward, i felt stupid, i felt out of place, i felt lonely...i felt absolutely fucking miserable about myself, my surroundings, and my situation - and the only thing that would take that away seemed to be heroin. nothing mattered.
NOTHING
not the assholes at school, not how uncool i was, not the music i listened to, not my job, and certainly not my friends...no responsibility, no pressure, just sky.
nothing but blue sky, hot sun on my skin, a pack of camels, and a few bags of dope...nothing mattered.
Of course, there came a point where things weren't dissappearing anymore. no matter how much tar i smoked, or china white i packed up my nose, things started working their way under my skin...and i was miserable again. except now, i was miserable and incapacitated for 6 hours at a time. Dosed off under some park bench in the shade, or on the train to the end of the line. The obvious choice was suicide.
Turns out i was no good at that either. Slit wrists, bottle full of pills, somehow i'd always wake up in the hospital.
I came closer to dying from doing to much dope, and almost got my chance to kick God in the balls a couple of times i didn't even mean too.
So there came a last time. and i didn't even think it was going to be the last time, but as luck would have it, it was a tuesday. [tuesdays were my favorite day. i'd always manage to make a good score, eat a good meal, and find somewhere to sleep on tuesdays]
It was a hot sticky summer, and i remember this particular summer the city flooded with china white...which burnt like hell to shoot or smoke, so i was mostly snorting up thick rails of this synthetic shit every few hours.
We'd lay around all day in my friend T's basement cause it was 95 degrees outside, so we'd just wait for the sun to go down. Naturally, every 2 and a half or 3 hours, i'd slink upstairs to the bathroom and cut another rail on the dirtiest sink known to mankind - until around 8 o'clock at night.
Around 8 the scorching summer sun fell behind the houses, and the asphalt started cooling off in the july evening. We piled in to T's car and drove to the rich side of town to meet my then girlfriend of 3 weeks and her friends. She snuck out of her house and met us around the corner, T parked, and we jumped the fence onto the private golf course.
If you've never snuck onto a private golf course at night in the summer, you're missing out. The place is like a perfectly manicured dreamland of lakes, sand, thousands of lightning bugs, free water, and soft grass to lay on, have sex, and look at the stars.
So after our juvenile amusement with chasing lightning bugs, climbing trees, giggling and having sex wore off, we all wound up laying in and around one of the biggest sand traps near hole 5, staring empty at the sky.
I was laying near T, and my best friend was behind me with the girls still wandering around smoking weed.
It was really over in the blink of an eye, and to this day i do not know why i did it. But in a very heavy handed 4 or 5 seconds, i reached into my shoe [for years i stashed my shit under the soles of my shoes], opened the smokey tinted bag, and flicked it like a cigarette butt into the wind and watched it flip and tumble into the sand trap. gone.
i put my head down on my knees, T looked over at me with a puzzled "what the fuck?" look on his face, and my best friend behind me [noticing the weight of what i had just done] put his hand on my head, messing my hair around and said the exact words "i'm proud of you for that".
Realizing what i had just done, i layed back, closed my eyes, and with tears running down my face, felt my girlfriend lay her head in my lap, and pulled my hands to her chest.
Needless to say, i fought through wednesday on cigarettes and whiskey - again, baking in T's basement all afternoon, and Thursday morning, woke up sicker than i've ever been...and it only got worse for the rest of a fucking week.
Some people have given me various spiritual and religous reasons for why i tossed my last bag, frankly - i think it's a bunch of fucking bullshit. i ran out. i was dry, i was beat, i was exhausted, i weighed 85 fucking pounds...i was done.
God didn't throw that bag, i did.
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