Four years ago, I stopped doing one of the dumbest things I ever did in my life: crystal meth. Four weeks ago, I did one of the dumbest things I ever did in my life: crystal meth. Why did I do it? Why did I stop? Why did I do it again? The answer is probably the same for all the questions. Whether it's a rationalisation, a reason, an excuse, or an explanation, the fact is that I did it and I can no longer say I've been sober for four years or that I'm a former addict.

She's an evil bitch who doesn't care about me, and no matter what my desires, dreams or motivations are, she will always be in my blood, in my brain chemistry, in my psyche, in my life. Surprisingly, the result of this recent unwelcome and unexpected binge was more painful than extracting her from my life the first time; the rejection from one of my best friends, Al. 

Tina was my best new friend when I moved to Chicago. She let me feel things I had never felt before. She made me feel invincible, powerful, sexy, uninhibited, libidinous and, most of all, careless. I was careless with my life, careless with my health, careless with my friends and family, careless with my job, careless with my finances, careless with my appearance. So the formula goes like this: if you are careless, you do not have cares, you do not feel, when you do not feel, you do not care to feel, nor do you feel to care.

Four years ago, after walking out of a sex club at sunrise in a strange city, for some reason I suddenly felt something that I had not felt for some time. I felt feelings. I felt loneliness, shame, emptiness, guilt, desperation, and an overwhelming feeling of What the fuck am I doing to myself? sweep over me. I don't know what it was specifically, but that particular bottom felt hard at that exact moment. I had a feeling. I had not had a cogent feeling for quite some time. But it suddenly seemed crystal clear (pun intended) right at that exact moment.

It was 7:14 a.m. I dropped my pipe on the ground, crushed it with my boot, emptied my stash into the gutter and threw that familiar little plastic packet in the air and watched it float away in the wind, much like my life had the previous year and a half. I had had enough. She had robbed me of enough synapses and serotonin, had packed my emotional baggage until it wasn't a carry-on any longer, and stifled and clouded any and all reason.

I went to the hotel, got my stuff and started the drive home. On the way home, work called. One of my projects was messed up and they needed my documentation. I fumbled for an answer, because I knew I was doing the bare minimum to get by, and I knew I did not have what they needed or what I should have been doing. Somehow I skated through that.

Work distracted me from her. When I first met her, she was with me on Saturday. Then it was Friday and Saturday. Then it was Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Then it was Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Then I don't know exactly when, but the week simply became periods of light and dark with those two days in there that I didn't have to deal with work.

Right after that phone call (blasted cell phones) my sister called. She asked if I knew what day yesterday was. I think it was Tuesday, I answered. She reminded me that I forgot our mother's birthday. I had never forgotten her birthday before, I was crushed, and that made me hate the evil bitch even more.

When I got home, there was an eviction notice on my door. I had not paid my rent for 3 months. The locks were changed in my fancy high-rise apartment. I could hear my cats meowing behind the door. As I sat down in front of the door, I decided to listen to the several voicemails on my cell that I had ignored all week. The second from the last message was from the cat sitter; she was unable to get into my apartment, and I realised that my cats had not been fed or watered in 3 days. Their meowing was mournful and only increased the emotional edge; it was sharp and cutting. 

The crash had started to sting, as these were not feelings I had wanted to feel. Any feelings for that matter, but I felt, and it felt harsh. I walked to the elevator and stifled the urge to cry because that would have been too much feeling. I went to the doorman and said I could not get into my apartment. He asked which unit, and after I told him he gave me a look and again, I felt. I felt like trash, a mess, embarrassed because I could not believe that I had an eviction notice on my door. I was expecting Springer to show up at any moment with the camera.

It was exceptionally shameful because I had thousands of dollars in my checking account, but I just could not be bothered to sit down and write a check. That would have distracted away from her time. Somehow, after showing the management representative from the building that I did have the money in my checking account by getting online (I did pay my phone bill because being cut off from the online sex sites was worse than not having a home - priorities, right?), they let me write them a check and let me in my apartment.

After I fed the cats, I sat down and listened to the answering machine. A few businesses were calling and asking when they could expect payment for this and that. The last message was from a friend calling to let me know that her mother had died. She was in a hospital right outside of Chicago. I knew she was there after a car accident, but I could not visit her; that would have distracted me from my current goals of sexual conquests and I would have had to feel.

Even though this woman and I were there for each other 20 years ago, when simultaneously her marriage was crumbling and I was coming out, I was not there for her then. We were each other's rock at that time, but my rock had been ground into pebbles, then into sand, and my feet were sinking, quickly.

Ironically, within a 12 hour period after deciding to stop being friends with her and expunge her from my life, I was exposed to be a fraud at work shirking my responsibilities, forgot about my mother, almost lost my domicile and had forsaken a friend. Serendipitous, fortuitous, or just plain luck, the timing was sobering. All for something I thought was a friend, a better friend, a sure friend who was consistent in her reaction and response. 

I'm sure you've heard, read, seen, or are possibly living a variation on this theme. I knew what I had to do. I ditched her, her friends, the people who I thought were friends, and sought counseling to rebuild what I had almost totally lost and started asking the difficult question of why? What drove me to her, to be friends with her and systemically destroy my life for this crystalline structure that smelled like Clairol Herbal Essence when she burned in a glass tube?

That was almost four years ago. For some reason, after four years of avoiding profiles with PNP, after four years of having her put up to my face and easily refusing, after four years of thinking how disgusted I was with her, after four years of physically getting nauseous thinking about doing her or being friends with her again, and after four years of feeling, she showed up at my doorstep. Was it consciously or subconsciously that I let her in? Either way, the id superceded the superego, only to drain my ego. It couldn't hurt to just let her visit for a few days again, could it? I had control, I had my wits, I had friends and a good life again, had enough of feeling.

The sordid details of this recidivism are not important right now, because the stinging regret of having her course through my veins is bringing the bile up my throat as I type. I could list a plethora of _________(fill in the blank: reasons, excuses, rationalisations, explanations). But they all pale in comparison to the weakness I suddenly feel by the personal setback of having conquered a whore who stole from me, only to foolishly be enticed again in a moment of weakness. 

I reached out to friends, family and professionals. One friend suggested that I write a list of things for which I am grateful. The list was short the week immediately following her visit, because the crushing depression of her wake had only brought up doubt, unreasonable behaviour and thanklessness about everything in my life. She magnified the trivial nuances into overwhelming and unpleasant circumstances. A month later, the list is much longer and stronger.

A professional asked me my trigger. It took me a few weeks to think it out and answer the question, but it still doesn't help reset the clock. Work stress, bad dating experiences, a disappointing relationship, a relationship that I thought was a relationship but was not, not feeling connected to the gay community or the people around me, living in a semi-closed door closet, my family's anti-gay marriage stance, wanting someone or something that I did not or could not have. Feeling too many feelings that made me feel, think, live?

The real tragedy and biggest regret right now is the loss of a real friend, in flesh and blood, in emotion, in support, in love and friendship: Al. I thought he'd be supportive, I thought he'd understand, I thought he'd be there for me. He is not. I'm not sure if it's because he won't, can't or doesn't want to be there for me. In any circumstance it still hurts, and the rejection from this friend is worse than the onset of the depression once I mustered some courage and flushed her remains down the toilet.

He told me that he already put one friend in the grave because of her; he can't stand to watch another. He painfully reminded me of the reasons I told him I stopped being friends with her because anyone who is friends with her is a loser. He told me that he can't believe someone would throw away everything good they have for her. Why I would piss away a nice home, a nice car, and a great, well paying job was beyond his grasp of reason. He could not put himself in that position.

I once said that she was the scourge of the gay community and he pointed out the hypocrisy of my own words. My words, my strength, my convictions were being aimed at me and being used against me. Ouch. Was he simply reminding me of my own desires? Was this his defense mechanism to not watch another fool destroy his life? Was he calling me out for the fraud I had become? 

A long time ago someone told me, oddly enough before I met her, that drugs don't cost money; they just affect your ability to make money. It's also a fact that money can't buy you love or happiness. Drugs mask feelings, both good and bad ones. I don't want to not feel again. I like feeling. The good feelings, the bad feelings, the feelings that hurt and the feelings that make you grow. I _______(fill in the blank: hope, think, want) this is my last rock bottom.

Jim B, Chicago

 

 

How did it happen? If I have asked myself that question once, I have asked it a thousand times, and I still don't have the answer. How did a reasonably intelligent, hard working guy like myself get hooked on that nasty bitch we lovingly, at first, call Mz. Tina?

Oh, it started innocently at first. Out for the weekend at a club and a friend says, Here, try this, it's great, you'll feel like a million dollars, we can party on all night, and the sex is going to just be fabulous! With a recommendation like that, I thought, I'd be a fool to not try it. Just the once, I said.

I tried it, just a small line at first. I mean, it's not like I was one of those druggies or one of those low-life homeless guys. I had a job and a car and a house. I wasn't like them. That could never happen to me...

I did feel like a million bucks and the sex was fabulous - even sex with people I would not normally speak to, let alone have sex with. It just made me incredibly horny and sexual, and I just felt like everyone was my friend. There wasn't always a cute guy around who was my type, but with Mz. Tina around, I didn't care. I'd just snort them pretty and go ahead and do the deed anyway. Yes, the standards definitely slipped...

For the first six months or so it was just recreationally, once every couple of weeks or so on weekends, and I would stop on Sunday morning. I told myself it was okay because it was only two days a week, I have a job, a car and a house, and it was the weekend. Hey, I deserved to have some fun!

I soon found myself daydreaming and wishing that Friday would hurry up and arrive. The weekends began to start on Thursday and end on Sunday night. I started to show up at work looking like the wrath of God has been thrown at me, but hey, I did have fun (I think). Parts of the weekend were awfully fuzzy and I did not always remember everything that happened.

I knew that I'd had fun and made some new friends. Now, if I could just remember what his name was. Did he give me his phone number? Did I give him mine? I wrote it on a scrap of paper somewhere. I'll find it later. He liked me, I could tell. But what the hell did he look like? Did we have sex? Was it fun? Um, was it safe?

Within a year, Mz. Tina was ruling my life. I started being late for work, but I own the company. What, I'm going to fire myself? Ha! Fat chance!! I went from being stable and well-grounded to being an out of control drug addict. I used five days a week; the only reason it wasn't seven was because two days a week I simply crashed and burned, and wouldn't wake up for 20 hours at a time. Damn, I missed a day! Ill just do a double dose now that I am awake.

Snorting just didn't do it for me anymore either. I just didn't get the same wonderful high I used to. It seemed like the only exercise I was getting was chasing the next high and running in circles at work. Another 'friend' suggested that maybe I should just 'slam' it. Hey, that sounds cool, I thought - just inject the liquefied Mz. Tina directly into a vein...

It didn't take long to get over my initial aversion to needles. I was in the big league now, I was told. Wow, I'd never been in the big league. I liked it. I got very good at it too. I could have it all mixed and slammed home in less than three minutes! Looking back on it now, though, the first time I slammed was also the last time I got that incredible high. I kept chasing that same level of high for the next year and just never did accomplish it. Oh, I got close a few times, but I think in reality they were more like mini overdoses.

20 months into doing Mz. Tina, and I was doing her two or three times a day, every day of the week, using any vein or hidden spot I could find that would still take a needle and not collapse. Those were getting harder and harder to find. I was spending $1000 a month on Mz. T, and I was getting her from a friend at cost. Hey, I could be a big shot and give the stuff away to friends because it really didn't cost me all that much, at first.

Then it got to be very costly because I was giving so much of it away. I started selling instead, but I wasn't a drug dealer, I told myself. I only sold to friends and I still had my job, a car and a house. I wasn't a low life, not me. But you know what happened? My friends all thought how dare I ask them to pay for the stuff when I had a job, a car and a house and they, by now, had nothing, and one by one they disappeared on me. Go figure.

[Fast  forward to October, 2003]

How did it happen? I lost my business, I had to sell my car, and the house has been refinanced to the hilt twice in the last two years to pay legal fees associated with my arrest in December 2002 for drug charges that included transportation, sales, distribution and manufacture of amphetamines. I was having too much 'fun' partying with my friends, having sex and doing whatever I wanted to do to see the train wreck of the century coming over my right shoulder.

At the time I couldn't see it, of course, but Mz. Tina doomed me to the absolute unraveling of all that I had worked for, all that I had saved for, all that I believed that life held for me. OK, I did manage to meet someone special during it all, but if I am honest I spent 14 months in one of the most acrimonious, violent, co-dependent, drug-crazed relationships imaginable. He had a bi-polar disorder, type two, a really nasty thing to have by itself, but when you add in a boyfriend who sells drugs and gives you shots whenever you want, then it really gets bad.

The police have been to my house no less than 17 times in the last 14 months; we have each gone to jail at least three times; and I have spent in excess of $45,000 to bail us out and to keep me out of prison for five-seven years. We have each been to the emergency room at the hospital twice. My last stay was the result of one of our fights, during which he kicked me in the face and I got a detached retina. I am now blind in one eye, and have hospital bills in excess of $9,000 to pay.

You are probably thinking, Boy, this guy is fucked up! and I would have to agree with you. But the point is, at the time all this was happening I was totally on the ball, or so I thought. Yeah, right! I was so out of control, I just didn't see the path I was on was going to get real bumpy, to put it mildly.

I'm now trying to get away from Mz. Tina, and I'm not doing a good job of it at all. Now, at the age of 52, when I should be slowing down and enjoying myself, I am out looking for a job, and let me tell you, jobs that will hire a 52 year old, drug addicted, one-eyed felon are almost non-existent.

Not a pretty picture, is it?

Johnny

 

A friend of mine committed suicide the other day. I will call him Jack so as not to hurt his family should they read this...

Jack was a lot of things to a lot of people. Jack was a gay man with a kind and compassionate nature. He was a friend to a few, he was a good listener, and he helped many people with physical ailments as he was a therapeutic practitioner. He tried to express his love through his artistic ventures. Jack was a man like us all, searching for happiness to gain a sense of fulfilment in life. He was also a man with a history of chronic clinical depression. 
 
Unfortunately, Jack ran into and started running with a group that promised him happiness through drugs, afterhours, and circuit parties. Jack's 'friends' won't talk about how he died, as they may perceive that they have had a hand in his death. The ones that will talk brush aside all blame, asserting Jack's death was suicide from a long history of depression, with no hint that drugs had anything to do with his self-destruction. That includes his drug dealer, who was crying his eyes out at the funeral.
 
One person I talked to seemed to realise that drugs may have had a part to do with Jack's self-slaughter. He expressed to me that Jack was the type of person (referring to Jack's depression) that should have never been doing drugs, remarking that it was Jack's responsibility to have "known himself" and where drugs could lead for a person "like him". His attitude floored me, not so much because of the denial of any responsibility, but because it reminded myself of me not too long ago. Three and a half years ago, when I first moved to Tampa, I was reaching back to my youth. Some call it a mid-life crisis. Well, it did not start out a crisis, but it certainly became one...
 
I fell into a group of apparently successful people; people that are understood to be role models in the Tampa Gay Community. They were part of the party circuit. Taking drugs at parties and local dance clubs almost seemed reasonable. I mean, my God, they were having such a good time, and if they can do it and keep their lives together, why can't I? It started with a few ecstasy pills. They were great. Then I tried GHB. Then GHB and sex. I had the hard-on of a 21 year old. Wow, the fountain of youth! Then one night at a party, I tried crystal. Suddenly I was smarter, sexier, funnier, had more energy then I had ever had in my life... I felt like a God. 
 
Rather than go into all the details of the sordid life of a crystal addict, I just want to say I lost my job, my self-respect, and almost my life. I became one of those people that believed that it was OK to do drugs and let the cards fall where they will. To be completely irresponsible to friends and lead others into a life of addiction through my example. I believed in the phrase "know thyself". That way I didn't have to be responsible for people that overdosed on GHB. Or end up in prison for selling drugs. They should know better. Right?
 
My view is different now. Having come through a life and death battle with addiction to crystal meth; knowing and talking to Jack about his addiction and his depression; having run with some of the same 'friends' as Jack; watching some of these 'friends' end up in prison, mental institutions or dead... I no longer believe that an irresponsible phrase such as "know thyself" is acceptable.
 
This is my eulogy for Jack, and all my other friends that have died or ended up in prison because of drugs and my own irresponsibility. Maybe, writing this will save a live. Maybe, Jack's suicide will help me to continue to save my own life. Today, it seems to me that the possibility of saving someone's life is worth the effort of taking a few hours to write a few words and possibly hurting a few people's feelings. I hope I feel this way tomorrow.
 
Jack, for what it is worth, this is written to your memory, and for my continue life.

Mark