So here’s the lowdown on messing around with drugs and thinking
it’s going to be all fun and games. I’ve decided to dedicate this blog to offering
some extra special insight into the world of what you think won’t happen to
you. First, don’t ever think that it won’t happen to you, I can assure you that
drugs do not discriminate. Second, never say never. You will almost always find
out that you are capable of doing just about everything you thought you could
or would never do. Desperation can be quite a motivating force. I think it’s
time for me to share some things I did, that I thought I could or would never
do when I was at the wise old age of 18.
I can start by getting the obvious out there first. When I was
18, I went from graduating with a 3.8 and being enrolled in college to meeting
a boy and doing heroin and crack all over the course of a summer break. At first
it was just now and then, and I only smoked the heroin and snorted the cocaine.
I considered myself a recreational user. Before long though, I was smoking
crack and sticking a needle in my arm for the heroin. All in the name of love.
Not only was I addicted to drugs, but I was addicted to loving this boy who
introduced me to them. At the time, I truly believed that I could change him or
save him somehow. I thought one day we would be clean together and it would all
be happily ever after.
I spent about 9 years believing that. But that’s a different
story, for another time. Let’s get back to me and the things I thought I’d
never do. One of my personal favorites, and all-time lows was the day I went
into the bathroom at a park and needed water in order to do my drugs. The
bathroom sink did not work, and I sat there contemplating my options for about
2 minutes, before I realized there was only one if I was going to accomplish
what I came in there to do. Long story short, the back of the toilet came off
and that was the water I chose to use on that summer afternoon. Another fun
fact is that you’ll likely end up homeless. I spent about 6 months living out
of a backpack and sleeping in the bushes literally. I was homeless plenty of
other times, like when we slept on a huge piece of cardboard, behind the same
dumpster, behind the same church, for an entire summer. But there’s something
about waking up inside of a bush, after it’s been raining all night, that makes
you wish you had a roof over your head.
I think I’ll end this by giving you a visual that you may or
may not be able to imagine. Once you’ve gotten the drugs in your hands and you’re
safe in whatever room you’re in, if you’ve been an IV drug user for a
significant amount of time like I was, chances are your veins are just about
nowhere to be found. With that being said, you don’t just give up, you try and
try until you are sitting on a floor with a bloody rag in front of you and
still trying, determined to make this work. Usually time is of the essence,
because once blood has been exposed to oxygen it begins to coagulate, and you
begin to panic and then you really turn yourself into human pin cushion, just
hoping that one of the many times it will work out in your favor. Usually in a
situation like this, it doesn’t work out, but that doesn’t stop you from
trying. Finally, you’re sitting there and you can only feel like the world has
come to an end. Your drugs are ruined and you’re fucked.
Next stop….starting all over again at square one. And inevitably
ending up the bloody pin cushion you were earlier and asking yourself how many
times you’re going to keep doing this in hopes of a halfway decent outcome. I can
assure you, I NEVER thought I’d end up in any of those situations but I did.
Final thought being, I used to look at that lifestyle before I started doing it
like it was glamorous, cool, punk, or fun but truth is it was none of those. It
was death, destruction, despair and dis-function. If you ever find yourself
thinking you won’t end up the way that I did, then you might want to think
again.
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