Since 15 I have been an addict. I bounced from drug to drug trying to function how I saw regular people functioning. Waking up was always the hardest part of my day. Anything I had to do felt like a massive undertaking demanding effort I did not have the will or energy to give. Marijuana, heroin, liquor, all sorts of pills meant to cure my “anxiety” and “depression” that just made me feel worse and evermore hopeless…
And then there was meth…
I was always an “I’ll try anything once” kind of guy. Hell, I have “Carpe Diem” tatted on my chest in newspaper title font as if it’s the most important message my young self wanted me to regard as a newsflash with each mirrored reminder. “Anything except meth or pcp..those ones fuck people up.” Drug racism should be studied.
Queue me showing up to my friend’s apartment for a party, expecting psychedelics like the countless times before only to find myself surrounded by a handful of people I knew and a few I didn’t all partaking in a crystal I never thought I would find at the center of a social setting I would be at, but yet, here we all were, and fuck it, I’ll try anything once…
Long story short I found my answer but the addict I had grown within myself wasn’t satisfied with that alone. I had to have fun with it! After all, I’m finally living!!! I had energy! Motivation! Curiosity! Wonder! It was like I could live some obscure childlike fantasy. I stayed up for 3-4 days regularly. My record was 6 days. I caught myself having conversations with friends who had long since left my apartment, talking to my cats as if they could understand, realizing what I was doing, and then trying to laugh about it with them… hallucinating people in the car with me, shadowy figures in/alongside the road, demonic faces in the midnight trees, choruses of whispers of people out to get me, bizarro world, the twilight zone and everything in between. Shooting meth let me dwell in a reality that was almost dream like and gave me powers of confidence that amazingly did not land me in prison or a ditch. I also overdosed on fentanyl in Memphis and was narcanned intravenously 4 times by EMTs (once I realized I was ODing and they were there to help me not arrest me…i was in and out of consciousness.)
Today I celebrate 38 months of sobriety. Why? 2 reasons. Because in my search, I found meth, and with it my diagnosis, allowing me to be properly medicated for my problem, alleviating all of the issues I had always sought to fix, allowing me to function and feel good doing it. And my kids. I got sober a day before the 2nd ultrasound for my daughter. Now she is almost 3 and my son is 1 and a half and the greatest blessing in my life that I am grateful for today is the fact that I am finally properly diagnosed and medicated and feel no need to go off the rails in search of a better way. I am able to be present for them, provide for them, keep them safe and am always alert and ready for any situation that may come.
If you are using, know that I LOVE YOU! I say none of this to throw any shade towards anyone using. I say all of this because I was a professional user. A hall of famer. It took me 29 years to get to my answer, and a lot of those years were filled with some less than pleasant things that we often accept alongside our addictions. Today I live a more happy and comfortable life. It is possible! We do recover!
