addict

I was 13 years old when I developed a severe cough that lingered for months. Doctor-prescribed Tussionex did something beyond alleviating the cough, it changed my outlook, made me feel calm, peaceful, happy. I took it long after the cough went away, courtesy of that innocent doctor and a c. 1970 infinitely refillable prescription for narcotics.

I found other things over the next couple of years: diet pills, barbiturates, sedatives and pain pills of all kinds. By 9th grade, my school-oriented good citizen friends had vanished and I was running with a rough bunch of kids from the other side of town, and a whole bunch of adults whose sole goal on any given day was to get enough dope to get through.

"To get enough dope to get through" sounds so desperate and that wasn't how I saw them, at least not at the time. To me, a good little Lutheran girl from the right side of town, with all the advantages one could hope for except a mother, they looked glamorous and thrillingly outlaw, with an anti-establishment, anti-everything approach to life that was like nothing I'd ever experienced.

It was in 9th grade that I went to a party where people were shooting up. It shocked me. I watched a man sitting on the floor of the bathroom, blood everywhere, desperate to find a vein. He was trying to hit in his feet, his ankles, hands, arms, and it went on for hours. It sickened me and I just wanted to get out of that place, away form those people, back to my clean, wholesome life.

A few weeks later I was back. I'd watch the folks sitting around the table, 10-12, maybe more, using the same needle, shooting speed mostly. I got the nickname of "little doctor" because I could get veins for people when they couldn't, could find injectable sites where it seemed none existed.

We went on road trips in search of crystal meth. When the drug was plentiful, the party was on and spirits were high. When it ran out, of course, there was nothing but despair and a craving to find more of the only reason for living. White crosses would do, in sufficient quantity, but crystal was the magic. The manufacture of crystal was different then. There weren't meth cooks on every corner, stirring up a pot of speed with a box of Sudafed and some lye. There were three that I knew of in Oklahoma, another in Wichita. They were all flat out insane, extremely well armed, living in homes fortified with weapons of all kinds.

I did things I would never in my right mind have done, ever. In my right mind, even contemplating living the way I did for those years is repulsive and sickens me. I look back on those wasted years from 9th to 12th grades, the people I looked up to ~ always the biggest dopers, dealers, thieves ~ and I wonder how I could have gone so entirely off the rails.

By 12th grade, my dependency on drugs was frightening. Given a choice between my big three addictions, a bottle of vodka, a Krispy Kreme and a gram of meth, I'll take the meth every time. Crystal is a wonder drug and it is deadly and that doesn't diminish its appeal once you've done it for any length of time. I am grateful I survived it, those insane years, and still I crave that feeling of invincibility, of euphoria, intensity. The reality of it led to violence and debauch, but that first rush is as seductive as anything I've ever experienced.

I gave up the dope when I moved to Houston. That was part of the reason for the move, to get away from my people, from the dealers, from the old used up junkies who gave me drugs because they thought I was sweet. I took up drinking every day, thinking nothing of it. My problem was with dope, not alcohol. I drank a lot before Houston, but speed was my thing and alcohol seemed like nothing.

As I've written before, it kicked my ass, completely, absolutely, 100%, this lesser drug of alcohol. I can count on one hand the number of times I did dope after the age of 18. Daily drinking will do that for you, break a drug habit in just a few weeks.

When I hit the doors of AA for the first time in 1980, I was disgusted. I didn't want to be a part of those old guys in those rooms. I was pissed off, way too young to be a drunk, and there wasn't anyone else my age in the meetings I went to. I wanted to go to NA where the addicts were. Figured I could, based on my history. But the deputies were sitting in the parking lots of the churches where NA met. While that again raised the outlaw appeal of the addict, I was still drinking and couldn't afford an encounter with law enforcement.

I figure that Power I connected with after years in the fellowship had me under surveillance even then, guiding and directing my life at that point. I stuck with AA until AA started to change me. The old men who took care of me those first few years ~ showing me the truth of my alcoholism, showing me, too, the transformative power of the love one drunk has for another ~ they carried me through. It was in AA I reclaimed the decency I was brought up with, was able to clear away the significant wreckage of my past, to make amends to those I'd harmed. Those 12 steps changed me from the inside out, permanently.

I will always be grateful I ended up where I did. I'm grateful, too, to have had the experiences I've had. I am still attracted to the outlaws, to the seamier side of life. With 24 years of sobriety, with a wonderful life, a healthy, happy outlook, I don't live there anymore. I have no desire to, not really, and so much of it disgusts me. Still, the words of Savoy Brown will come to mind periodically and haunt me a few days at a time, no matter how wholesome and healthy my life becomes. I cannot explain the appeal, but it's there.

Some of ‘em wise men, some of ‘em fools
But I need a little something to keep my cool
I sleep with the sun and I rise with the moon
And I feel alright with my needle and spoon
I feel alright with my needle and spoon

It's like phantom limb syndrome, only with doper's life, gone forever but still there, hiding out, sending out the occasional frisson of desire.