Disintegration; abridged - Introduction

I am thirty-four years old and I am addicted to methamphetamines. I say that I am in present tense because it is a designation that cannot exist otherwise. It has been 10 days since I last watched the little red flag shoot up the neck of a BD 1cc insulin syringe, but it could have been 10 years ago and I'd still be an addict. I've seen the most horrific face of God and that image is forever burnt into my eyes.  

My life has been this way for sixteen years. I had only recently graduated high school the first time I tried crank, the name I first came to know it as. I'll never forget the intense burning sensation as the chemicals scorched through my sinuses. The pain was so intense it's amazing I would ever want to experience it again. But it was only moments after that excruciating first taste that I became an addict.

At that point I had done every drug I could get my hands on. Marijuana, cocaine, lsd, ecstasy, heroin, mescaline, if it was there I did it. I wasn't as much experimenting as I was searching. It was a constant quest to remove myself from reality, to detach, to dissociate. As felt the toxic drip in the back of my throat, my pupils dilated, my heart rate and blood pressure soared, and my search was over. I'd found my dope.

The first downward spiral was far more gradual. It started with the occasional tweakend. A casual event which started on Friday night, I'd be high through Saturday and then Sunday was reserved for the comedown. I worked retail so it didn't always correspond to the weekend, but it was always three days.

Back then it was the smokers who were hardcore. They were the ones high all the time, with garages filled with projects little more than started and who's yards looked like junk yards. At first I would tell myself, “as long as you're not sucking the devils dick, you're still in control.”

I don't remember exactly how I rationalized it the first time I melted shards in a glass bubble pipe. I'm sure it had something to do with my sinuses having turned to Swiss cheese. I've never been one to use in moderation and it wasn't unheard of for me to do rails ten times what the size of the bumps others were doing. There was a lot i wanted to forget.

“It’s not like smoking pot or heroin. You don't want to hold it in or it can crystallize your lungs.” Calling it smoke is a bit if a misnomer. In actuality you're just heating the drug into a gaseous state, the last thing you want to do is burn it. Scorching the bowl is one of the greatest faux pas’ among smokers. It breaks down the dope and leaves it tasting terrible. This is why the bubble is essential. You can easily twist the glass as you heat it so it doesn't cook just one spot, but instead rolls and produces the thickest white clouds.

It was only a matter of time till my detachment became unmanageable. During the month of March 2003 I slept three times. I hid from my family so they wouldn't know what was happening. This was made easier by both my siblings living 100 miles away and being if an age it's natural to distance myself from my father. But my friends saw everything.

My roommates saw that I never slept. I was up at all hours doing the strangest things. At one point I had taken my vast collection of losing scratch tickets and started taping them together into a massive mosaic I kept hidden under my mattress at first. I walked constantly, the destination was always irrelevant. I lost over 100 pounds in under a year.  

It was midway through that March I first came across one of my strangest qualities. My body has the ability to change my mental process when it is terminally threatened by my actions.  For months everyone has been warning me that I had gone too far. The line in the sand was miles behind me and my mind had no intention of stopping. Then suddenly: slow down, falling rocks, children at play, avalanche hazard, every warning sign you could imagine went off in my head constantly.

The strangle hold the drug had on my mind was not so easily broken. It concocted a plot that was seemingly impossible and would only release it's grip should everything happen exactly as it described. If any one piece was not in place it could be used as a reason to continue on and that's exactly what it was hoping would happen.

On the surface it all seemed very simple. I needed my four closest friends to come with me to celebrate my birthday at a cabin on the coast. The difficulty came in convincing them to do so, since over the course of the previous months three of them had all but written me off entirely. The last of the four was sure to be there, but only because had been there right beside me as we tempted the gods and begged to see how ugly Yahweh could become.

I asked all of them to come and just as I had expected the three of them all told me no. Each offered a different explanation for their refusal but the one commonality was they didn't believe that I would stop. I started using more frequently and in larger amounts. If they didn't care whether I lived or died tha. I didn't care. But they did care.

I was on my way to my dealers house when I heard things had changed. I have to believe that unbeknownst to me there had been a meeting in secret, a conclave of sorts to determine my fate. I'll never with certainty what was said during that soiree, I imagine there were some very strong words that are best left a mystery to me. All that mattered was the final verdict and using cellular technology, instead of white smoke from the Sistine Chapel, they signaled a decision had been made - they were all coming.

I sat in the car, holding a bag of the cleanest glass of laid eyes on, imagining a much different kind of white smoke. This couldn’t be happening. I had designed the perfect plan. I could keep on going as I had been and I wouldn’t be the one to blame. My mind was reeling at the possibility this would be the last bag of dope I’d ever have. It was seekingj desperately for some loop hole that had been built in for such a scenario. Fortunately it wasn’t to be found and no matter the power of the addiction it paled in comparison to my determination to keep my promise to those who meant the most to me. I can be unbelievably stubborn about the most random things.

I had till 11:59pm Friday April 4, 2003 to come to terms with a reality that didn’t include meth. But more importantly at the time, I had less than 30 hours to smoke an eight ball. It was around 9:00 pm that I had accomplished that task. I walked the half mile to the ocean while they all decided to stay back at the cabin except my accomplice. Everything was exactly as I had envisioned it, what I was wearing, the soundtrack playing in my headphones, even the weather cooperated. I stood motionless staring out at the thundering white wake crashing and moving closer with each break until the music hit just the right point, “Who wants to rise above their chemistry? Tonight?” With that i cast my pipe into the frothing mouth of Shiva himself.

I was done with it.

I cost me everything. During an unfortunate encounter during my detox I quit  my job in a bout of irrational frustration. I spent the next four months unemployed. That’s only one of two times in my life I’ve ever been unemployed. And while it gave me back three of my best friends, it cost me the person I least expected.

The Tuesday following our trip to the coast i went to meet up with my friend. As soon as he closed the door to his bedroom I could believe my eyes as he pulled a pipe from the drawer and offered me a hit. We had agreed that it was the end. I told him I couldn’t do it without him and he agreed. I was enraged, hurt, devastated, but i was still determined.

I told him to hold on for one second. I ran upstairs to the kitchen, took a ½ gallon of tequila from the liquor stash and went back down to his bedroom. “Every time you hit that thing I’m taking a shot.” It wouldn’t be for another 13 years that I realize it but I’d found my loophole. By the time I left I’d polished off the better part of that bottle.

So I drank. I drank some more. I drank for thirteen years. I kept my inclination for excess and drank however much it took to forget. I wasn’t drinking to forget about any of my problems except one; I was a meth addict.

It was over ten years before I put my lips to the clear glass again. I don’t remember exactly how it happened because I was drunk at the time. I was in the process of accepting my sexuality and in searching for a late night hook iup I came across an personal ad for PNP, party and play. Two words that most would see as harmless became the two most destructive word in the english language.

Within the gay community meth runs rampant, T as it’s commonly referred. It’s funny how things can mutate over time. Meth became Crystal Meth simply due to its appearance. It was truncated to Crystal, which was far to obvious if you’re trying to be inconspicuous so shifted to Christina. Brevity then shortened it to Tina and even further to simply T, always capitalized.

Dope has a way of increasing the sex drive to unheard of heights. Not only does it make you hornier than you’ve ever been, it also prolongs this intensified feeling by delaying orgasm. The catch is that it also makes it incredibly difficult, and downright impossible at times, to get and maintain an erection. At first this was easily avoided given the decades of pent up sexual tension.

At any hour, on any day there was parTy going on. And given my predisposition to stay on top of things, I was always welcome to join in. My recent weight loss had also revealed that I had been gifted in ways I had not yet realized before and to say I was popular would be an understatement. It didn’t take long to realize that I didn’t even have to spend money to get high. There was never an explicit deal brokered of drugs for sex it was simply implied. I do the hard part and you supply the favs.

For two years this went on and I thought I was in control. I was back on the random tweakend schedule. Once a month or so I’d go out and have my fun. No one knew what was happening because all I had to say was “I was with a guy” and they took it at that and changed the subject. This arrangement became even more tragic when I started to meet more dealers.

I should mention at this point there were external factors that contributed greatly to my usage. Coming out at 30 reverted my mindset in many ways to that of a 20 year old which isolated me from my previous social circles. That was compounded with regular rejection from the gay community/ “What are you doing here, you’re not gay.” was a common thing I’d hear going out. Then when you add in poor choices in roommates and an ever increasing sense of isolation it became a perfect scenario for the drug to take hold once again.

I was the customer that everyone wanted and I rarely spent a dime. They all knew that as long as I kept smoking at some point the drug would take my pants off and they wanted to be there when it happened. So they invited me over regularly and told me to stay as long as I’d like. So I did.

I devolved to a point in three months that took two and half years previously, only worse. I wasn’t just smoking for fun, I was smoking to go to work, at work, when I got off work. I spent more time smoking than I did anything else. I forgot about my family, my friends, my dog. I dissociated completely.

In August of 2016 my defense mechanism kicked in once again. All the same signs flooded my thought processes. I’d been forced to move out of my apartment. My dog and I were living out of my car. I had to ask a friend of mine to take me in, one of the three from the ocean. His agreement was reluctant to say the least but hinged entirely upon my being clean. So I braced myself for sobriety in the worst way possible.

If it was going to be my last my last weekend with my drug of choice I wanted to experience all it had to offer. And so I slammed for the first time. It was a feeling unlike anyhting I could ever explain in words. I felt nothing. I felt invincible. I felt perfect, Even now, just thinking about it makes me want to jam a needle in my arm, so I’m not going to go into further detail at this point.

I was clean for about eight weeks. 10 days of that were spent at Harborview Medical Center after I had been diagnosed with an abscess that turned into MRSA. I had only been an IVDU for less than a week and I was already in the hospital for it. It was inevitable as the first time someone else had been the one to hit me. He refused to do it again and I was determined to figure it out myself. I’m lucky I didn’t hurt myself worse.

In the middle of October after being further alienated in my living situation  justified to myself that I could do it again. It’s only a Saturday night, it’ll be okay. This time there wasn’t any down time and within a month I was slamming through nearly $200 a day. It had gotten to a point where even the seasoned addicts were telling me that I had to slow down. The warning signs came again but they were different this time: detour, road closed ahead, exit only, they were all telling me to leave.

On November 15th I realized that I had to leave Seattle or I was going to die there. I didn’t even know where I was going when i started the process of selling everything I own, rehoming my dog and tying up any loose ends I might have. I wanted to leave in such a way there was nothing for me to come back to. I was setting fire to everything I’d built up in the last 34 years.

It was around Thanksgiving, I don’t remember the exact day, that I finally decided on my destination, Honolulu, HI. I’d only been to Hawaii once before and I swore on my life that I would never return. Fate has a funny way of making a point in disproving absolutes. I was leaving Seattle with the intention of getting clean without ruining every relationship I had, so I saw it more of a punishment. What better place to play out my exile than the one I hated more than any other.

On December 9th I boarded a one way flight to Honolulu carrying two duffel bags. I’d had two cases of belongings shipped freight and four boxes of books and personal effects in my brothers storage unit, everything else was gone. I was terrified but i was also optimistic. It wasn’t quite done with me yet though.

My flight was delayed and I got stuck at SFO for the night. I used it as the perfect excuse to look up my favorite three letters, PNP. I ran through five different scene in the 20 hours I was there. I didn’t have a place to stay so as soon as one party died I just moved along to another. By the time I was back on a plane it’s no wonder that i experienced a massive panic attack as soon as the wheel lifted off the North American plate.

A very good friend of mine had agreed to take me in, as long as I stayed clean. I tried to be sober, or at least I told myself I was trying. In reality I started using the same night I landed. I was only at the new digs for all of two hours before i ventured out in search of dope, under the guise of exploring the new city. It took me 15 minutes.

It would have been the same any city I picked. It could have been Pierre, South Dakota and I would have found it, it might have taken me an hour there. Tina and I are inequitably bound. When I decide I want her, she calls out to me as Sauron to the one ring.

It was barely a month before I got kicked out, but not before the defenses reverted back to the earlier messages. This time the requirements would be far more strenuous, and relied purely on my own actions.

I decided that I needed to go to treatment. But I didn’t want just any treatment. I needed to find the cause of all of this. I had to go back and resolve whatever it was that I first wanted to forget.

During my panic to leave Seattle I detailed out everything I could about why it happened. I tried to remember every little detail about what had happened recently and how it corresponded with the events that were taking place. I talked to everyone I know looking for any insight as to why. I came up with a fairly detailed list of unresolved issues and psychological defects. These were what I had to address.

My cohort from my first experience had since found sobriety himself, but it wasn’t an easy battle for him. Since doing so he’s shifted career focus and has been getting everything in line to be a drug counselor. He had been looking at a variety of programs for me to consider.

I also had a random would-be hookup turned encounter with fate, in which I started talking with a psychotherapist who practiced on Oahu. When I expressed to him my desire to “stop treating the symptoms and start treating the cause” he suggested a place called Po’ailani, Inc. They were just over on the windward of the island and took a dual diagnosis approach to recovery. This means they address any mental conditions that led to the addiction or are a result of the addiction.

I convinced myself that it was the reason I was brought here to Oahu and that was the only place that I would receive treatment. But getting in wasn’t going to be easy. Before I could even be considered I had to get insurance and have a series of medical and psychological evaluations done. All the while I was still doing everything necessary to stay high.

I spent the next two months bouncing between short term vacation rentals and hotel rooms, all financed by my retirement fund. I was often spending so much time securing the next place to stay and the next bag of dope that getting the prerequisites accomplished went fully ignored. I received a much needed helping hand after sending a cry for help I don’t even remember writing.

I reached out to the Chow Project, a harm reduction organization located in Honolulu, through email. I told them my situation and asked for any assistance they could offer. They responded immediately and in short order helped me over the biggest hurdle I was facing, getting insured.

After that things slowly began to fall into place, while I was falling deeper down the spiral. It was an incredibly slow process. Each time I thought I’m made some headway there was something else that had to be done. I was nearly ready to give up by the time I’d done everything that was required of me and I still couldn’t get the records released to Po’ailani.

Then on Wednesday March 8th everything changed. In preparation for the completion of my application and a life of sobriety I had decided to start taking days off here and there. This was the first of such days. I woke up and didn’t feel quite right, which is to be expected. I had been shooting insanely dangerous amounts of dope for two months now, it’s amazing I could even wake up at all.

Around 10 am that morning was the first time it happened. I stood up to get some food and I fainted. It wasn’t a gentle fall either. I bruised my tailbone and was left with a sizeable knot on my head. It happened again around noon and again around 1:30 pm. Every time I tried to stand I ended up fainting. By the time the afternoon came around I had convinced myself it was a withdrawal symptom, though I didn’t really believe it, I just wanted to get high.

In all my years of using I had never once experienced a physical withdrawal symptom. I also believed that the addiction was purely mental. I saw my doctor the next day and she confirmed my lie was in fact the truth. My body had become reliant on the artificial elevation in blood pressure in order to maintain proper function and when I stood up it didn’t have enough blood to provide my brain what it needed. I was physically addicted.

I don’t know why this impacted me in the way that it did but I had to be done. I no longer had the luxury of getting into a program first. I had to quit and I had to figure out how to do it now.

It was in a discuss about medical detox options with a good friend of mine, who also happened to be my dealer and the first person I met when I got to Oahu. He had known that it was my intention to get clean and that I had applied to a treatment program. I was asking him what to expect if I went into a detox before hand to which he replied, “What are you waiting for? If you’re really ready to stop running why not go now? Not next week. Not tomorrow. Right now.”

It changed how I looked at everything in my situation. He was right. I had to quit saying that I was ready to quit running and actually do it. Later that morning I took my last shot and then left for the Salvation Army Addiction Treatment Services for detox.

I didn’t make it the full week long program but not because my resolve broke, my body did. I’m not sure if the drug has a way of healing my body as long as I am using or if it’s just happenstance that I always end up in the hospital when I decide to quit but such was the case again. I was admitted to the Queen’s Medical Center with an unknown infection in an injection site. I spent the remaining four days of my detox under constant medical surveillance. I had made it a week.

I’ve been out of the hospital for three days now.

I had an assessment interview with Po’ailani in the cab leaving the hospital. It took over two months but I’ve finally been accepting into the program. There is a wait list to get in that usually ranges anywhere from 30-90 days and she made it very clear that it definitely wouldn’t happen until April at the very earliest. I didn’t care, I was accepted and that gives me reason to keep trying.

I don’t have a place to live as I slash and burned an already tumultuous relationship with the neighbors upon my departure. I spent my first night in bed with one of my old dealers. He was aware of my desire to stay clean and didn’t press the issue even once. The next night I walked to distract myself from the fact that I had no place to go until I couldn’t walk any further. I slept on a bench for a few hours and then moved to a grassy spot in a park for a few more. After stopping by my old place just to grab a bite to eat I accidentally fell asleep there for eighteen hours. My roommate didn’t have the heart to wake me.

I’m currently sitting in a picnic shelter along Waikiki beach, the ocean not even 30 feet away. Tomorrow I have a meeting with my case  manager and hopefully she has a solution that offers me some stability in housing. I”m not sure where I’ll end up tonight, but I am sure that I’m going to be okay.