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Believe me folks. I am avidly for the legalization of all drugs (cannabis, coca leaf/cocaine, crack cocaine/freebase, MDMA/ecstacy, ketamine, opiates like heroin, opium, fentanyl etc., alcohol, methamphetamine, mda, peyote/mescaline, ayahuasca/yage, LSD, Psilocybin and amanita muscaria "fly argaic/flying archaic mushrooms etc.). But I would like to share with you a first hand experience of why to never use anything as a crutch. Not food, not sex, not television, and definetly NOT crack and heroin! This of course opens me up to a world of flames and "ha ha you loser"s. But if this can stop one future junkie from pulling a blueie (an overdose) , or draining an infected abcess with a rusty razor blade, or contracting H.I.V. Or Hep C, then it's totally worth it. But I warn you. Nothing turned me away from that black mexican death tar. No logic, no losses, and especially not that wiggity wiggity whack movie Requiem for a Dream (I've seen some shit, but losing an arm?....Getting the unibrow knocked off you in a yuppy gangbang? Please. That would be the easy way out..... Part ONE - Down the rabbit butthole: I was about fourteen when I discovered vicodin. I would raid my parent's medicine cabinet, and do the same to my friend's parents, and people I was housesitting or babysitting for. I would sit each night watching Space Ghost, melting away into a warm jelly as the vicodin kicked in. After a week I realiZed that two or three weren't melting me that much anymore. So it was up to five. By age 17 I had been on and off pain pills for a few years, but my tolerance remained high. I had a period of sobriety and was finally diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder I. Soon I was back on the pills, but now I was drinking straight Cutty Sark scotch whisky and Newcastles with anywhere from eight to twenty something pills a day. My dad had been stricken with severe oral cancer from smoking and drinking like a true Celtic/Canuck his whole life. He began getting massive amounts of "norcos" (double strength, 10mg vicodin with less tylenol). It was the final kick in the ass I needed to become a full fledged druggy. Not only was my mental illness destroying each facet of my life, my meds were very hard to deal with (depakote, zoloft, seroquel, and triazolam/fluorazapam). Vicodin (hydrocodone) and alcohol just seemed to work better. The along came cocaine binges. I was never hooked, but would spend the weekends downing an ounce of columbian with a few "close friends". To make this a bit shorter A DEA raid, and my dad's medical bills forced us to sell our home in the suburbs and move. My dad and mom moved to the San Bernardino mountains, while my love and I moved to my hometown - Hollweird! Part 2 - The Madhatter's Tea Party: So living in L.A., making the trip to the mountains each week to get pills worked out fine for a while, until my dad died. So I started buying overpriced Oxycontin and Morphine sulphate tablets to maintain my addiction. But alas, the cost was just far too great. So I found a connection for mexican black tar and gunpowder heroin. They were neatly packaged into colorful balloons. They were five bucks a balloon (about 2 shots for a new user), and they were much stronger than vicodin. For a few months I smoked the stuff off of tinfoil (chasing the dragon). But quickly realiZed that hypodermic needles were very easy (and free) to obtain, and at first saved me money because the high was stronger. At first it was in my bicep, my abdomen, and my thigh/ass (skinpopping or muscle shots). Soon it was in the vein (mainlining). What a fucking rush. Part 3 - Why you are a pig! (A.k.a. The doormouse): Within months crack cocaine and tranquilizers (xanax, klonopin, valium) were added onto my list of addictions. I was six foot six, 168 pounds, and white as a sheet. My body was covered in track marks. I was too embarassed to see any of my non junky friends. "Why would I put myself through this?" you may ask. Well why I got involved was out of youthful nihilism and daily suicidal tendencies. I even overdosed twice and had to be revived by whatever junkies I was with. But let me explain actual "dope sickness" to y'all. Many compare it to a bad flu. Ha! More like the fucking ebola virus and the flu rolled into one. First you get anxious and begin to mentally and physically crave a fix. Then your eyes and nose start running and don't stop. You vomit and get diaharrea for hours. You go between hot and cold every 5 seconds. You sweat perfusely. Then the depression kicks in. Your muscles are weak, you're exhausted yet feel like you can't get comfortable. Your legs start twitching and all you can do is watch the clocl and kick your legs frantically ("kicking"). And even if it was just a "bad flu", if there was a miracle cure for the flu - hell knows you'd go buy it. With dope sickness, there is however a miracle cure.....more junk. Part 4 - Off with your head! I was basically dead. People in public would ask me if I was okay. I wasn't. I had tried kicking both on methadone and cold turkey more times that I can count. But I was in love. The longtime love of my life was waiting patiently. I was cheating with my new love, Heroina. Now there was a lot of bullshit in between that would take a series of books to explain (Stealing, getting jacked, getting arrested, putting my loved ones into danger, overdoses etc.). But I won't do that. Part 5 - One will make you bigger......: So it was around October in my 10 x 10 ft "apartment" in Hellyweird when we began to crumble financially. My dope habit, and my cigarette habit were destroying us. The dope had destroyed my sex drive, I was always depressed and was emotionally unavailable to my love, and I was doing less and less heroin (due to financial reasons), spending half the time sick as fuck. By this time I was slamming 8 to 12 balloons on a good day, two, maybe three on a normal one. And then it happened... GOD KICKED ME IN THE BALLS! No seriously. He did. My balls started getting a strained, or heavy feeling in them. I finally went to the emergency room. After doing some research testicular torsion seemed like the most likely candidate....basically the cords to my testicle were twisted around. But they didn't find shit. So after about six more trips to ER's, doctors, and disgusting free clinics I was diagnosed with epeditmus (spelling?). Basically an infection of a gland behind your balls that holds semen/sperm. I had a 5.5 mm cyst. By this time I was in so much pain, and starting to fear testicular cancer, and/or prostate troubles. I was so scared that I had 4 seperate testicle examinations, and a fucking prostate exam. Fun. My finances and my fear of dying young saved my life. I got back on methadone maintenence (MMT), and started my life again. I felt great. I now associated it with being poor, dirty, ill, and malnourished instead of with escaping, and being in a temporary world of ecstacy. But it sounds like a movie. It worked out too well. How did I just stop after nine years of opiate addiction and abuse? It was truly a miracle. For some reason god decided to erase my addiction. Now I ask why me? Now I look back, sadly, at all the terrible things that went on, all the people and friends and family I lost. It sounds redundant, but don't ever try heroin. No oxycontin, morphine, methadone, fentanyl, vicodin/lorcette/lortab/hydrocodone, no tylenol 3's or 4's or codeine cough syrup, no darvon/darvocet/propoxyphene, no dilaudid.....nothing! It is the only drug that I know for a fact, you can't do it just once, and you can't just do it casually. You may have a terrible first experience (many do, feeling disoriented, drowsy, and vomitting) and just do a little bit, and you go years without using it, you will try it again. Then it will become once in a while. Then you start making excuses why you "need" it (Ow my achine back!). Then that fateful day will come when you wake up sweating and shaking, puking and kicking your legs. Your heart will pound, you will get constant hot cold flashes and diaharrea. You will be dopesick. Then you need to get it to get well. And the cycle continues. I now have a disease, track marks covering my arms, hands, and wrists, and a whole lot of my youth destroyed. I lost five teeth, I lost my old friends. There is no glamour to heroin. It's not like the movies or t.v. Junkies are not skinny sexy pale shaggy boys. We are yellow toothed, translucent, greasy haired, sneaky sons of bitches with deadly diseases and infected abcesses dripping thick green puss down your arm. But if you know someone who is hooked. Please just keep loving them. Encourage them, be there for them, but don't preach. Don't enable them. Always prey and have faith that they will pull through, but junkies often must try and get sober many times. There is no substance like it. Once you're hooked, quitting is like being forced to live life without oxygen, or eyes, or ears, and losing your best friend at the same time. Even after the weeks of sickness, depression, anxiety, guilt, and the hardest; an overwhelming sense of boredom and not ever being comfortable. No sleep. No appetite. No sex drive. No emotions. This is the time many junkies go back to using. Imagine living in hell for up to a year, knowing that heaven was just a shot or a snort or a hit away. Overall, don't do drugs mmm'kay. And understand and sympathize with the seemingly cruel, insane, and self destructive lifestyle they live each day. But don't give them money, and hide your valuables and prescription drugs if they come over to your home. And to all you lost souls out there, get on a methadone or suboxone program, detox yourself, get a hobby!, start eating very healthy and take plenty of herbs and vitamins. If need be, get on psych meds like Zoloft or halcion. You can and will be saved. But for chrissake, DON'T EVER SHARE OR RE-USE NEEDLES!!!! It only takes one time, and most don't get tested ever. I love you guys. Love, TimothyXMcVeigh (A) P.S. Read Junk(y) by William S Burroughs. It is part of what saved my life. Post a comment in response: |
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