2008:
Today I woke up! Let me repeat that. Today I woke up! There’s something particularly special about that when you have reason to believe that you may not have too many days left. Well actually, nobody knows when their time is up, but we waste so many days, weeks, months, and years of our lives taking for granted that we always have tomorrow. When I look back over the years that I took for granted, I have mixed feelings. I don’t have too many regrets, for it took everything I ever went through to make me who I am today. I love myself very much, but I wonder if there were things that I should have or could have done…
I’m Guy and I am an addict. Although I am currently not using, my entire being is that of being an addict. I am addicted to anything and everything that will give me relief when I don’t want to face the realities that life brings. My drug of choice is crack cocaine. It didn’t start there, but I guess as my 35-year addiction progressed, I wanted to ingest something that had more of a chance of literally taking me out of my misery. I didn’t always know or believe that I was an addict, for surely I would have “nipped it in the bud!” Yea, right! I just thought that as long as I was high and having fun, and as long as I thought my responsibilities were at least almost taken care of, everything was all right. After many years of living on fast forward, I started to realize that it wasn’t fun anymore.
Using actually started to become more of a chore. I noticed that more and more often I had neglected my true responsibilities. I foolishly and arrogantly took responsibility for everything that wasn’t right in life, and, as a result, my addiction went from an escape from reality, to a full fledged, self-destruct mission. No longer was getting high just a social, hanging out and fun thing to do, but rather, it became a dark, leave-me-alone, “cross my heart and hope to die” literal affair. The sad part about it is that this suicidal drive went on for many years longer than the fun part.
1972:
I was about 15 years old when I first started to use. I thought it was so cool that if I smoked a joint on the way to school and again at lunch, the whole day was over without any bull*@%^. But at the end of the day I thought, “oh oh, gotta go home now, so I better smoke another one.” So what? It’s only weed and everybody’s doing it. At least that’s what I told myself. Needless to say, my grades suffered and living in a home with sibling “scholars” ahead of me, I really ticked off my parents. This weed had me so smart that I got a great idea; I’d join the Marines and be a man! I’d show them all! Unfortunately, as anyone in their right mind should have known, the Marine Corps in the mid-70’s was no place for a black, 17-year old kid.
I went in all gung ho and “model Marine,” only to be met with “nigga please!” I was shocked and quite broken as it was my first real meeting with racism in its rawest form…A further slap in the face was the fact that I was treated with preference over darker skinned brothers…Here I was in a whole new world with a bad attitude and my self esteem was dropping fast. Finally, I reached a familiar point called “f@#k it.” My addiction stood up like a pair of antennas. Not only was there weed, but all kinds of stuff to keep you going the next day: speed, acid, crystal meth. You name it; I’d take it…
Through the grace of God, I was assigned to special services in charge of entertainment at the enlisted club, which raised my esteem level considerably. I had women. I was a pretty good guitar player, so I put a band together and kept busy and had fun. I stayed out of trouble for the rest of my stay and miraculously, I got an honorable discharge and my G.E.D. You see my problem was that I dodged bullets so well that I never thought anything was wrong….Anyone who knows will tell you, a giant ego mixed with addiction is a pretty mean combination. In other words, “you couldn’t tell me s*@t.”
1977:
I’m back home and I’m a “grown a#% man.” I really thought things would change now. I got a job right away, bought me a nice ride, and put me a band together. Everything was going all right. I couldn’t go a day without smoking some weed, but I would call you crazy if you dared suggest that I was an addict. I was on my way to becoming what they call a functional addict. I kept a job, I kept my appearance up, and I was on top of the world. But the reality was, I was wrapped up into partying and drinking and smoking and everything that went with it. I blew a lot of opportunities then; life started catching up to me. My girlfriend got pregnant, so I thought I had to marry her. But we won’t get into that, because for the most part, she tried her best.
Wow, look at me: wife, kids, mortgage, a regular, “Mr. Suburban.”…We had a nice house in the suburbs with a big yard and fairly new cars. When I thought that I should have received my wife’s appreciation and recognition, she repeatedly told me that my drinking and drugging was holding me back. My ego said that she saw something in me that I had forgotten was there, so I quit drinking and drugging and went back to school and did very well. That showed everybody - for about a year. At this point, I didn’t know what it was, but without drugs and alcohol, I started having real feelings. In fact, I started carrying them around on my shoulder.
Soon I felt resentment for being married with children and blamed this for being the reason that I wasn’t some kind of a rock star. But the reality was that if I was in the music industry as an addict, I probably would have killed myself from the partying. I also felt like part of my life was taken away along with my motivation while I was in the Marines. I was such a crybaby, but I kept it all in until some unlucky one pushed the last button and got s^$t on by my outrageous outbursts. I was lucky to still have people around. It seemed that if this was what having feelings was all about, I didn’t need it.
…This went on for a few years and I went back on cruise control. It got boring and what do you know…we black folks got all this cocaine to sell…
Cocaine was the last thing that an egotistical drug dealer should ever put up his nose. I was “king of the hill.” Although I still didn’t think I was an addict, I was clearly becoming an a&%#*^@. My mood swings were worse than ever, never losing an argument, yelling and cussing, all out of character. No longer was I the laid back, weed smoking Guy that everybody loved to be around. No, if you wanted to be around me, I thought you wanted some of my cocaine for free. I alienated everyone, my wife, my kids, my friends. But so what, I had plenty of cocaine and plenty of money, and I could buy all of the friends I needed…
And if cocaine wasn’t hectic enough in its regular form, in came the crack craze. This changed the whole game. I watched people who used to buy powder from me once a week go to spending their whole checks and begging for credit…I made a lot of money pretty quickly, and I swore I would never, ever do anything that would make me act like that…
I was shocked that more and more of my peers were smoking primos, which is crack rolled up in weed. The code was, “just don’t hit the pipe!” Well, wouldn’t you know it, my internal dope fiend just couldn’t resist…I wasn’t really enjoying snorting anymore, so I rolled myself a big fat primo and it was on! This was perfect. I justified that I’m not a dope fiend because I’m not on the pipe. But as we know, smoking dope is smoking dope, and this was the most progressive and addictive thing to ever hit the streets.
…I was finding myself more and more frequently hanging out and smoking and smoking, and not feeling anything at all. Like I said, I dodged bullets so well that I almost forgot that this was actually illegal. But it was!...
Before I knew it, I was a full fledged smoker. Me and that crack pipe went together like peas and carrots!...Still, I was a functional addict. So, I went to work full time, because this was still kind of fun and I had to have a way to provide for it. I had it down to a science. I would buy enough and sell just enough to pay for it, and the rest was mine, all mine!
This went on for several years. It was as if I was once again on cruise control. I did nothing but eat, sleep, work and get high, and I felt nothing. Life was great until I realized that my using had outgrown my resources and suddenly I was what I said I would never be: a dope fiend…Well, I guess it didn’t take a genius to figure out my marriage wouldn’t last, although she hung in there a long time.
It was about this time that I realized that it wasn’t fun anymore. I didn’t want to do it anymore, but I wasn’t about to stop. Not by a long shot. But I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t just stop. I knew it was ruining me, and there was something weird abut needing something that you don’t like anymore…
I went to [Twelve Step] meetings because I didn’t like what I was becoming…but all I saw was the negative, the hypocrisy, the lies and deceptions, and all of the things that we addicts had become. Not that they didn’t really exist, but the fact was I didn’t look for the good and helpful things that were there. I wanted to see the worst in these people to make me feel better about myself. But the fact was that some of them were consistently clean and sober. I didn’t want to believe it, because I couldn’t do it.
1996:
I finally did acknowledge the fact that I couldn’t go on like this, so I went to the V.A. in-house, extended program…I needed somewhere to stay for awhile to get my bearings and where drugs weren’t available.
Being there was all I needed to get a break from the madness and to get me a new start. I left and…got me another good job, fixed up my ride, and put myself back together. I was always a handsome, intelligent young man, a pleasure to be around, I was told, as long as I wasn’t using.
I never had a problem attracting women, but I had lost so many years that I couldn’t relate to women my age. Heck, they wanted me to act all mature and responsible and serious and all of that “settle down and be happy” crap…So I thought I could pick up my youth right where I left it…and met a nice lady 15 years younger than me. I was feeling pretty good about myself, so I kept clean – for awhile. I was “cured,” and once again, ladies and gentlemen, “you couldn’t tell me s^*t!”
It was like someone pushed instant replay, because she got pregnant…and here came “Mr. Responsible” who went and got married again. Don’t get me wrong. I did love her and the kids…, but I knew I couldn’t handle that s#^t again, at least not without a crutch. So, I deceived myself and took a shortcut instead of trying to find out how to heal myself from the inside out. Here I was once again with a wife, kids, new responsibilities, and those… feelings that I couldn’t deal with or express. I tried, but eventually I did what I always did when I didn’t know what else to do. I started back using. It was pretty subtle at first, and I thought I could hide it...
I got to give it to her; she was resilient. I know I was hell to deal with and she put up with a lot. She didn’t realize it, but she was enabling me to continue my sick quest. My logic was so twisted that I thought as long as I kept a job and paid the bills, she should be happy I was there. That was the tricky part. I wasn’t there! This went on and on…for years until finally I pushed her away. Who woulda thunk it! Once again I had managed to alienate my loved ones, so I had to punish myself some more. I was always popular around the dope house, so I foolishly used them as my substitute family…
Finally, I looked up and saw a grey headed old guy whose daily dress code was a work uniform, who no longer cared if the car was clean. The only thing that mattered was making it to work and making it back to the dope houses. There were several. It just depended upon who I felt like being around or where I had a line of credit. I got paid every week, so I could get anything I wanted most of the time. I could get 50 dollars worth, break it into 80 dollars and sell 50, and then smoke the rest. This would go on all night long, and most of the time I would still leave in the morning owing 50 bucks. I no longer had anybody to report to or explain anything to, but I was getting tired. I just knew I couldn’t go back to [Twelve Step] meetings or church or anyplace where they wanted to talk about my feelings, so I did the best thing for me.
I went trucking over the road…Finally, I’ve got all of this time alone in the truck and I really started to have really good conversations with myself. I was getting to know a pretty interesting guy. I reflected on my past and my mistakes and shortcomings, which wasn’t easy or quick. I wrestled with what I thought was right or wrong. I eventually faced up to the fact that I was basically a self-centered, spoiled brat! After spending a great deal of time with myself, I started to reach out and actually have real conversations with my siblings and even my ex-wives. I started having these feelings again that usually ran me to using, but I had my trucking refuge, and it gave no choice but to deal with them or shut down again. I’m not suggesting that I found the “cure,” but I was finally doing some work on myself and feeling alive. I felt proud and was aware of my rising self esteem, not just ego as usual.
