I go to the men’s NA meeting for the 2nd week and get asked to share:
Hi, I’m Nick and I’m an addict. Wow, I haven’t said those words for a while. It feels good. I came here last week and was able to get a glimpse of the love I used to feel from NA and what I am missing out on. I don’t know what the future holds for me, but I have been clean 10 days now and I plan to stay clean for at least the whole month of October. I first picked up alcohol and cannabis when I was 14 and binged on these every weekend from then on. I never had any real passion or hobbies up until that point, I liked skateboarding, but I wasn’t that great at it and couldn’t say it was a passion. When I found drugs they became my passion.
My first drink was with a couple friends and the older sister of one of them. We were behind the arts centre in Melbourne and lying inside one of the outdoor sculptures. It was a beautiful sunny day and I drank the beer without much expectation. My mates were off doing something and I was lying there with his older sister, by the end of my second can I realised how cool and charming I was. She was laughing at my jokes and really into me. I’m drinking this stuff all the time, I thought to myself.
Cannabis didn’t give me the same confidence, but damn it made living in my head enjoyable. I would sit on my parents balcony and smoke cones and wander through the galaxies of my own mind. I had done this as a little kid attaching to thoughts and fantasies, the weed just made it so much easier and more enjoyable. It was also taboo – a dangerous gateway drug that would lead onto heroin. It gave me access to the club of the cool kids – or so I thought. The combination of alcohol and weed put me in the most wonderful place. I remember getting drunk at a pizza restaurant and then going outside to smoke a joint with friends. I came back in to eat more pizza, but instead had to run to the toilet to vomit. I hurled into the bowl and then lay down beside it. I spent the rest of the evening in bliss cuddled up to the toilet lying in piss and vomit. Friends would come and see how I was doing and I would say fine, I’ll come back out soon. I didn’t see what they were fussing about, there was nowhere else in the world I wanted to be.
LSD and speed was added to the mix on weekends, and I thought it was pretty manageable. Drugs were my solution. I just wasn’t sure what the problem was, but I knew since I found drugs my life was significantly better. I was able to get good grades, by studying during the week and partying all weekend. I just assumed I would do this forever. I would go to uni, become a chemical engineer, get a good job, and work hard and play hard. I didn’t realise the disease was progressive. By the time I got to uni I was no longer able to do the work hard part of the equation. I found heroin, methadone and benzos and then there wasn’t much partying either.
As well as failing at the work hard, play hard theory the other thing that annoyed me about my addiction was the obsession and compulsion. Back when I was 15 and just smoked weed I would buy half an ounce, planning to sell 10 grams and get 4 for free. Two days later I was opening the foils of the 10 packets I had made. I could rarely save a few cones for the morning even though I knew that I would much more enjoy them the next day than that night. Heroin was even worse. We stole 25 grams of this guy and I was meant to be selling the packets from a friends apartment. I was too stoned to even answer the door to customers. I just sat up in his room either on the nod or having a shot. 2 days went by and I realised I hadn’t even been to bed. I was just sitting at a chair at the table, go on the nod, mix up, go on the nod, mix up. I was so dehydrated.
Other times when I didn’t have drugs I would resort to shooting up pills. One night I was mixing up all these chalky pills in a 10ml fit and using a butterfly syringe. I had a glass of lemonade I was drinking and one of water for shooting up. In my stupor I must have got them mixed up. I shot up the lemonade and went into the shakes on my couch for half an hour. My veins still don’t work over 20 years later. It wasn’t self-hatred so much as an ambivalence to self. I was so detached from my body and heart that I didn’t care.
I got clean when I was 24 and relapsed half a dozen times over the next year. Each relapse motivated me to work the program more and by the end of the year I had done the steps with a sponsor, disassociated from my old friends, and ceased doing crime. I stayed clean for a few days short of 17 years. I decided that I would allow myself to take any drugs that were not considered addictive. This is basically all the psychedelics and cannabis. I knew I couldn’t drink or take any addictive drugs like heroin, cocaine, or meth so I have been doing AA weekly. I feel like I have become the old cliché of the guy that goes to AA and smokes weed.
I know I am an addict. I know I am powerless over addictive drugs and I know how bad I feel when I don’t do meetings. I still suffer from the restless, irritable, and discontentedness they talk about in AA if I don’t do meetings. I’m quite sure if I had a drink or a shot I would be consumed by the obsession and compulsion very quickly, but for some reason cannabis thus far hasn’t caused that obsession and compulsion. When I got clean in 99 I was smoking close to 7 grams a day. Without even trying to control my use that amount lasts me a fortnight these days. I don’t know where the change has come from, but I’m quite sure it’s not because I’m not an addict anymore. I think it’s more likely that weed is more addictive in combination with alcohol and heroin than on it’s own. Anyway, more will be revealed, maybe I will be overwhelmed with obsession and compulsion tomorrow and smoke 100 cones. Maybe I will have the obsession and compulsion to use smack. Thanks
Red Pill Recovery 