Beware. My story is a cautionary tale. I’m sure everyone has heard the phrase, “You don’t know what you got til it’s gone,” but I doubt that its context was meant to describe family, friends, morals, the essence of your being, or your soul. When dealing with opiates though, that’s going to be the most expensive price you pay, to say nothing of the material and superficial things you will also most likely be forfeiting. It’s also very difficult to see it coming even in light of the examples of substance abuse we all have witnessed, whether from personal experience or through media and other outlets.
In reference to me, I had personal experience to it prior to being caught in its vice – an alcoholic Father and other alcoholics sprinkled throughout my family tree but generally speaking, I experienced it through my Father. So to say that I had not been warned would take away from those dearly bought experiences I lived through growing up. Throw in money issues and “normal” problems, things could be tense at times, and at others worse. Luckily for me, I had and still have, a caring, compassionate, and loving Mother whose a saint in my eyes for always sticking it out with me. Some are not afforded that luxury. An aunt and nana who want nothing but the best for me.
I was an earlier bloomer I’d have to say (at least in some aspects) without older siblings to influence my decisions and behavior. I had an eye for “discovering”things on my own. My first “discovery” with relevance to this story was pot. Some wacky tobacky I found of my Father’s. It must have been the end of 5th grade or beginning of 6th. Whether the former or the latter still a very young age. I decided to sit on it. Drugs were first being discussed to us and part of me feared that I would quite literally, possibly die on the spot if I tried it. A short time after that though a thought had occurred to me. Being the little genius I was I deduced that, “Hey, Dad smokes this all the time, and he’s not dead. Actually he’s a strapping healthy guy,” being a blue-collar worker whose job revolved around physical work probably had something to do with that. Not the smoking of marijuana. Never the less, I decided I would try it. That I believe is when I was at the top of the hill and then began my very abrupt descent to where I’m sitting now – RHU (restricted housing unit: the jail within the prison) in the State of Connecticut’s Department of Corrections system. The path I took down that long, sloping hill was not a short one. I would have to estimate it at about 15 years of trials and tribulations, not just for me but for my family and friends. So, to discuss all of it at some length would take a lot more than one mere blog entry. The beautiful woman who asked me to write this for her can surely attest to that. So, in the interest of time I will fast forward then pick up; pot went to pot and mushrooms, pot and mushrooms went to pot and PCP, pot and PCP went to pot and cocaine, pot and cocaine went to pot and opiates. After that it was opiates, pot, and if any of those other things were around, hey why not? After I began smoking pot regularly, I realized something in the morning when I woke up. Why do I feel so strange? Like a stranger who is trapped in someone else’s uncomfortable skin. So, I smoked some pot to pontificate on the matter and I realized once again being the little “genius” I was, that actually I feel great now. What was all that crap about feeling like a stranger? I feel like a million dollars!
That right there was the single worst precedent I could ever set for myself. Suppress the feeling with more drugs, as opposed to solving the problem like I should have done. That feeling of waking up every morning got worse and worse until it was like a nightmare sitting through those moments waiting until I got high. Nothing felt worse than those moments, or so I thought. Because you see, all those drugs I mentioned (save for the opiates) mentally drag you down. Your body’s lacking endorphins and other “happy” hormones so you feel depressed. Then on a day in 2006 the mental transcended into the physical, paired with the mental. I know the exact year because of a certain event. A friend’s Mother’s boyfriend stuck up a CVS with one of my toy BB guns. He was holed up at a motel in Stamford when me, my girlfriend at the time, and my boy whose Mother and Mother’s boyfriend it was. When we got there the room looked like a pharmacy. Dozens upon dozens of prescription pill bottles, among them 80 mg Oxycontin (now extinct thank God). The equivalent of legal heroine, one molecule from the mark. A pharmacist’s distributor bottle was given to us (about 4x the size of a regular prescription bottle), and I have not looked back until now I guess.
Oxycontin was probably one of the single best feelings in the world next to sex and then shooting heroine. Once the OC’s ran out, and the stealing and conniving began, heroine decided to make its appearance and following that as if it could get any worse, the devil (heroine), initially forgetting his trusty pitchfork decided to stick it in my arm. Imagine something better than an orgasm, instantaneous to the point that the moment you push the plunger, the taste hits your tongue and like the Pink Floyd song lyrics, “you have become comfortably numb.” Now imagine holding that for an extended period of time. Then imagine it suddenly vanishing and the gravity of your situation (the stealing, lying, cheating, sometimes to your own family and the people who love you most) comes crashing down on you all at once like a tidal wave. Then you’re drowning. It’s morning time. Thoughts rushing like an out of control train through your mind. I can’t believe myself. My friends can’t stand the sight of me. I’ve stolen and lied to them. What type of person have I become. I want to stop, but the pain of my actions are too much. My family can’t stand the sight of me. I’ve lied and stolen from them. On top of all this hopelessness, I’m cold, but I’m sweating. My stomach hurts. My nose is running. My back aches. My knees ache. My elbows, hands, feet – it all aches. Maybe I should bundle up. Now I’m roasting. Take the layers off. Freezing again. While all of this is transpiring and you feel like you’re about to drown, you look up. Floating on the surface is a life-preserver with a bag of dope and a needle on it. Commence pushing the plunger down, instant relief. Not just relief – instant euphoria. Instant release. Wake up tomorrow, repeat cycle. Unless you do something about it because eventually that cycle has an end. Prison, rehab, death, or life. Life can stem from rehab or prison (as I hope in my case). Life does not stem from death. Once that happens, permanent end of cycle. It’s a terrible waste all the lives that have been abruptly snuffed out due to this powerful drug, and my heart and prayers go out to all the families that have had contact with it. Especially where a life was lost as a result.
Don’t let that life be lost in vain. Use it as a tool. Let some good come out of it. A lesson about the dangers of opiate use. I’m one of the lucky ones. God, in all his greatness, has had the fortitude to incarcerate me when things get out of control, rather than make me pay the ultimate price. That’s why I know he has a plan for me, and how I know that the plan does not involve getting high. Every time I’ve entered prison I’ve had to detox, and very uncomfortably without the aid of medical assistance. In here they give you aspirin for every ailment. In the hierarchy of pharmaceuticals, aspirin is a pauper working the fields and opiates reign as king. So, aspirin has zero effect. Luckily you’re not going to die from opiate withdraw, it may feel like it and you may want to, but you survive. I’m surviving. I’ve been in prison all my 20’s, a 3 year sentence, 20 months, and I’m currently serving an 8 year suspended after 4 years sentence. I’ve been incarcerated for almost 2 1/2 years. I’ve experience 6 months of my 20’s, and I’m about to turn 26.
The offer to write this could not have come at a better time. I’m currently in RHU which is solitary confinement. Nothing but you and a hole in the wall, a mattress, three squares a day, a book, a pencil and paper. In my teens I was a person of tremendous confidence, completely unjustified by intellect and ability. Until I found my way, I should have avoided exposure like a vampire avoids sunlight. Drugs transformed me from a Mr. Good Guy to a Chucky doll. I was hanging out with people who at best were evolutionary cul-de-sacs. It would have been foolish of me to have bought green bananas because my days were numbered. I like to believe that I’ve matured. In here I try to fill my time with reading, writing, working out and keeping in touch with my first and second family. Now I know that the highest form of knowledge is knowing that you know nothing at all. Freedom and life for me is very precious. For me to speak on the valve of life is not a tactic used for the benefit of telling you this story or for other people, but far deeper and far more personal. Never more than when my life on drugs and in her was virtually defenseless.
There is little I worry about besides my family (myself included) and my need to make my life and all the decisions I’ve made matter. Most things are barely of interest to me; a beautiful day which others take for granted, reminds me that each moment of life is precious, tomorrow is promised to no one. I resolve to be informed, but not defined by my suffering and to live in the future rather than the past. It’s hard for me to talk about this aspect of my life. Part of me still lies to myself about it. At first appearance, you wouldn’t believe me capable of the things and lifestyle I described. That’s why it’s so hard to talk about. It’s like I’m wearing a mask and when I talk about my past I feel the mask slipping and giving people a glance at the person I don’t want to be anymore.
Barbarita’s actually been begging me to send her stuff like this and writings out of my journal. The person behind the mask is someone I don’t even want her to see and she’s closer to me than people in my own family. I decided I should though. False pleasures often turn into genuine pain and unless people speak about these things rather than turn them into a taboo then people will continue experiencing the false pleasure of opiates and in return feeling its geniune pain. I want more than anything for that not to happen. Thank you for hearing my story.
The time that I have wasted is my biggest regret,
Spent in these places I will never forget.
Just sitting here thinking about the things I have done,
The crying, the laughing, the hurt and the fun.
Now it’s just me and my hard driven guilt,
Behind a wall of emptiness I allowed to be built.
I’m trapped in my body just wanting to run,
Back to my youth with its laughter and fun.
With reality suddenly right in my face,
I’m scared, alone, and stuck in this place.
Now memories of the past flash through my head,
The pain is obvious by the tears that I’ve shed.
I ask myself why and where I went wrong,
I guess I was weak when I should have been strong.
As I look at my past it’s easy to see,
The fear that I had afraid to be me.
I would pretend to be rugged, so fast and so cool,
when actually I was lost like a blinded old fool.
It’s time that I change and get on with my life,
Fulfilling my dreams for a family and wife.
What the future will hold I really don’t know,
But the years that I have wasted are starting to show.
I just live for the day when I’ll get a new start,
With the dreams I still hold deep in my heart.
I hope I can make it,
I at least have to try,
Because I am heading towards death,
And I don’t want to die.
The Word According to Be Hoxie (Hok-see) 