“Day after day I will walk, and I will play. But the day, after today I will stop, and I will start.”
~The Violent Femmes~
Teasing, frustration, and going without—that is what that song is all about. The Femmes meant it as a cry at the moon for lack of sex I am going to use it as a metaphor for cocaine, and my need to stay away from it. If there is one thing I am best known for is my balls-to-the-walls, it must be done, and will only be successful if it is done to its fullest potential attitude. My education, my parenting, my relationships are all examples of this—so why would my drug use be any different?
I was 14 when I smoked pot for the first time. What I found was that I finally could ‘make’ friends by hanging out with the potheads. There was just one big problem; you can’t get pot without going to a drug dealer’s house. And I don’t know about you and your personal experiences, but I have never met a dealer who only sells pot. As a way to pay for my ravenous pot use I began babysitting for my dealer and his wife, in exchange I got all the pot I could smoke. My poor parents, they were just clueless. It didn’t take long for one of those nights to come around. I was in a friend’s car; we had gone to pick up cigarettes and soda, on the way back to Dirty’s trailer (yes, my dealer’s name was Dirty and yes he lived in a tin-box-trailer) my friend asked me how many times I had ridden the train, I thought this guy was super cute and all I wanted was for him to like me, so I said, ‘oh, you know, a few times.’ I didn’t even know what “riding the train” meant but it didn’t take too long to figure it out.
Sitting on the coffee table was a long mirror, like the full body length kind, and there were these perfectly cut long white ‘rails’ of cocaine just waiting for our arrival. There was about ten of us, if I remember correctly, and we all sat on both sides of the mirror. *Note, McDonalds straws are the most coveted straw to use in this kind of situation. They are super sturdy and have a large circumference.* I was 15. I was sitting next to Dirty, he always was looking out for me—you know, in the destroy a innocent mind kind-of way—when he took the first set of lines he made sure that I watched so as not to look stupid in front of the more advanced users. His wife cut a straw in half, giving me one half and keeping the other for herself (hey, we might be snorting coke off a mirror but we weren’t going to share boogers with each other).
Oh my dear sweet Lord, the second I finished both lines I knew that this would be the drug for me. I instantly loved it. Every part of my body was tingling, my head felt clear for the first time in a very long time, and suddenly I found myself in a very deep conversation with my dream-boy.
For the next 10 years I rode that train. There was a 1 ½ year gap and then another 8 month gap when I didn’t use It was not because I wanted to get sober but because I was in ‘love.’
There are moments in my life that I can’t take back, forget, or ever be forgiven for because of my addiction. Some of the most damning examples are; I stole from my parents. I would steal their bank card and pull money out of their retirement savings account. I had them pay my rent when I moved to CA because “rent was too high.” If I had to guess all said and done they in some way paid for 10 grand of my cocaine bill. I walked across my High School stage on graduation so high I could hear the damn bees wings flapping. Once I robbed the ice cream shop I worked for. My ‘closest’ friends were all young men who weren’t the best looking, or the most hip guys around, but they always either gave me my drugs just because or at a super reduced price. And no, I was not a whore; I never slept with any of them to obtain my fix. Just showing up to a ‘cool-kids’ frat house or party with me as their date was all they ever got. What I would do is use my winning personality to get these guys laid by super hot college-co-eds. Mainly I would take them into a bathroom, do a bunch of coke with them, and then tell them to go talk to ‘Billy’ and he would be willing to get them more—for a price. So no, not a whore, I was more like a pimp—Snoop-dog ain’t got nothin’ on my Pimp-Hand skills.
As I mentioned I moved to Asheville from Greensboro to get sober. I think now would be the best time to tell you how I came to this decision.
From 2003 until August of 2004 I was at my peak of abuse. After suffering a life-altering trauma my shrink of the time thought it best to medicate me. Actually over medicate me would be the better way of stating it. He prescribed me: Paxil, Wellbutrin, Effexor, Remeron, and Ambien. Along with that nice cocktail I was snorting, on average, an 8-ball of coke a day and drinking at least a bottle of wine. I mean, what else would you wash all of that down with? That was all I pretty much was living on, as I said before I weighed 87 pounds. Drugs, wine, and eggs was my daily diet that year.
I remember that night so fucking clearly, it’s so damn cliché but it’s true, it is burned in my brain like it happened yesterday. *Note, if you take large mgs. of Ambien and don’t go to sleep you will trip balls for about 20 min.* I took my handful of prescriptions, did four lines, and drank half a bottle of wine and then headed for the shower to get ready to go out for the night. The next thing I remembered was waking up on the floor of my shower. The water was ice cold. I literally peeled my face from the ground. When I finally reached up and turned off the water my bathroom started to come into focus. Bloody vomit and shit was everywhere outside the shower. I literally pulled myself into my bedroom across the floor. I sat there, my dog looking at me like ‘who the hell are you,’ with my phone in my hand. I dialed my friend Kristen; I know verbatim what we said: “I’m going to die,” I said, “I know, I’ve been waiting for you to call,” Kristen said.
Seven years. I have been sober for seven (almost 8) years now. A gift from God has been my driving force to maintain my sobriety. I won’t lie, I loved doing drugs, they are fun, I did feel like I was ‘free’ when I used. There have been a few nights over the last few years that I have indulged in a mushroom night in the woods, or an LSD all-night dance party, and I would never pass up the chance to smoke pot with friends and zone out on TV. But I will never attempt doing cocaine ever again. I know myself all too well. Cocaine is, for me, just like an alcoholic beverage to an alcoholic. The risk is too great for one night of ‘fun.’
It wasn’t until I found therapy—bet you thought I was gonna say God, didn’t you—that I found out why I was able to function for as long as I did. Why it was that I was able to achieve perfect grades, work normally, and seem to be okay to even the people who were closest to me. But that is another story.
*Note, I am not trying to persuade anyone to go out and try any of the drugs that I have mentioned. I am not promoting or glorifying drugs. All I want to get out of this Full Frontal story is a sense of catharsis.*
nakedgrits 
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