I’m a drug addict, personally. It sure does create a lot of havoc in my life. Not only can I not use psychoactive substances responsibly, which is a problem in and of itself, but there’s this stigma attached to drug addiction that can really be a downer.
I think I’m going to explain the disease of addiction, and how it is manifested in my behavior. Maybe you’ll learn something! (Like, for example, how crazy I am.)
Addiction is a psychological disorder. It is multifaceted, but its primary components seem to be lack of self-control, shortsightedness, and thought distortions; all brought on by any substance which changes the way one feels.
So what does that mean in the real world? I’ll give you an example:
A couple of years ago, I stayed at a friend’s uncle’s house for a weekend. She was in charge of house-sitting, which we interpreted as “getting loaded for seventy-two hours straight”. We brought a bag of marijuana, a fifth of vodka, and a few hits of LSD with us.
Now, my memory of the weekend is a bit hazy, so I can’t give you a play-by-play of how the entire weekend went; but I do remember quite a bit of it, so I’ll piece together the rest.
On the way there, I and one of my four acquaintances (we’ll call him “B”) took one hit of acid each. When we got to the house, we all immediately took a walk to go smoke a bowl of weed. Everybody got to his or her desired level of fucked-up for the moment, and we went back to the house to watch the movie “Tommy”.
To kill a bit of the suspense, I’ll tell you right now that the acid was bunk. Neither of us tripped on it, and we ate about five hits together by the end of the night. So that night we just got stoned and drunk and watched weird movies.
The next day, we looked at our supplies (a few crumbs of weed and about a quarter of the bottle) and decided that we needed moar drugz. I believe that I was the one who enforced this decision, as none of the other people involved are nearly as drug-crazy as I am.
So we went into Berkeley, the nearest city in which we were likely to find drugs, and hung out on Telegraph Ave looking to score. We came back with a box of nitrous oxide cartridges, a “cracker”, and a balloon.
Well, by the early evening, we had gone through all of the nitrous, booze, and pot. Everyone else was having a good time, but I was desperate for more intoxicants. Here’s where the story gets grimy:
The man who owned the house had been married, and his wife had recently died of some sort of cancer. Because cancer is a particularly uncomfortable disease, she had quite a stash of medications in the bathroom. I did a bit of exploring, and came across a bottle of 5mg Valium (diazepam) pills.
I had never done Valium before, but I had heard good things about it. First, I did a bit of research online. Then, I crushed and snorted two of the pills. A short time later, I either snorted or ate four more pills, giving me a total of six 5mg pills ingested, or 30mgs diazepam in my system.
It turns out that when you mix benzodiazepines (the category of drugs in which diazepam falls) and alcohol, you get really fucked up. As I understand it, this is because they both cause the release of the neurotransmitter GABA into some things called GABA-A receptors somewhere in the brain. I got wasted.
The rest of the night consists in my mind of little bits and pieces of memory and a lot of filled-in stories from friends. Apparently, I convinced a girl that we had to acquire more booze, and we walked ~2 miles in search. I loudly asked her if every single establishment we passed would sell me beer, including such places as a hardware store. When we eventually came across a 7-11, I hatched a quick plot to get beer.
You see, I was 18 at the time, and the drinking age in California is 21. So I waltzed into the 7-11 with a five dollar bill in hand, grabbed two 40 oz bottles of beer, ambled over to the counter, and slapped the five down in front of the cashier. I was intent on walking out of the store with the beer, having paid the cashier, without getting carded. Unfortunately, I hadn’t thought of what to do if any other variables came into play.
The cashier informed me in an Indian or Middle Eastern accent (not that his accent is relevant) that he was not allowed to sell alcohol after midnight. Despite my confidence in my plan to illegally buy beer, I was struck dumb. I skulked back into the beer aisle and put the bottles back, then walked out empty-handed.
The rest of the night involved me ranting and raving about some song that I enjoyed at the time (I believe it was by the Flowbots), and describing line-for-line what it meant to me to this poor girl I was with. The next day, I bought more nitrous and stole more Valium. I ran out of both after about a week of using daily.
This recall may seem at first like a typical college adventure, but let’s look at it a little more closely.
Here are a few signs that something is wrong with me.
- I took three substances at once the first night.
- While everyone else was relatively satisfied with the idea of a night of light drinking and smoking, I needed more (the nitrous).
- After taking three substances the second night (nitrous, weed, and alcohol), I was unsatisfied; I needed more.
- I did not hesitate to steal medication from my friend’s uncle’s dead wife, and snort it on his (the uncle’s) kitchen table.
- In doing this, I was fully aware that it would horrify my friends.
- After adding a fourth substance to my intoxication, I was still not satisfied.
The point is, when a psychoactive substance is introduced to my system, all I can think of is ways and means to get more. I’m broken; I cannot think properly. I have drunk myself into sickness more times than I can count, gone into hospitals and institutions a total of four times in two years as a direct result of my drug use, gone psychotic as a result of my drug use, been arrested as a result of my drug use, and given up my home and family in order to use drugs. Until I ran out of money when homeless and friendless, I would not stop. Only when it was impossible for me to get high again did I enter a rehabilitation facility.
There are many ways of feeling good. There are ways which do not involve drugs that feel just as good as your average high, if not better. I know that, and I have experienced positive feelings from many activities without getting intoxicated. But somehow, I always go back to drugs.
It is not logical. It is not reasonable. I’ve got a broken thinker, and I’ll have to live with it for the rest of my life. It is only with an AMAZING support group, books, meetings, and a lot of psychological conditioning that I am clean now. And I’m not even convinced that I’ll be clean forever. Despite the inevitable arrests, hospitalizations, homelessness, and death that will come of drug use, I’m probably going to go back to using.
So if you know someone who has a drug problem, don’t talk down to him, ignore him, judge him, hate him. Just get him some help.
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