Addiction Cemetery

This post goes out to Starr and Peace and all the girls over at CrazyLesbianCircus that have been asking for more. I love you girls and miss you like mad.

And I'd like to publicly thank Starr for wanting to write the book about this stuff. She says my life is an inspiration and the story needs to be told. I think the same about her life...but she has refused to let me write about it.

On to the next chapter...Back Then.

I was in and out of consciousness for I don't know how long. At one point, I do remember moving the dresser from in front of the door. But I forgot to unlock it. I prayed as I sat in the corner trying to stay awake that my mom would come home and check on me and she would call the ambulance.

That trip to the hospital never happened. So, I died. Yes, I really died. If I told you the story of how I know this, you would probably think I was completely insane. But I really did die.

I was given a choice. Clean up or never go back. Obviously I chose to clean up because I'm here now. I can give you a million reasons for why I decided to live but the one that matters the most was my mom. I knew she wouldn't have been able to handle it. I couldn't do that to her.

When I finally came to and realized what had happened wasn't really a dream, I kind of freaked. I went to the kitchen and grabbed some trash bags. I went through every thing I owned and threw away anything and everything that reminded me of drugs. Pipes, bongs, music, my art, clothes. Everything. If I was going to do it, if I was going to keep that promise and stay clean, I couldn't have any reminders or triggers.

After I stuffed it all in the trash bin outside, I went back in my room. In my dresser drawer, below the Rolling Stone magazine was my stash. I think I sat there and stared at that drawer for at least an hour. And when I finally pulled it from that drawer, I held that little bag in my hand and begged for the strength to get rid of it. I dumped it on my bed and sorted through it one last time. In the cellophane from a pack of smokes were a few hits of acid. Album covers. In a small baggie, a few lines of coke. Two rolled joints. And in the last of the baggies, a nice assortment of my favorite pills.

I shoved it all back in the brown bag and grabbed some clothes. I went into the bathroom and locked the door. I sat down in front of that toilet and shook. I swear it felt like I had the devil sitting on one shoulder and an angel on the other. Sweat poured off me like someone was pouring water over my head and my heart felt like it had relocated to my throat.

I emptied the contents of that brown bag on the floor. I grabbed the coke first because I never really cared for the stuff that much anyway. I thought it would be the easiest to flush. The shaking got worse the closer I got to that addiction cemetery. And as my hand hovered above the grave, my breathing became panicked. I have to do this. I need to do this. I kept repeating those sentences over and over. I closed my eyes and thought it all out again. My pep talk wasn't working because I wasn't saying the right thing. It wasn't about having or needing to do anything. It was about wanting to do it. This IS what I WANT. I WANT to be CLEAN. I opened that baggie and poured everything out. I unrolled those joints and dropped it all in. I opened the pills I could and crushed the others and dropped them in. The last to go was the acid. But it did go.

I'm not sure if my mom wondered what the hell I was doing flushing the toilet so many times but she never asked. I just had to make sure it was all gone. When I was done burying my addiction, I stripped to hop in the shower.

If I needed any other reason to quit drugs, I found it all over my body in the form of bruises and cuts and scratches from the attack I had to fight off. Anger finally washed away my panic and fear of having to start my life from scratch, so to speak. And as I washed away the bloody remnants of what their hands had done to me, I plotted my revenge.

Hell hath no fury...