The War on Drugs

By Jaystone

Throughout my life, I have been confronted with being on the front line of the war on drugs. I have tried many times to quit, been to many treatment centers and mental hospitals. Drugs are a war in which no one wins.

Drugs are a way to relax. A way to escape the many rigors that life has too bear upon us as individuals. They seem harmless, yet this is the deep illusion they elude us by. We think we can control what can't be controlled, this is our disillusionment.

I started drinking alcohol like most teenagers. Why? Because it made me feel numb. It made me feel like nothing could hurt me. It made the inner me show itself. I became the life of the party. I was the one who made everyone laugh. A clown always makes others laugh when he is crying inside. I saw others smoking weed, but I didn't want to do the whole drug scene. I wanted to drink my Jim Beam and become numb.

Becoming numb has been an exuberant moment in my life. I am overweight, come from an abusive family, and to become numb is the only way to not be able to bear the inner turmoil which tends to rear it's grotesque evil.

I got married at an early age to the most beautiful woman I have ever laid my eyes upon. She was the only girl I could read my poems too. She was the one. I married her cause she soothed something in me which nothing could soothe. Her tenderness became my refuge.

Jim Beam crept back in. Now in my own home with my own wife, a job, and means to do as I damn well pleased, Jim Beam became my friend. It was nothing to see me without a bottle drinking and becoming a person who I never was. It is good to pretend. When we pretend we are someone else, our own life has no bearing.

I had the usual 18 year old parties, inviting everyone I knew to come and party at my place, since I was the only one of my friends who had a place. We drank till we puked, then drank a little more. Driving the old country roads not caring if we hit someone, cause no one was going to ruin our evening.

My wife sensed I was changing. Jim Beam had become my alter ego. I became violent. I began to hit her. This outpouring only come out, cause it was what I seen as a child. My father was an alcoholic, and as they say the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.

As with all drugs a little isn't enough. A drug addicts saying is the road to excess leads to wisdom. I began to take speed pills. Now this was something different. Sitting on my floor in my trailer listening to The Doors 'The Severed Garden', spinning thinking the poetic thoughts which spun like webs of animosity through my fragile existence. I became one with the music and one with myself. I have found my new experience. Coming from a small town good speed pills was hard to find, so I needed something else to soothe the demon.

Alcohol began to show an evil side which I didn't like anymore. I wasn't getting numb, I was getting violent. So I quit drinking. I was miserable. I felt like life had abandoned me and left me as a childless mother weeping for some milk. A friend came over and asked me if I wanted to smoke a joint. Ok, a few hits won't hurt anyone. I took the hits and my body felt like it was floating away from me. I was in a another world. I had found my new experience. Goodbye alcohol hello pot.

I could never do nothing a little as is evidence by my life, so I smoked constantly. Not working, I had to find a way to support my habit. Solution sell weed. Now this seemed bright. I mean when you are the dealer, you are the man. You can get what you want. Power.

I sold for about two years having the same parties I had always been known for having. I got five pounds fronted to me and I knew I could get rid of it plus make a good profit. I sold weed and sold more weed. That is till I got snitched on and got seven years class B felony.

Now being forced to quit or go to jail, I quit for a while. Then I figured out that I could fool the bladder cops and still get by on probation. Till I fucked up and tested positive.

Sentenced to prison is no fun thing. I didn't think I had done nothing really wrong. I wasn't really hurting no one. I did my time and decided that I had to clean up my life and fly straight. If not for myself, for my lovely wife who had stood by me through this whole ordeal. I started going to church. As one who does everything in excess, I gave God my all. Didn't touch any drugs for five years. My life was better, I had a good relationship with my mom, hell I even spoke to a group of kids at my local high school about the dangers of drugs. I was clean and feeling good. Yet something always lurked in the deep recess of my mind. I wanted to use. I knew I had too. I got off probation and I knew that now is my chance to use again. I started smoking pot again. Getting the feeling to where my body left, it felt good.

My wife and I decided to move to Phoenix where her parents live. I went as one never living in a big city before. I was smoking pot more and more, hell out there it was a lot cheaper than it was here. Then as with alcohol, weed began to lose it's appeal. I was no longer getting the satisfaction my body craved.

I talked my brother in law into getting and doing some coke. I mean I always wanted to try it. We scored a dime bag. We went to the desert got out my Slayer cd case cut a Circle K straw and lined out the white substance and snorted it. I couldn't believe what just happened. I felt like I was on the speed pills again. My mind was racing, my head spinning. I felt like I could accomplish anything.

My use had began to show it's wear. Coke made me very irritable. We got kicked out of my mother in laws house and I was so very coked, and so very pissed, I began to destroy everything in their house. I was as a bull in a china cabinet. Why? I don't know. So we moved to the inner city.

Being from a small town and entering a place as big as Phoenix and being a drug addict, I was like a kid in a candy store. Coke was cheap and I did a lot of it. I don't know how I got money, but I always had my coke. My wife sat many nights worrying, but I couldn't care less. This woman whom I loved was now second to my coke.

Now we all know a coke high doesn't last for a long time, and it is a very expensive habit. So I began to get crystal meth. Now this was one hell of a buzz. You know how some say they feel bolts of energy as they do meth, not me, I felt total peace in my body. I would do lines of meth and coke together. I even got a friend hooked and we cleaned out his bank account just before Christmas, so his kids didn't have much. Oh well.

My coke and meth use began to take serious hold of me and I decided I had to move back to my small town. We moved back in a U-haul truck, of course I had a good supply of meth and weed for the road back home.

When I got back things were as they always were. Smoking weed and taking pills. This was getting boring, cause I was used to the high that living in Phoenix provided. I went to a party with some friends. I had the weed, they had the booze, and we rented a mobile home in a resort area. We were all having fun and in the bed room was a lady and some other with needles and shooting up a drug called Stadol. They were all enjoying the feeling and being an addict I too wanted to see what this felt like. I had never used a needle before and didn't know what to do, so I asked to girl to hit me and when she did.. I never felt such a high before. I was hallucinating, I felt good, I felt numb. Finally a drug that made me feel numb again.

I soon became her best friend and we went on many capers together. I began to shoot up daily. We even shared needles. We didn't care. There was blood, vomit, piss and shit all over the house, but we didn't care. Our main drug was hydromorphones. When shot, it sends a shiver up the back of your neck much like an orgasm. We eventually moved in with this strange couple and daily I was a junky. I told my wife who doesn't use that this is better than pot. When I couldn't find a vein I asked my wife who was repulsed by the idea to help me. She did, cause she had something which I had forsaken. She had love.

After we lost our prescription due to being red flagged, we went to shooting meth. Shooting meth is different than morphine or stadol. It makes you feel unstoppable. When I shot up coke, it made me spin like a top, of course I followed the coke with a shot of stadol to speed ball. I was a wreck. My life was now at it's worse. After sharing needles with who knows, I developed staph infection in both of my arms. I had to go to the hospital and got told I may lose my arms.

I got the surgery and promised my wife I would quit shooting. I did until I got out of the hospital, then I had my brother fix me cause I couldn't use my arms.

I don't know what made me quit shooting drugs, but as with everything I have done, it had lost it's appeal. I began to take pills. Handfuls of pills. I made my self numb. Taking pills I had no use of what they were, but if it had the squinted guy on the bottle, I would experiment and take about 10.

My wife had threatened to leave me many times. I always told her that I was going to quit. I would for a day or two, and then the same thing. During my pill phase my mom developed lung cancer. This was a hard dose of reality. The only good thing about it, was that she got some killer pain pills. I know you must think I am sick. I am. I am an addict. I will do what I can to get a drug even if it meant taking my dying moms morphine. When mom died, I was too numb to really care. It hurt, but the drugs had a hold of me to where I didn't let it settle in. Once again numb.

I was still on my pill phase when I got introduced to meth again. This time I didn't shoot it, I smoked it on a foil. I loved the feeling. It made me no think of my mom passing, it made me feel like nothing could hurt me. I did so much that I am lucky I didn't die. I have overdosed many times, but to overdose is just an excuse. To support my habit I began to sell meth. I sold for a while made lots of money, till I got snitched on again. Now I am facing 10 years prison for being a repeat offender.

I don't know what has made me a drug addict. Some say it is a sickness, while others say it is just society that creates us. I do know that my whole life has been a war. A war on drugs if you will. I may not be a casualty yet, but it is almost certain I will be eventually if I don't find a way to quit.