Quit "Mething" Around, Man

There is no good place to start when revisiting my personal battle with meth addiction.

It all started, perhaps, because the drugs were missing from my sex and rock and roll. Really they weren't; being a drummer in a rock and roll band obviously came with the cliché. Living in a town with a population under 1000 didn't make much of a difference either when it came to access. A college chemistry student coming home for spring break would "guinea pig" their home mixes of salts. Online dark web markets can send it directly to your mailbox, and they accept cash, credit, and crypto. In a pinch, the head cook at a local restaurant would even toss a bindle into a to-go box; the food may or may not have been eaten. As my tolerance and usage of this soluble substance increased, the more soluble everything else became.

The first thing that started to dissolve were my relationships. I had just met the most wonderful woman prior to falling into the rabbit hole. We chased each other with glances across the dance floor during my performances until I finally (in a rare moment of clarity for the time) built up the courage to ask her out. Between dates, usage was more frequent, but I at least had the sense to "dry out" when seeing her. She knew I was a "bad boy," but we kept pursuing each other anyway. I learned she had two little girls, and meeting them for the first time opened up a piece of my heart that was wrapped in the barbed wire of addiction, and I was released from its grasp, or so I thought. We married and moved to my hometown and lived happily ever after.

Yeah, right, that was just the synthetics convincing me that my life wasn't becoming a twisted heap of sunshine and rainbow colored shit.

I thought I was hiding it masterfully, but really, my parents knew, her parents knew, the community knew, even my cat knew.

Like a high-functioning alcoholic, I managed to keep a day job cooking for a while, and playing "gigs" also helped to fuel my habit. I would disregard concerns by stating I was under a new medication for depression and anxiety. Most of the time, it seemed to work. It wasn't until six months after my wife and I had a child that I truly fell off the deep end. I quit my job and decided to get some work in a city north of home. All I found there were more drugs, and I discovered free basing. When the work season ended, I brought home a few new "friends" as well.

It started becoming common for a soot-blackened spoon, a straw, and I to go for a walk or a car ride. I started talking to windows, and the things I saw on the other side, sometimes telling them to go away, or asking them for advice. As night would fall, my defenses against the negativity around me and in me would also. I wondered if I too could pass through walls like the "shadows that walked" could, and wondered what they were trying to tell me. One in particular liked to frequent my bedroom. I often thought it would try and drag me through the wall with it. Eventually, like a text-book junkie, I overdid it one night. That was the night of eternity. I began to scrawl down what I thought was the last of my mortal thoughts until it resembled nothing more than page after page of chicken scratch. When my vision faded, I was met with a foreboding figure of a wolf with the face of a bull, or maybe it was the other way around. We sat together and discussed humanity and mortality, and I remember being curious to what lay beyond, but it would not say. Finally, after what felt like years, he said it was time to go.

"Where?" I asked.

"Back," it said.

I somehow came to physically and mentally, but more like two different people, not one. One of me wanted to beg my wife for help and ask why she was leaving, while the other me began accusing her of being a liar and conspiring against her if she did leave. She did, and left the two of me to argue amongst ourselves.This was seven years ago, but I never shook the feeling of eternity.After my fall, I was lucky enough to have my family intervene. I spent a week sweating at my uncles house after he confiscated everything I had left. He lost his son to addiction, and I could see that pain in his conviction when he simply said "give it to me." The shadows stopped visiting shortly after, but the conversations with myself did not cease, they just got a little quieter. To be quite honest, I don't think they ever did stop. I started going to groups, meetings, and seeing a counselor. The rock and roll had to take a seat, as a band member was sent to prison for life; dealing controlled substances is quite the risky business. It struck home enough to keep me clean. Step work led me to making amends, and my wife and I found each other again, but it took a few years before she truly forgave me.Several locals still won't talk to me. One that did actually told me that he thought I was the devil. I can't say I blame him.The roller coaster that is my daily acceptance of my addictions has obviously not stopped, just slowed a little. Somehow I didn't destroy my family, but that's because I stopped running from my addictions and started running towards what I really needed, my wife and kids.I suppose it is worth mentioning that I lost my mother to cancer two years ago. This was not a gentle reminder of how little time I had to make things right. In her eyes, I hope I still am.This short excerpt of my story doesn't have much of a happy ending, because it's not over. I am grateful every day it didn't end seven years ago. Hopefully it will find someone else, and give them hope.