Cocaine Addiction

Hello, I’m Ryan and I’m gay. Use a lot of coke, it gets me through the day. What I’m here for is to try and talk – get things sorted out. Michael, he’s my partner, we don’t believe in marriage. He keeps talking  about adopting a kid, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that.

I’ve never been with anyone but Michael, and that’s another thing – I’ve known him since forever – there’s never been anyone else – except of course my mother who I’m close to – call her every day. Haven’t told her yet about Michael and my life – Michael wants to meet her. I’ve met his Mom, she’s great – but I can’t see things working out between Michael and my mother.

An absolute saint is my mother – I’m her only child, I was her “little man” – I dutifully looked after her, protected her from my father – an absolute pig of a man. He worked in the city came home late of an evening, smelling of alcohol and demanding his tea at table – he would always look at me with a baleful stare – I knew I didn’t measure up.

My fathers name was Bill and I’d hear people say that as Bill had done the right thing by my mother you would think she would be more grateful – but I couldn’t see that she had anything to be grateful for – if I had been bigger and stronger I would have taken her away from him. He treated her like a servant, more like a slave. Nothing she ever did was good enough for him.

He never spoke to me direct except to complain about my mother – or to my mother except to bark instructions and to complain about me.” I see Ryan is not yet in bed ” he would say to my mother, and then turn to me and say ” I do believe that your mother hasn’t dusted this house for a week.” So my mother would flick the duster around while he ate up his tea, and I wouldn’t go to bed until my mother pleaded with me – it was like being relieved of a duty.

My father was a self made man, never given any help. He told my mother in front of me that he expected I would leave school as soon as I could and make my own way in the world just like he’d had to do.

I got laboring work in summer, and wintered in hotels, cleaning or laundry, kitchen or parking, it didn’t matter too much to me – I only wanted to feel warm and have the energy of other people around me – it made me feel alive, like the laboring did in summer.

Someone stopped me one day on the street and said he’d like to take some photos, I went back to his, and so it was that I met Michael, a studio photographer of some talent.

We got into going on the town together. One night we went into a gay bar, just to check out the scene and soon we were making it a regular habit. It wasn’t that I didn’t like chicks but none of them really turned me on.

One afternoon in summer Michael and I were listening to some music and doing a few lines, became lovers and have been together ever since, I don’t have many friends, Michael is all that I need. And yet there is a doubt, that’s what I’ve come here to talk about.

Some days I get so deep down depressed I even keep away from Michael – I feel that I should be back home taking care of mother – that I should never have left her in the first place, and taken up with Michael – and Michael, I love him dearly, he is a caring person but truth is when we go out for a drink I see other people standing around and sometimes I get curious and start to think what if I wasn’t with Michael.

It’s all too much for me, that’s why I’m into the coke – it keeps these big waves of depression from getting a hold over me. On coke I’ve got the world sewed up, couldn’t be happier and then it all comes crashing down around me.

Sometimes I start thinking about my father – gone to his grave un-mourned by me – good riddence I thought on the day.

My mother stood by without a tear, her lips tight pressed together – what debt of gratitude did she owe my father – why wasn’t she happy, or even sad on the day that he passed away.

Perhaps there are things that I need to talk through with my mother before I move on with my life.

This adopting a kid makes me feel uptight and anxious. I feel real sad about this kid that’s out there, alone in the world, and waiting to be adopted. And then I think it’s for me that I’m sad, and not for the kid at all. By then, when I get like that, all I want to do is hit the coke and hit it again and again.

kid inside you that still needs a chance to speak

couldn’t be happier

were listening to some music and doing a few lines.

Ah, so out of all I just said, that is all you wrote down – and yes, it makes me think – I’ve got to go back and sort out my past before I can move on with my life. First thing, I’m going back to my martyred mother to find out more – about this debt of gratitude. Oh yes –  thank you for your help.

Miranda was one of those people that you would think the sun has always shined on. The only daughter of a doting mother and rich banker father, it followed on from a lifetime of nannies and boarding that Miranda would attend the best of finishing schools. Admiring her distant father Miranda studied, to do well – perhaps be a banker one day. However her girlfriends’ scorned academic pursuit – their only ambition to party – and experiment with drugs.

So it was that in a casual way, Miranda got introduced to cocaine.  Cocaine was great – it meant that she could party all night – keep going to her tutorials. She graduated summa cum laude, and had many friends.

Miranda wriggled out of her mother’s push to enter the marriage market, and became the personal secretary to a manager that her father considered sound. Miranda was happy with her business life but would occasionally break out uncontrollably- take time off, call up her friends and party hard using alcohol and cocaine.

Miranda never thought about the why of her double life – she needed to be the perfect secretary – or else the most abandoned penthouse playgirl.

At a business conference Miranda met the man who would be her husband. Straight and reliable,  she instinctively knew that her party ways would not impress. During their courtship, engagement and honeymoon, Miranda never once thought of disgracing her image by going out on the town – this man, this marriage was important – the urge to party wasn’t there.

On marriage Miranda gave up working, and three children were soon born. Not much there for a mother to do – what with cook, the nanny and the daily home help. Miranda saw less of her husband who got a promotion that meant several weeks at time he was away in Europe.

And so it was that within a couple of years, Miranda had got into meeting up with old school friends who still had the party habit and it was easy with husband away to forget the kid’s, the responsibilities of home management, kick back and party on.

When the youngest of the children was started at boarding school it left the house very quiet and empty for many weeks of the year. Tired of the endless round of parties, and lonely, Miranda decided to go back to work, and made an application, wanting to do it all by herself, and not use Daddy’s connections.

The interview went well, and she was more or less told that she had the job, to come back again for a further discussion. At the briefing the recruitment manager was impressed. Looked at his watch and said – that’s an end to the briefing – time for a spot of lunch.

To complete the formalities – we have booked your medical for 2 this after noon. It won’t take long – get your knees tapped with a hammer, a urine test, then you can go home. We will call you back in a day or two with the details of your placement.

Miranda felt the ants of fear crawling all over her skin – thinking how foolish she had been – a medical! Why only this morning she had done a line to be on top of the interview, but she put the thought right out of her head. Miranda decided very firmly that they wouldn’t do drug testing on management and their personal assistants – drug testing would only be for the people who had to work on site. They were probably only going to test the urine for things such as diabetes she thought, as she sat waiting for the doctor.

Three days later Miranda had taken an early morning line for courage, called up the company to see how things were going. She was unable to speak to anyone senior but was told to expect a letter.

And the letter came expressing regret that her application had been rejected and another, more qualified applicant had been awarded the job. Miranda was enraged, her first experience of life not going exactly as she had planned it. High on coke and ignited by rage, Miranda strode into the recruitment office and demanded to speak with the manager.

A short while later, a subdued Miranda was escorted to the lift, and farewelled by the manager.

Later at home Miranda remembered most of what the manager had said – it was a public company and their zero tolerance drugs policy extended from the top CEO right down to the tea lady. A safe environment for all he said, it was the modern style – the world right now might be awash with drugs – but they can be kept out of the office. He had told her how teachers now are subject to drug testing.

He had given her a card for the only rehab that they regarded as effective – that got people clean. Miranda stared at it a while and then stuffed it into her bureau. Called her father on the phone and said, Daddy I need a job, is there something you can do.

It was four years later that Miranda was furiously packing saw the rehab card in the drawer, and slipped it into her overnight bag. Her head was pounding like a hammer. She had by then been divorced,  lost her job and custody of her children, and now it was time to leave the house. A  taxi was waiting to take her direct to the Oasis watering hole to meet her dealer, her only friend in the world.

It would be another two years, living around seedy hotels, before Miranda would again pick up that card – call the helpline number and say – I’ve been doing cocaine – can you help me?

Cracks in the plaster, dingy paint

cracked pipes

Dirty crack pipe – my pipe.

Dead weeds, rocks in the yard,

Broken clock, on the table.

Curtains in tatters hung from wire

across the window, held with paper clips.

And cold – I’m shivering to the bone,

pale – like the morning sun. Cold sunlight

floods in at daybreak.

I’m shivering – so cold.

Waiting for Harry to get back -

with crack

for him and me.

Cracks in the plaster, gas cut off

me, huddled, cramped in the corner

sitting on the floor – since dark early morning

I’ve been shivering can’t stop.

Then suddenly – the shivering stopped, I felt relaxed,

no more thumping of my heart,

I felt warm inside and was on a tropical beach

I decided to lie down, I remember that,

threw off the scratchy dirty blanket,

that I had pulled around myself

I could smell the frangipani,

heard the crashing waves.

I heard my friends calling out to me

to join them in the ocean.

I would have done, but I was so deathly tired.

I wrote this poem as I was told that writing things down is a good way to help with my drug recovery – I never realized until I have started to write down poetry how it helps you to say things that are sometimes bottled up inside you, things that you need to say.

It was not til the evening that Harry got back and found me cold, blue and not breathing in the corner of the room. Harry panicked – thought I had overdosed. At the hospital I was diagnosed with hypothermia – not that I knew anything about it by then – I was out for the count and had double pneumonia – was in hospital for a month.

Five years of smoking crack in the inner city – living with guys like Harry til they threw me out. Harry was coming back to hospital to collect me when it was discharge time. Harry was going to bring me a jacket, said he would have crack back at the house. But Harry never came. The social worker made enquiries, but Harry had moved on – new people lived in the house now that had never heard of Harry and now the hospital needed to know where to discharge me to.

I got sent to a refuge for a night or two until the social worker decided what could be done – I had nothing in the world except the clothes I was wearing that the social worker had got for me. Suddenly depression hit me like a log, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I got panic attacks

The doctor that discharged me said there was only one end if I kept living my life this way – that this time I had been lucky. But his words didn’t mean anything to me then – I was waiting for Harry to come and keep me from the cold. But now Harry wasn’t there.

I’d not spoken to my parents in all the five years that I’d been out on the street. They had got divorced. Mum got a new fella who hated me – and Dad moved to the country. He never made any contact.

Sometimes I thought that me taking drugs was the cause of their divorce. Towards the end, when they finally split, they were both ignoring me and I felt really bad. I always felt guilty deep inside that I was the cause of my parents breakup.

Then the social worker had good news, she had found my Dad who said he would pay for rehab and I decided to go for it – that was eight months ago.

Now I am ready to leave this place, start again with my life – off the crack for good – never doing drugs again. I wrote to my father thanking him for giving me this chance and he said he would come to my graduation – as long as Mum wasn’t there with her live in lover as well.

I was scared on the day that he wouldn’t turn up like Harry – but he was so pleased with how I’d turned out – he said that I could come and stay with him – take my time until I could think what to do with my life. Best of all, Dad explained me that me using drugs hadn’t helped, but that no way was my drug taking the cause of my parents splitting up.

I have not talked to my mother yet, but I hope that in time she will say that she wants to meet up with me so we can be mother and daughter again. I feel like I lost five years of my life completely down the drain -but because of this program I feel like I have got a second chance with my life.

Self Respect, Honesty, Family & Drugs !

This my list of life priorities that used be completely the other way round – with drugs at the top, – my self respect at the bottom.  Self respect is now first on the list – and that means me! My own ideas, my own decisions – my own life.

And drugs at the end – where they should be – nowhere in my life. No, I will never use drugs again to try and get even. A big mistake  - to think that you can use drugs to hurt someone real bad – to make you feel strong and separate from them – teach them a lesson that they are not the boss of you. However rebellious you get to feeling about your parents – doing drugs to express your rage never is the answer because the only one gets hurt, in the end is you.

I hated doing drugs, it was kind of scary. If you can see – what I got off on was not doing the drugs themselves – but my parents knowing that I was out there, using drugs and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it. God, my parents had such power over me, didn’t let me breathe. It was like they were into my head, knew what I was thinking and doing, told me how to think and behave. They virtually led my life for me – led their life through me. Made me become a model student – but it was all about them not me – bragging about my academic success to their friends like I was their possession.

It was exciting to make plans to meet up with friends and do drugs. Cannabis was easy and available so that’s what we used – at least in the beginning. High as kite, I could at last feel free – but really I wasn’t because all of the time I was thinking about  how angry my parents would be to smell marijuana on me.

They never said a word – didn’t give me a chance to speak  - perhaps get around to telling them how I was really feeling. That hurt me too, that they didn’t care enough to ask me about it. I found out later that it is denial – that they pretended not to notice. If they didn’t “know”, then they didn’t have to confront it.

So it went on – me flaunting I was using marijuana – them looking at me tight lipped, resentful and bitter – speaking to me at all only when they had to. I knew that I was supposed to  beg their forgiveness for being such a horrible, ungrateful child, swear I would never do drugs again – and then life could have gone on, the same as before – with them still in control of me, like I was somehow their puppet.

I hated them truly they were so oppressive, they wouldn’t talk about the weed. I didn’t know any other way to deal with it then, so I kept on messing with drugs. One day I got introduced to cocaine – and it hit me all at once – marijuana was just for kids – this was the real stuff. And, yes, I was hooked, not meaning to be, not wanting to be. I felt like cocaine’s   bride.

It took me a couple of years to see that I had exchanged one kind of bondage for another – and I couldn’t face my life any more. I still lived at home, but I’d failed my school exams. With true grit and determination my parents had told me that they would support me, at their financial expense, to repeat the school year, to get the exam results.  I just wanted to feel free, to have some life of my own. And truth to tell just lately the coke the drugs weren’t doing it like they used to  - I never seemed to get high any more – just more and more depressed.

I decided one day, that suicide was the only way out of my tormented feelings, my self esteem at rock bottom. I didn’t want use cocaine – that wouldn’t feel right – I took a bottle of sleeping pills instead. Was found by my parents and was saved by doctors at the local hospital.

At least my parents were now in territory that they could handle – sleeping pills meant that I had to go into drug rehabilitation – and I couldn’t have been more fortunate that I got sent to a comprehensive center – anywhere else and truly I would have been at that bottle again.

Because these guys immediately saw that I had a problem with my parents, and that underneath it all there was a communication problem. I wasn’t victimized as a bad drug using person, and my parents – they came to counseling too. And it helped them to open up, for the first time in their lives, to me, about things that troubled them. My iron fist parents had feelings, they really did care about me.

Turned out both had come from families where no one acknowledged feelings – grandparents deceased before I was born.  So my parents didn’t mean any harm at all – were not trying to torment me – my parents just didn’t have the words, a way to express their love for me except in this pride and over involvement in everything I did. We cried a bit and talked some more, and I knew even before I left the program that things would only get better. It was like the ice was broken – my parents could talk to me about their feelings, and I could talk to them.

When I went back home, we had things to talk about that were not all about me and my schoolwork. They had a life of their own, had become more outgoing.

I now look forward to starting a course in graphic design, I don’t need to repeat the year I wasted at school. I am really happy now and making a brand new start with my parents – a life turned around.