When at Home, Do as the homebodies do.

I don't know if it is the weekend recovery that's getting the best of me or if it is the fallen dreams.  Either way, I'm happy to have an empty house tonight and have some self reflection.  It's interesting when you have been on two totally opposite ends of the spectrum.  Sobriety vs. alcoholic.  You know the ins and outs of how the brain works and the psychology of yourself; the monster you can be, the saint you have the potential to be as well. 

To be completely real with myself, (and trust me, this is so hard to say because of the pride in my soul of admitting to being wrong) I am a slave to the party.  I am the epitome of the RHCP song when they say "can't stop, addicted to the shindig."  I sat here and promised myself that if I was going back to this world, I wouldn't loose my hopes or dreams.  I wouldn't loose my passions or settle out of boredom.  I was the biggest dreamer I knew and that is saying a lot. I also wanted to use all of my talents to their full ability.  I am 21 years old with a long life [God willing] ahead of me.  The adults around me say to live this time up and the peers around me say to go full throtle.  Yet, looking back upon what I've gone through and learned, my fear is that I will let this world entangle me and prevent me from doing the above mentioned desires.  Partying is a thief.  I am the victim of this animal.  I am a self imposed victim.  It's not that I want to get out either and that's the lie of the drug, the nature of the beast.  It's stolen my self control.  I read these amazing stories about artists and musicians and envy them because they have the talent to live this crazy life and do what they love. 
3 months ago, i was planning on being in SF right now.  6 months ago, I was planning on being in NY right now.  1 year ago, I was planning on being in London right now.  Today, I sit in my living room, trapped in this beaten body debating what to do next.  It's like high school.  Either you get the grades and it pays off later or you live it up and look back and have some awesome memories. 

Quarter life crisis are the worst.  It's just such an awkward time.  What do I want to do with my life!?!?!?!?!?!

Tired ramble. <3 the below song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfJVi1--Pxg

Heroin vs. Heroine

How much is too much?

They say that people’s biggest strength is their biggest weakness. While this proves to be true in too many qualities in my life, I find myself in a tough one. 

How is it possible to in 2 days get so caught up in someone’s life that you haven’t even associated with in years?  Once you have my heart, it’s there forever.  I grew up wanting to be a drug addict. Fucked up, I know. I got my wish at a young age: 16 snorting anything that would go up my nose, spending my savings on blow in a few short months, feeding any addiction with anything to keep my mind off of real life.  My life was rescued from being buried 6 feet under when my best friend introduced me to a new type of life. This life fit me and like I said, saved me.  I don’t live the sober life anymore by any means but what that time period taught me was a life of constructive character building and the definition of actions and consequences.  During my teen years, I searched for ways to get oxys, opiates, and honestly I wanted to try heroin more then anything. I had done cocaine, popped pills, done a good variety of drugs, but always wanted more.  Heroine is considered the drug of drugs.  I thank God and all that is good that the forces of nature never allowed me to touch such a thing because I can guarantee that I would not be alive right now if I ever got my hands on that bullshit that I hate so much now. 

Last October I found out in one night that the prior 3 months, 3 of my high school friends overdosed and died from H. Not living in my hometown or having a myspace anymore plus having cut off my old friends, I had no idea about these deaths and hearing this news hit hard.  This would count 4 people total in my age group that had died of drug overdoses between the time i was 15 and 20.  Hearing about this took me out emotionally for days.  To be honest, it’s created a vacancy in my heart that would just begin a carve out for the futur deaths my future would behold of self induced tragedies.  I hated myself for not being in these people’s lives anymore to help them. I hated that I lost contact and wasn’t able to at least have had a conversation with them before they died.  I replayed the moments of each of their last minutes of breath in my head over and over until it physically made me sick.  One of the boys that passed away sat behind me in almost every class since 3^rd grade.  I remember seeing his sister get her stomach pumped in the middle of the mall because she drank an entire bottle of Jack Daniels. That disturbed me so much and I remember calling him to see what happened and if she was going to be okay. He was in sheer disgust with her actions. She ended up being okay, but that distaste he had for her actions somehow inverted to him ingesting lethal poison into his system which eventually swallowed him whole into the mouth of death.

The only thing is… as unfortunate and as grave as these situations were, these people essentially were acquaintances to me. They were in no means my best friends, nor at that point, even my party buddies anymore.  It was the idea I was so shattered about. It was the fact that the city that I called home had been infiltrated with toxic powder that was smoked down into tar and ingested into lungs or shot with a fucking needle into people’s precious veins; The lungs that give them a voice, the veins that give them the blood to live and accomplish dreams.  When you have no veins left in your arms, you begin to shoot up in other places.  What a disgrace to your own body.  That body was intended to do so much more then injecting shit into. 

There is a girl. This beautiful girl I once knew as a popular, lucky, gorgeous woman who could have been a model.  I got to know her in 10^th grade and she soon became super close with my best friends and me. We were a team, the best of friends.  I remember her as this hilarious girl who looked so tough on the outside because she talked a lot of shit and threatened a lot of people, but on the inside was a sweet, insecure, gorgeous human being.  She was just a good person.  She was a good friend too. We used to make fun of her because she couldn’t throw a punch for the life of her but in all honestly, was always so down to defend her friends no matter what.  I honestly was intimidated a little of her when we first met because she smoked so much weed, talked a little like a gangster, and had a really hard exterior. But as this girl’s shell was broken, out came an almost child like little thing. She ate so much, always had these snacks on her that you would put in your kid’s lunch pale.  In public, she hid in shyness behind her Sidekick phone.  In public, she was composed. In private, you couldn’t get enough of her.  She was SO girly, always with perfect hair and nails and eyelashes, but you’d walk into her house and she would let out a huge fart or laugh so hard she’d pee her pants.  She was just charming and loveable.  She was a loyal friend.  She had weaknesses, though just like the rest of us, that continued to be undealt with. Over time, again just like the majority of us, those issues became too heavy and she started to block them out with drug use. 

They teach you about marijuana in D.A.R.E. in elementary school. They say it is a gateway drug. Once you smoke it, you are more susceptible to trying other drugs.  Now that I am an experienced experimenter, I can say that is the truth.

Got a call recently. My once loyal friend was now loyal to a new best friend. This one though is killing her.  To walk in and see my once “thicker” friend now about a fatal 95 lbs with black bags under her eyes and thinning hair… sigh…I don’t think there is a worse feeling.  As she speaks, you see the demons in her just battling. Similar to an angel on one side and a devil on the other.  A piece of her is begging for help. The addiction side is begging for more and unfortunately the addiction is bigger then her and anyone who tries to stop it. At this point, she has become a professional manipulator, an emotionally vacant soul that just roams the earth looking for the next high. She has lost EVERYTHING. Job, boyfriend, friends, car, phone, and on the verge of losing the one thing that matters most; her family.

 I remember when Drew Gill passed away.  I didn’t cry until at the funeral I met his mom and hugged her. At that point I lost it.

It is against everything in nature for a parent to bury their child. My father grew up telling me, “No drug addict wakes up saying that they are going to accidentally overdose and die today.”  Parents aren’t given a manual on how to raise your child. Especially not a manual that says how to raise your drug addicted child. We watch episode after episode of Intervention. We yell at the television at the parents and the enablers to cut off the addict and take away everything from them.  It is not until now that it hits close to home and I understand the complexity of the arguement.

I think in my head how much I want her family to kick her out and take everything away. I think, "Of course once she’s realized she’s lost everything, she will want to get clean.” But when I get a phone call of a familiar voice of someone whom I care about saying, “I’m hungry and cold, can you please get me?” when i know its 55 degrees outside and they are wearing nothing but a mini dress and have no money for anything to help them get through the night, no roof over their head, and you have NOTHING except the fragile voice on the other line of the phone on the verge of death and the knowledge that they have run out of money to get loaded although are probably still high from smoking heroine a few hours ago. 

What about when you get the same call and it is your own flesh and blood of a child that you have raised? The infant that grew in your belly and came out and has your eyes and as she ages has your qualities and shares your interests…someone who you have invested all of your time and money into so they can survive…someone who you taught yes and no too….someone who you thought you infused your morals into…only to realize that this person is a danger to the rest of your family, to yourself, and to herself.  I can only imagine that everything that is in you emotionally is yanking and pulling you to deny reality but intellectually you are screaming to get help for her.  And the angst that comes because she doesn't want it.

As a friend, I want to cut her off. I want to not pick up the phone calls and make the long drives to buy a meal.  But when I get that call, I hear the same girl who was my best friend in high school. The girl who loves Hello Kitty and who can’t throw a punch…the same girl who loves snacks, who brings out the child like qualities in me.  I want to help that girl. But she’s not her anymore and that's easy to forget.

What about her parents? How hard it must be. They receive that call and think about their baby. Their little girl that they raised from infanthood.  They probably remember her learning to ride a bike or playing in the sand.  I’m sure they remember the little girl before adolescence, the good years.  Why wouldn’t you want to come to her rescue when she needs you the most?  How are you supposed to cut that baby off?

Yes, she is not herself now. She is possessed by heroin.  Still, we know who she could be and what potential she has if she can just fight this monster.

I’ve never been a fan of death. In fact there is a sting that comes with even the thought of death. It is unbearable, irreversible, and unavoidable because everyone dies.  We will all loose everyone at one point or another.  I just wish that the avoidable deaths were more obvious to the people who are responsible for avoiding the death. 

I hold onto my dreams so tight because “Without dreams the people perish.”  If I loose track of where I am going and what I want, I am in no better position than my dear friend.  I keep telling myself to have hope.  That hope is for her and the boy I had a crush on in 9^th grade and the drug dealer I had when I was hooked on coke and the guy with the tattoos that I once shared a bottle of Jager with and all of the other victims of the devil’s drug.  Santa Clarita has been engulfed and I am trying to stay afloat treading water for the sake of my city that I call home. 

Both of my uncles died from drugs.  My uncle Randy was supposed to go to law school and the day before he was supposed to start, my mom walked in and found him dead on the couch of a heroin overdose. If you choose to use this drug, you will get hooked, and rarely will you make it out. So please, out of selflessness to the people who love you, please don’t.

This game of Russian Rullette takes too many lives.