The Last Christmas Before I Got Sober

17 Years Ago Today...Disaster and Sobriety

I slumped into the well-worn sofa that stank of stale cigarettes and bad coffee, trying to concentrate on the movie fed into the 20 year-old television by a cantankerous VCR, "The Mask" with Jim Carrey. It was the first time I'd laughed in months, identifying with the main character who vascillated between a seemingly normal man and an outrageous creature, trying to figure out real from fantasy. Part of this had been clarified for me on the ride to detox. My best friend revealed he wasn't who I thought he was. 21 Jump Street shit. In a short time, I'd gone from seemingly shy Redondo Beach surfer and Hollywood velvet rope party boy to a pathetic junkie pariah. All told, I was on meth for 25 months...25 months of hell. I'd also become tangled in a complicated sting operation.

I was having a rough detox from the concoction of crystal meth and whatever my dealer had been mixing with it...probably heroin as I'd been throwing up blood next to the smack addicts along with horrible cramps, chills and sweats. I thought back over my using the last few months, namely wanting to lie down after a big line or hit of my drug of choice. It wasn't supposed to do that.

The day before, my best friend drove me to Cider House Detox in Metropolitan State Hospital, the place Marylin Monroe's mother languished for years. It was a warm day but I kept my window up. The wind was painful. Addicts understand this. I wasn't prepared for his revelation on the newly opened Century Freeway, "The 105" to non-natives.

"I don't know how to tell you this...I work with..." an undercover drug enforcement agency, said my friend...we'll call him Bill. "We set up surveillance in the upstairs apartment across the street from your dealer the day he got out of prison." As shocking as it was, I realized in that moment that he was telling me something I already knew. I'd been in such denial and had crossed the line of not caring what happened to me.
"Am I going to jail?" I asked. 
 "We watched you come and go like a freight train, 3 and 4 times a day, but nobody cares about your quarter ($20 bag) buyin' ass," he chuckled.
 From what I could piece together, 3 dealers and a bunch of other people were about to be taken down. "You picked a really good time to go to rehab." Months before, one dealer in the network said "He's a fucking cop, don't ever bring him over here." 

Bill had befriended me, used with me, and I realized at the end that he'd fallen for me. A few months before, I told him "they" were after me and he gave me a Glock 9mm hand gun and showed me how to use it. "It's yours." I admit, it was really pretty. Shortly after, I almost shot my boyfriend after 41 days of no sleep. Yes, I once stayed up 41 days. One time I found what appeared to be a bug in my apartment. The kind of tangible evidence meth heads rip up floorboards and remove light fixtures looking for. An addict babbling about someone watching him is hardly original, so of course nobody listened to me.

This was far from the first bullet I dodged in my life. Bill visited me a couple weeks later in residential treatment. We went for a ride in his car and he told me that everyone had been busted. Then he got something over his cop radio, drove me back to rehab at post-legal speed and dumped me off. I never saw him again. I tried his number and he wouldn't return my calls. Shortly after that it was disconnected. By then I'd digested our relationship...including his sexual overtures. He must have had a thing for junkies. No, I never fucked him. Aside from using me to gain access to my dealer, he was kind to me, making sure I had enough to eat, cigarettes, whatever else I needed. And of course he sent me repeatedly to buy dope. I remember something about Bill asking me to leave a beer can in my dealer's house. Beer cans were everywhere in "Fred's" apartment, he never removed them. He also, unlike most junkies, left his curtains and windows wide open. I'm sure this made Bill's job much easier.

One night we were out driving in Bill's...anonymous 4-door sedan (was I dense or what!?) and he pointed out a black van with some serious antennae sticking out of the roof and back doors, like something out of a sci-fi movie. "They're listening to the whole town." Later I realized why he said it and that he'd given me clues. A couple months into our relationship, he'd told me of going on a "ride along" with a drug enforcement unit and the smell of "pure adrenaline" as the agents bailed out the door to do a bust. I wondered for a long time why he'd done this, probably for my own protection. He wanted me to get away from those scumbags so I didn't get killed. I once caught him with a strange device, measuring current in the electrical outlets in my 1920's studio apartment. After that, I removed all the switch plates and put duct tape over the outlets. Shortly after that I removed all the light bulbs.

I did 8 days in detox, 3 months in residential treatment and 7 weeks in sober living. A week after I moved into my own apartment, two 6'4" or so undercover dudes showed up on my doorstep. They looked at me for a second, one shook his head and said "never mind" and left. By then I'd put on 30 pounds, my skin looked normal, I was a person again.

The twisted chapter of the last year of my addiction is something I'm still putting together, trying to separate fact from paranoia. Most meth addicts will talk about "them" watching, which could be law enforcement, neighbors, employers, evil spirits, monsters...for a little while I thought there were robotic birds outside my window. What I knew at the end...I was the monster.

In the gay community, crystal meth is seen by some as a glamorous drug that offers visible abs and sexual freedom. In reality, it's a demon, consuming everything in its path, not satisfied until the user is 6 feet under. Haven't crouched in the corner, pulling your hair out for 22 hours until you have a 3" bald spot on your head? Keep going and you will, or something equally humiliating. I used to look in the mirror and sob. I'd become unrecognizable, inside and out. People would cross the street when they saw me coming. I could have easily ended up in prison or dead. The fact that my sanity has (mostly) returned is a miracle.

I have a wonderful life today. People have no idea I was a junkie unless I tell them. Aside from my nasal tissue being hosed, I'm healthy. I'm employed, have a great husband and a beautiful home. I do things and go places I never thought I would. I have the life I never knew I wanted, and honestly better. But the most important part is this: I'm free.