.png)
Before I start this chapter, I would like to pay my respects to a young man we lost to addiction this past Tuesday, 5/12/2020.
A young man that I went to school with and knew in the dope game as well.
Dylan.
You were only 27.
Your birthday was just next week.
You were a very talented kid back in school. Very smart.
Although you'd make fun of my Converse shoes only to wear them the following year and always purposely hit me in dodgeball, and you thought my drawings were so good, you stole them and claimed them as your own. You laughed at me when I tried to tell everyone they were mine. But when no one was looking, we'd talk about music and you showed a kindness no one else had shown a weird 13-year-old outcast.
I'll never forget that.
I remember the Incubus and Deftones shirts you used to wear all the time in school. That's how I knew that you were like me. You didn't fit in with the preppy kids either. I liked that about you.
Many years later, our paths met again in a very dark place. As I was just getting clean, you reached out to me. You had almost tempted me to go back to the game, but instead, you were happy I got clean and told me to stay away.
You told me you were trying to get involved with some really fucked up people... It broke my heart to hear it. You didn't belong with them.
You had lost yourself to the drugs I had just escaped.
What were you running from?
I was hoping you'd get clean. I reached out a few times to check in on you, but I never got a response.
You decided that the drugs were too much of a burden to bear. Maybe you thought you'd never escape. Maybe you got yourself into a situation you couldn't safely get out of.
We lost you to your addiction, but not by the drugs, but by your own hand.
You had a lot to offer the world, but you left us earlier than planned.
I hope that your soul is resting in peace.
That maybe you've finally found that euphoric high you had chased for so long.
It breaks my heart to know that you were in a place where the drugs had consumed you to the point of no return. I have been there. I know that the pain you felt in your last moments.
You will not be forgotten, but you will not be remembered as the addict who had a burden too hard to bear, no. You will be remembered for everything you were, not the mistakes you had made. The person you really were inside.
Rest easy. There is nothing to hide from anymore.
🔴 TRIGGER WARNING - DRUG USE 🔴
"I'm sorry I left you like that. Jackie wanted me to tell you she was sorry if she scared you or anything."
"It's fine, man. It was just a lot. I didn't feel safe, so I hauled ass as soon as I could."
"I didn't mean to put you in that kind of situation."
"It's fine. Really. I just would rather not talk about it."
Levi and I were going out to pick up Gio. I had gone home to sleep awhile and went right back out. Gio said he could get Troy to let us back in the house, but I wasn't so sure of that. I drove up to Walmart and picked him up from the front entrance and drove aimlessly through the parking lot for a minute until I was sure we could go.
"So what's your plan? Have you even talked to him?"
"I've talked to Danni. She said he's calmed down a bit and I can stop by for a minute if I wanted to."
"So she said you can come by. Not us. What if she doesn't let us in?"
"She will. He will get over it, he knows he needs the money coming in anyway so he'll open back up soon no matter what."
"I don't know," said Levi as he flicked a cigarette out of the window. "He still thinks I stole his shit, he's probably not too happy with me."
"It's fine, y'all are with me. It's good. Let's just go to their place and see what happens. The worst they can do is tell us to leave again."
"Yeah but the whole time I've been gone it's been a shit show."
"Well stop hanging out with the wrong people."
"They are your people! Y'all's people! What do you mean wrong people? We're all wrong people!"
Gio sighed and sat back in the seat. "You'll figure it out eventually."
I drove to Troy's house. I knew they saw my car on the cameras as soon as I turned in. I was honestly worried he wouldn't let us come back. I wanted to go back. I needed to go back.
I parked in front of the house and followed Gio up the stairs, followed by Levi. He knocked and patiently waited for an answer. Finally, Danni came to the door and let us in. She smiled and gave me a hug as soon as I saw her.
"I'm so glad you're back, Em. I've missed you!"
"I'm happy to be here, but is Troy okay with this? Is he still upset with us?"
"He's in a bad mood, but just ignore him. He let you come in, so that's a start. He's locked himself in the bedroom though. Y'all just stay out here. Make yourselves at home! I'll be back out in a minute."
Danni left us in the living room and went to her bedroom, locking the door behind her. I sat on the couch and pet all the dogs while Gio and Levi started setting up a few rigs. I saw Levi pull out a third one. For a second, I didn't think much of it, but then I realized that Gio didn't know. Did he know? Did Levi tell him? He didn't say anything until Levi handed it over to me.
"Here, you might want to go to the bathroom so they don't see you."
"Hold up. Emily. Since when did you start bumping it?"
"I...uh... Maybe two weeks ago. I haven't done it very much. I... Don't even know how..."
I saw the disappointment on his face, followed by frustration. I feel like I let them down, but they were already doing it, so what did it matter? It's not like I was some monster now that I started shooting up.
"You are shooting up, but don't know how? What do you mean?"
"I've had other people do it for me."
"Who?!"
I looked over at Levi and looked away. I didn't say anything. I didn't want to call him out and start an argument, but he seemed to figure it out anyways.
"Levi, what the fuck man?"
"Hey, she told me she was already doing it before I ever did it for her!"
"It's true, he wasn't the first."
He shook his head in obvious disappointment as he got off of the couch and walked to the bathroom. He peeked his head out and motioned me to follow. I grabbed my point and followed him in.
"Let me see your arms. I'm not doing this for you, but I'll help you."
I held out my arms to him. He looked and poked around for a minute before he let out a deep sigh.
"You don't have the veins for this. You really don't."
"What do you mean?" I said angrily. I was frustrated because I wanted this. I wanted to shoot up like everyone else. I was tired of feeling left out.
"I mean you have small veins. It's going to be hard. Levi! Come in here."
Levi popped into the bathroom where he also examined my arms under the bright florescent lights. If he could hit me in the dark, surely he could do it in here. He grabbed a tourniquet from his back pocket and put it on my arm while Gio tapped my inner elbow. They were mumbling to each other about where to hit me when Troy walked in.
We all froze as soon as we noticed him. He stopped for a second in silence, then stomped back into his room without saying a word and slammed the door behind him.
"Oh shit. He didn't know, did he?" Gio asked.
I shook my head. I took the tourniquet off and handed it back to Levi. I walked into the living room and sat on the couch. I covered my head with my hands and tried to disappear. I felt like my dad had walked in on me doing drugs. Like I was about to be in trouble or get a lecture.
Gio and Levi did their doses and came back to sit with me. We were silent together for a while before he came back out of the room. He walked over to me and sat on the coffee table.
"What the fuck, Emily. You leave for two weeks and you're shooting up?"
I just looked down at the floor. I didn't know what to say to him. He was right. It had only been two weeks since he kicked us out and my whole world had turned upside down.
"You did it didn't you?" he asked, gesturing at Levi.
"Like I told Gio, she told me she was already doing it."
"So it was you!"
"It wasn't me! I just found out!"
"Who did it, Emily?" he asked in a very disappointed dad type of tone.
"I don't remember his name, but I don't know him very well."
"It was my cousin," Levi said. "I didn't know he was doing it either."
"God damnit. You know there's no coming back from this, right? You don't know what demons you just allowed into your life. Give me her point. Emily, follow me."
Gio handed him the point he was holding on to and I followed him into his room where he slammed the door behind him.
"Sit on the bed."
I hopped up on the bed, shaking and nervous at the thought of what might happen.
"Danni! Come here. Emily, I want you to tell her what's going on. She's going to have a lot to tell you."
She walked out of the bathroom and saw the point in his hand. She looked at me with the same sad look everyone else had.
"Emily, what do you have to tell me?"
"I... I started... I..."
"She's shooting up, Danni."
"Honey, I thought you said you were never going to go down that road?"
"I did. I... I just got tired of feeling left out, you know? I don't know anyone anymore who just smokes it. I feel stupid and weird. Like I'm a kid who can't sit at the grown-ups table. I know that's a weird analogy because it's fucking meth, but... I just wanted to see. Everyone said it felt different, but honestly, I didn't feel anything unusual."
"Oh, you'd know. You'd feel it. They must have missed," Troy said with his arms crossed, still holding the point, adding something to it.
Danni sat down on the bed next to me. She was silent for a few moments. I felt like I let everyone down and I hated it. We were all drug addicts. We were all doing the same thing, but I felt like I crossed a line and I was starting to feel bad for everything I've done.
"Em. There's no going back. Once you put that into your veins, it consumes you. You will never be the same again. I have five kids, did you know that? Do you see any of them here with me? No. You don't. It's because I have chosen drugs over my own children, Emily. I was able to at least be some kind of mom until I started shooting up. After the first time, it changed me. I'm not even a fraction of the person I used to be. I'm only 28 and I look like I'm 40. It has taken everything from me. If I could go back and stop myself from ever using a needle, I would. I would take it all back, but it's too late for me."
She slowly got up and went into the living room, leaving just me and Troy in the bedroom.
"Did you like it?"
"Like what?" I asked.
"The high. You said you didn't feel any different."
"I mean, no not really. I was kind of bummed out, to be honest."
"Let me see your arms."
Once again, I held out my arms. He grabbed one in each hand, turning them from side to side.
"They really fucked you up, look at that!"
He pointed to all the red spots on my arms. I knew that was from picking at my skin, but I didn't say anything about it.
"Well, you're about to find out how it really feels. From now on, I am the only one who shoots you up. Do you understand me?"
"Uh, yeah, yes sir."
My heart started racing as I saw him uncap the needle. This was really happening. This was for real. I was scared. I wanted to say no, but I couldn't manage to get anything out. He sat down next to me and laid my arm in his lap. He poked my inner elbow twice with his fingers and readied the needle.
"Welcome to hell," he said as he poked the needle into my skin.
I watched as he pulled up the plunger. Blood filled the syringe, then he slowly pushed it in until it was all gone. He took it out and smiled.
"You alright?"
Suddenly my whole body got hot. The room spun, and his words became incoherent sounds. My body felt disconnected from reality. This was a feeling I had never experienced before. I started to cough. I tried to raise my hands to my mouth, but I couldn't move. Everything was in slow motion.
"Danni! Move this stuff off the bed and lay a pillow down quick."
I could barely hear Troy talking to Danni. It sounded like they were yelling down a tunnel miles away.
"Lay back, it's okay."
I saw Danni for a brief second before I felt myself fall backward on to the bed. I stared up into the light which felt incredibly blinding.
"Turn the lights off!" I heard someone yell.
I laid there in a mix of hot dizziness, numbness, and euphoria. So this is what it was like. This was something I never felt before. After what seemed like an hour, I was finally coming back down to where I could move and talk.
"How much did you give her?"
"30."
"30!? Troy! You could have given her a heart attack!"
Troy laughed maniacally. I tried to sit up and saw another man at the end of the bed. I thought I was hallucinating because it wasn't Troy, Gio, or Levi.
"She's fine, she just had her first dose." I heard Troy say to the mystery man. Apparently, in the midst of my rush, someone had come by to buy some dope from Troy.
They both laughed. He asked how I was feeling and all I could do was give him a shakey thumbs up. I was able to steady my wobbly arms enough to sit up. The room was still spinning, my body still tingling, but I felt a high that I had never experienced before. I felt like I could do anything. It was like a drug-induced adrenaline rush.
"So, you ever going back to smoking it again?"
"Oh hell no," I said through slurred words.
"Welcome to the club. You going to try to walk?"
"I-I don't... know if... If I can."
"Here, I'll help you in the living room."
He pulled me up out of the bed and up on two feet. I felt like my legs were going to give out on me, but I made my way to the couch where I sat down and looked over at Gio. I smiled, but his eyes got huge when he looked at me like he saw a ghost.
"How much did-"
"30!" Danni yelled from the kitchen.
"Dude, we only had 10 for her!"
"I know," said Troy as he walked off to the bedroom.
"Are you okay? How do you feel?"
"I feel fucking incredible."
"I bet you do. You should see yourself."
"Do I look bad??"
"No, but you couldn't pass for clean and sober if your life depended on it."
I reached into my back pocket and slowly pulled my phone out. I turned on the front-facing camera and took a good look at myself. The color from my eyes was completely gone. I blinked a few times and really got a good look. My pupils were huge. Bigger than they had ever been. I was higher than I had ever been before.
"Oh shit, look at me."
"Yeah, you look like a junkie."
"Hey, that's kinda fucked up."
"Em. We're all junkies here. I'm just glad I was here for your first time. I mean, your first real time I guess. Did you feel like this the other times they hit you?"
"Not at all, not even close. I didn't really feel anything. I got a little hot and I felt high like I normally do, but now this. Not even close."
"Yeah, well this is what it's really like. Do you like it?"
"Yes! It's so different than smoking it. I never imagined that it felt like this. See, y'all tried telling me it was awful and would make me a horrible person, but I feel great. I have honestly never felt better in my entire life."
"Just wait, it will happen."
"I feel like I need to change though, these clothes are too much."
"Oh god, another Danni. Well, I'll be here when you're done in 3 hours."
"I'm just changing!"
I got up off the couch with ease. The dizziness subsided and I was left with an incredible amount of energy and unmovable joy. I skipped into Danni's room and asked her for the clothes she had put back for me before all of this started. She pointed to a small pile in the bathroom and I started digging through it.
I tried on about 10 different outfits, but none of them seemed to work for what I wanted. Apparently Danni did the same thing when she was high. She was always changing clothes. Troy shrugged it off as a woman's thing. After almost an hour of searching and matching, I decided on a crop top and a long, bright orange skirt. Although it was only about 35° F outside and I was dressed like it was summer, I was still burning up. I guess it was a part of it.
I ran across the house, spun in the living room to show off my skirt to Gio, and ran outside. It was raining and cold, but I danced across the driveway, spinning and twirling. I felt like a ballerina. I was so overloaded with such good feelings, I didn't know what else to do with myself.
I prayed that I'd never come down. This was the best feeling I had ever had in my life. As I was spinning and singing, I caught a glimpse of Gio standing on the stairs, smiling at me.
"You're a strange person, you know that?"
"Yes! And I love it! What's the point of life if you're not going to be a little strange sometimes?"
He shrugged and sat down on the stairs. He watched as I literally lost my mind to the overpowering feeling of drugs coursing through my veins. Every passing minute he looked sadder and sadder. I stopped my impromptu dance routine and sat by him.
"What's wrong?"
"This isn't forever. Enjoy this while you can, because you'll never get it back. The high you have now is the high you will chase for the rest of your life. This will be the high that breaks you. I mean, I love seeing you all bright and happy. It's definitely a unique thing to see in the dope game, but one day you're going to regret it. It may not be for a year or five, but you will. I hate that you went down this path, but there's nothing you can do now. It's been done. Like Troy said, you don't know what demons you just let come into your life."
"I really don't understand what you're saying. I know it comes from a place of concern, but I'll be fine. I'm not going to go crazy, that's not who I am."
"Yeah, I hope not."
We headed back inside as the rain started to come down harder and the dirt beneath my bare feet turned into mud. I sat on the couch and just looked around, thankful for where I was and the people I was with. This was the life. This was everything I wanted. No stress, no bills, no worries at all. Just riding the wave of being high.
I never wanted it to end.
Wow, so this chapter really got to me. I really had to sit and replay the scene in my head over and over when Troy shot me up for the first time. I had to put myself back in that place and remember exactly how it felt. It has really put me in a hard spot mentally. To be honest, for a split second, I thought that I really wanted that again. I shook that thought as quickly as it came, but it's a struggle.
The feeling when you first shoot up is called a rush, and I think I have explained it in a previous chapter, but I can't remember. Basically, if it's good dope, you'll cough. It's a dry cough. You will immediately feel hot all over. Your body basically goes limp. If you're standing, you will collapse. I've seen it happen. You lose your ability to speak for a short time, everything starts spinning, there's doubles or triples of everything you see. People talking don't make sense. It can last anywhere from a minute to 15 or more minutes. The more you do, the more powerful it is.
Once the rush passes, you have an extreme high that lasts longer than any high you get by smoking. You stay up longer, have more energy, but also are quicker to get hallucinations and other bad side effects.
I was what they call a rush junkie. From the beginning, my main enjoyment was the rush. It didn't matter how high I was, when the rush was over, I wanted more. I wanted to stay in that immobilized state when everything was intensified tenfold. This led me to do more dope than Troy, who had been doing it for 20+ years. I'll get to all that later on.
This is where things really started to decline, and decline rapidly. A LOT of things happen over the next three months. Basically, I was smoking for 3 months, and shooting up for 3 months. I used for a total of 6, almost 7 months. I know the timeline can be a little wonky, but it's about early November right now. If I remember right... Time isn't exactly a thing when you're a tweaker and it's hard to remember what month it was that all this stuff happened.
Anywho, a lot of stuff is going down very soon. As I said, this was a huge turning point for me, but not in a good way.