DOSE:

repeated

insufflated

Methamphetamine

(powder / crystals)

BODY WEIGHT:

165 lb

It was the summer of love for me, 2002. I'd had the girl of my dreams for a year and a half by then. We were finally getting out of my parents and into our own place. Although the problem began long before then, I never really noticed until one early Monday around seven in the a.m., prime time for any real tweaker. But I'll get to that in a minute, just hang in there.

I don't know if the background really matters, but I'll give it to you anyway. I've done quite a few bad things in my life, and put way too many bad things into my body. Not nearly as many as some, but definitely more than most. MDMA, MDE, MDEA, TFMPP, BZP, shrooms, LSD, N20, cocaine, meth, alcohol, the infamous Delta-9 THC, DXM, and unfortunately crack. I did the Devil Powder for the first time at a party with the then love of my life. To be honest, I didn't know what I'd done till afterwards, when I noticed the intense burning and said, quite surprised, 'That wasn't coke, was it?' My love laughed (We'll call her N) and said, 'What'd you think it was, silly? Bath crystals?' I chuckled and for the next 12 hours proceeded to have the time of my life. But it didn't end there. What ever does?

N and I held off for quite some time. I'll never really know how long but it doesn't make a difference either way. At some point during 2002 we started snorting it on a fairly regular basis. Then, somewhere down the road, it became frequent, and, of course, it migrated to damn near all the time when we got our place in June of that year. I can remember quite clearly having a baggie as we unpacked our things that beautiful evening, completely unaware of how things would end up.

We were smoking it by then, never considering the possibility that we might have a problem.

It's funny how things change while your busy planning how things are going to change, know what I mean? How we didn't notice I will never know. I was sleeping less than 2 hours every few days. At the time, I worked nights and so did she. N went to her job around 6 pm while I would leave around 9 or 10. She'd speed out of there and I'd try to take a nap within the hour, rarely making it happen. Usually, I'd just hop out of the bed every half hour to smoke a few cigarettes. Rinse, wash, repeat. All summer long. I can easily say I was awake for close to 9/10ths of those few months. We'd go to the pool in the morning, go shopping, hang around the apartment, building it up to the way we wanted to be. But things started to get weird, as they so often do.

One morning, I came home from work around four and she was there crouched over the living room floor, the couch pulled from the wall and our floor lamp angled downward. I'll never forget it. She was in her silk fairy pattern pajamas, nothing but a bra on above that. The first thing I noticed was how much weight she'd lost, as her spine tried to push through her skin ferociously. I asked what she was doing down there and she said, nonchalantly, 'I think we dropped some earlier. I want to find it.' I told her that even if she did find some, it wouldn't be enough to do anything. She just shrugged her bony shoulders and kept at it, scanning the berber carpet slowly. The look on her face was so...well, I don't have the words. She used that look for other things too, things I can't put into words or explain. But its always been special to me. Funny thing about that incident, I didn't really think much of it.

Weeks later, on a Monday morning, it hit me. We were driving to get more, about seven o'clock. Planning to go roughly thirty miles for it and paying twenty dollars more than it was worth for stuff that barely even worked, I parked my car in a gas station and said, 'What the fuck are we doing?' She asked want I meant and I said that we had a problem. She dismissed it, like she always did with so many things. That's just the way she was, laid back kinda go with flow type of girl. I called our guy and told him to forget it. She didn't argue, maybe because she knew, and we drove home.

But nothing is ever that simple.

I don't remember how much later it was. But I over did it one night. Smoking way more than I was used to. We sat down to watch a movie and the second I hit a bowl of dank, I knew I'd screwed up. It came on the way you think of airplane turbines kicking in. That loud, obnoxious, whirring sound that just keeps getting louder and louder with every moment. It was my heart, and it was starting to beat out of my chest, faster and faster. N was resting her head near mine, and she turned to ask me if I was alright. I almost said that I was, but shook my head instead. She nodded, 'I can hear your heart beating.' That freaked me out even more and I started panting and gasping for breath. N stood up quickly to get a glass of water for me, while I lay on the couch trying to calm myself down. Worst moment of my life. N says, 'Do you need to go to the hospital?' The most horrible thing was that I had to think about it. Did I? Had it really come down to this?

I didn't go that morning, and a good thing too, because I ended up okay...for then. I started having problems later on and eventually I caved and went to see doctor. Nothing too severe, just heart palpitations and an irregular heartbeat that will never go away. I disrupted something that day and more times after that when, for some reason, I just kept doing that nasty drug. I had two or three more scares after that, one of which felt like a heart attack and as dumb as I was, I still kept on the stuff right up until my chest wouldn't stop getting tighter and the mental disturbances began. I won't go into that though. I don't want to. But I can say that I know how it feels to think I’m going insane. I can't count the number of times I almost hooked myself up with a psychiatrist.

I guess you could say I'm okay now. I'm starting a company pretty soon and I don't do drugs anymore except for the alcohol, which I will readily admit I have a problem with. That's another story, however. As much hell as my previous drug problems have put me through, I can't say I don't miss it. The fact is I simply can't do them anymore for two reasons: one being, stimulants send my heart on a rollercoaster of crazy, furious beatings. I can't even drink coffee anymore.

The second reason is that I can't handle it. I'll still smoke a bowl here and there, but only if I'm drunk first because otherwise I'll have a panic attack. So here I am, on the verge of adulthood despite the fact that I'm already there. It's bizarre sometimes, to look in the mirror and still see a drug addict. To still see who I used to be. I wish I could remember the guy I was before I hit that first joint behind that tattered fence so many years ago. I will never again know how it feels to be all together. I destroyed something inside me sometime during one of my numerous mistakes. I will never be the same again and I sure as hell miss the kid I once was.

As for N and I? She changed too. Was it the drugs we did during our time together? Maybe, perhaps even probably. It's funny how you can miss who someone used to be while not missing who they are at the moment. Her in those blue Jincos. Her with that aura of pure fire. That girl's gone forever, lost always. But I still think of her and I won't forget who she was any more than I'll forget who I once was. I often find myself pondering: Does she ever think of that eighteen year old I met under that April afternoon? Does she miss her as much as I do? The best parts came and went, and for all the time we spent in heaven together, neither of us really appreciated what we had or the things we said. Every now and then, you meet someone so perfect, so inexplicably compatible, that after enough time passes you quit noticing the magic of it all and simply sink into complacency. That's when everything starts to fade. That fleeting instant where I think to myself:

What happened to the girl I met that day in the sunshine, and could it ever really be the same again?

I didn't mean for this to turn into some silly love story about some guy none of you reading this will ever meet. But sometimes that's the way it goes. She was everything I ever wanted and we ruined it, possibly over the course of one, fucked up summer of constant drug use and overwhelming perfection just too right to handle properly. But I'll always have my memories of this woman I once knew, way back when a summer night could last forever and a simple gaze could set me free.

I'll know it's now or never
To be free of this forever
Your voice calling softly from the undertow
'Are you truly ready, sweetest?
Can you really let this go?'
-- Me

I'm so sorry. For everything.

Exp Year: 2002	ExpID: 34070
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Nov 27, 2006	Views: 14,545
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Methamphetamine (37) : Addiction & Habituation (10), Poetry (43), Relationships (44), Retrospective / Summary (11), Various (28)