Where is the cave where the wise woman went And tell me where is all the money that I spent? I propose a toast to my self-control See it crawling helpless on the floor Someday there’ll be a cure for pain And that’s the day I throw my drugs away —Morphine, “Cure for Pain,” 1993
Stack of 20 20s on the kitchen table. Too fucked up to go out and cop. Just crapped my pants. Third time since sunrise. An hour ago–five hours ago, I don’t know–lurching into the john. Another bout of heaving. Didn’t make it. Burning stomach acids spewed all over the hallway.
Hitting bottom. Pulling cash off credit cards. Ten grand of the most overpriced greenbacks this side of la Cosa Nostra. Most of the 50 Gs, savings from the Fuck You Fund. Souring beyond consolation on journalism. Years of free-lancing on the side like a lunatic. Stashing bucks away like an immigrant. Buy my way into a new way of life.
Great puking Jesus! Gonna barf again. Dry heaves. Vile bile. Wham! Jolt of panic. Flop sweat flowing. Got a five-page story due in the AM. Should have filed on Friday. Too loaded Thursday to tickle them ivories. Phoning my editors with lame excuses for a month now.
Drop the jive, junkie. Don’t dope-fiend a dope fiend. Who are you fooling? Not me, friend. Not anymore. Kick for what? To get hooked again a week, two weeks, a month later? Run up another big, fat jones? Like every time before?
No! That means treatment. You’ll bust yourself. No more job. No more secrets. This is a big one, bro. Excuse me, Mr. Editor, one of your staff correspondents is a stone dope fiend. Recovery? They’ll make you change. Make you go to 12-step meetings. Bummer. Can’t do that. Can’t do that? That’s a bummer? What’s this, a day in the country?
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A new friend of mine, a retired veteran of the drug wars, sorts users into two broad categories. “Sheep to slaughter” pop any old handful of pills, no questions asked. “Mad scientists” research the hell out of their chemicals–and pontificate ad nauseam on what they think they know. An anything-goes garbagehead who memorized the PDR, given as often as not to scooping all of the poop on his dope only after sampling it, I guess I’ve always been a sort of hybrid: “Mad scientist to slaughter.” Call me Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hydromorphone.
