October 18, 2013
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In between addressing it and sticking it in the mailbox, I scribbled some shit on the back of an envelope while smoking a cigarette. Seven months ago, I wrote a note in my phone that said, “I’ll get to that landfill one day.” I don’t remember what the fuck that means, but I remember that it was really funny at the time! Now… not so much. Eh.
October 17, 2013
The sixth piece from “The Weak End” series. Says: “What you call success looks like success. It isn’t. It’s a lowering of the bar. And that’s my fucking chair.”
I’m going to try something different today. Normally, I force myself to keep the focus on myself. I force myself to not write about other people. I also force myself to look at what’s really going on when I’m upset. I think that (a lot of the time) this makes for good mental health and boring fucking reading. So, today, let’s try something different: here’s a rant’s worth of petty bullshit about total nonsense! (Followed by just a little bit of reflection).
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“Graduation” from Tranquil Shores (and plenty of other places like it) involves a ceremony called a “coining.” To coin out, you’ve gotta complete every item on your treatment plan. The coining is in recognition that you’ve done everything that’s been asked of you and proven your commitment to your emotional well-being and continued success. It’s a big deal.
Or so they fucking say.
I coined out last week. The number of people that came out to it and the things that they had to say [everyone in attendance at a coining speaks] left me humbled and speechless. And in all honesty, I didn’t think that I’d ever actually get there. I had been in treatment before but I had never not been kicked out. But even still – getting to coin out implies that there’s been a fundamental change from the person that you were when you checked in. It required a lot more than just not being so unbearable of an asshole that you’re actually forced to leave. Was I even capable of fundamental change? I had been a piece of shit for a long time and I had serious doubts. But something was different this time. I did change. I trudged through shit and hell long before I got here and I brought a lot of it with me so I could continue to step in shit even while I was here. It’s supposed to be a three month program but it took me seven – but that’s exactly how much time I needed; I couldn’t have gone any faster. What matters is that I did the work I was terrified to do and I got better. Actually getting to coin out meant a lot to me. It was the biggest fucking day of my life.
But this girl… They say that to coin-out you have to prove that you’re “willing to go to any lengths.” Less than a week after arriving, she decided that she wasn’t willing to do inpatient treatment. She’d stay but only if she could be an outpatient. That doesn’t sound like “any lengths” to me. And what was she here for? Her primary issue wasn’t with alcohol or drugs but with codependency. She was dating some guy that was also secretly dating other girls, telling each that she was the only one. And she had a stalking problem. So he’d lie about what he was doing, she’d spend hours following him around all day and night, find him going out with other girls and/or over to their homes, confront him, they’d have a huge blowout argument, make up, and then the same god damn thing would happen the very next day. Again and again. Even while she was in treatment! She continued to do this shit. That’s why she wanted to be outpatient, I’m sure. Throughout her time at Tranquil Shores, she was told consistently that this guy wasn’t healthy and that she couldn’t be healthy either so long as she stayed with him. Every now and again, she’d break it off but she’d always start stalking or dating him again (usually both). And now she’s getting to coin out – and today we found out that they’re a fucking couple again. Because she invited him to the fucking ceremony. That’s absolutely equivalent to if I had pulled out a needle and shot heroin at my coining. It was a giant “fuck you” to all of the counselors that have worked with her on this and even to all of us, who have sat in group after group with her, listening to her talk about how it’s destroyed her life.
So why the fuck was this girl coining out? Because she put in three months? Big fucking deal. That’s how it works at a lot of other treatment centers but that’s not how it’s supposed to happen here. This cheapens the whole thing; it makes all the other coinings suddenly mean less. It’s like the time I spent studied like crazy for an exam that I knew we hadn’t really been prepared for. I got a 98% only to find out that since the second highest grade in the class was a 54%, everyone’s grade was getting bumped up by 46 points…. Except for mine of course – there’s no such thing as a 144%. So why the fuck did I bother to put all of that work in when these lazy dipshits that just show up and hope for the best get the same result?
And what the fuck, Matt? YOU KNOW THAT’S WHERE I ALWAYS SIT FOR ART GROUP.
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Okay… So I’ve struggled with how I wanted to present this piece for a long time because it is petty and it is childish and it is (in a sense) bullshit. Did I really feel that way about this situation? Yeah. Do I still have a hard time understanding why Tranquil Shores allows some people to coin out but not others? Totally. But does any of this have anything to do with me (or take away at all from my coining or my recovery)? Absolutely not.
Why did I put the work in? Because I fucking needed to to save my own life. Did we all get the same result? Of fucking course not! The coining is a ceremony to acknowledge the progress you’ve made – just like a grade is an acknowledgement of the things you’ve learned. But the coining itself isn’t progress just as a grade isn’t itself knowledge. We may both get 100% on the test and we might both coin out; that shit (on its own) means nothing. What matters is what’s in my head, in my heart, and in my fucking guts.
As for what’s in your head, heart, and guts… well, that’s none of my fucking business. And I’m not really in a position to make any kind of estimation on the subject (tempting as it (clearly) is) anyway.
And I forgive you for sitting in my chair, Matt. I found another one.
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In the unlikely event that the girl who coined out after me reads this, please don’t get bummed out about it. I actually think you’re alright. This is just some eight month old shit about me being crazy.
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“The Weak End” paintings
October 9, 2013
I don’t believe that drugs are always bad. Even drugs like heroin. I think drug use is a problem when it starts to cause problems. If you’re able to use heroin recreationally, sporadically: congratulations! Have at it! If it’s not draining your bank account, if you don’t ever develop a physical dependence, if your use isn’t destroying your personal relationships – well, I say, shoot up to your little heart’s content.
I did that for a while… Five and a half years. I can’t seem to pull that trick anymore though so – for me – the party’s over. I don’t take any drugs these days. Except for Adderall. Every day. Do I have attention deficit disorder? Um… yeah – sure, probably. [Whatever that means]. What’s important though is that it helps me; I do well with it.
Until I run out. In March, there was a hiccup in getting my prescription. [Adderall is controlled to the extent that a doctor needs to write a new prescription every single month]. I had been getting it from the doctor at Tranquil Shores, but I wasn’t in Tranquil Shores anymore. And once I actually run out, it gets even harder to get my prescription. I’m pretty debilitated by its absence in my system. (I’ve been on it for almost ten years). So I had been out for at least a few days and I was struggling to get out of bed or even move. If I’m being honest, part of this is probably psychological but – if that is the case – it’s a tough fucking psychological hurdle to overcome. I feel thoroughly drained.
I dragged myself to the edge of the mattress so I could reach at my backpack on the floor. And I stayed in that position (hanging off the side of the bed) painting or – more accurately -just swiping at the paper. Raising my arm and letting it fall. I wanted to be productive, I wanted to create, but I just didn’t have it in me. Eventually I found the strength to lift myself back onto the mattress and finish the piece with my pen.
You know – having written this all out – I come across as way more pathetic than I’d intended.
The caption says, “I remember when I had ideas. I remember when I had Adderall.”
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October 6, 2013
Delray Beach has more rehabs, halfway houses, and treatment institutions (of all kinds) than any other city. It’s the so-called “recovery capital of the world,” which – by default – also makes it the relapse capital of the world. While plenty go to Delray and get better, just as many go and get much, much worse. The streets of Delray are swarmed with young, drug-addled fuck-ups from all parts of the country, which is why I love to joke that it’s the real world correlate of the island in Pinocchio where bad kids go to be bad. I got to town the night of January 20, 2012 and met her the very next day.
But fast forward to the last time I ever saw her: August 1, 2012, when we left the St. Louis airport on separate planes. She flew to Minneapolis to check into her fifth rehab and I flew back to Miami to collect some things. When I wound up in rehab myself (just sixteen days later) I didn’t know if we’d ever see each other again. As was evident in the journal entries I wrote during my first weekend at Tranquil Shores, I was confused. I thought about her a lot but did I love her? I argued the point both ways with myself. Tranquil Shores allowed me limited use of my cell phone after a time and (while her facility didn’t) she managed to get a prepaid phone smuggled in. I was making big strides in my treatment and trying to play by the rules and I encouraged her to do the same. I told her our relationship was distracting both of us from our treatment. She disagreed and took offense. Our phone calls got to be less frequent, shorter, and more argumentative. When I found myself getting wrapped up in other girls and starting to recognize the full extent of my codependency, I decided that my relationship with her had been more of the same. We had been close enough that I – of course – cared about and loved her, but I decided that it wasn’t a romantic love and that we had only been drawn together by shared emotional defects.
On April 21, 2013, I had eight months clean and she was checking into rehab for the seventh time. I wrote her a letter and shared all the things I had done differently in my last round of treatment that I thought had finally made it count. I also explained our relationship to her: how we hadn’t really been in love but just had a kind of survivor’s bond from running the streets of south Florida for five months after being kicked out of treatment. She didn’t get the letter but saw it on her way out the door. (Her counselor tried to use it as a bargaining chip to get her to stay but to no avail). She left and called me. I was frustrated that she had walked out and I was tired of trying to help when she didn’t seem willing to help herself. Why the fuck would she leave treatment again? By even taking her phone calls and trying to be supportive whenever she’d put herself in situations like this, I was enabling her continued decline. My counselor advised that I set a boundary and I did. “Until you have three months clean, we can’t talk.”
A few weeks ago, I got a text message. Five months after I had set the boundary, she had her three months. Or so she said. I had my doubts but I decided to take her word for it and I’d like to believe that it’s the truth. I told her she could call and she did. She was initially combative (there were some resentments a full year in the making) but the conversation lightened as time passed and, ninety minutes in, she said she had something she needed to tell me. She thanked me and said she couldn’t imagine what might have happened to her had I not stuck with her when we were put out on the street. She said that I was exactly the person she needed at that point in her life and that – being just a little bit older, wiser, and more experienced – I had saved her from who-knows-what terrible fate. And she said that she wouldn’t be the person she is today had it not been for my presence and influence, which had proven to be both tremendous and positive.
My kneejerk (internal) reaction was that I was a piece of shit and that we had been nothing but bad for each other – that we had kept each other sick. I put that aside for the moment as she continued to speak. I was sort of dumbstruck by what I was hearing. These were not the kinds of words I’d expect from her. She had always been boastful, independent, and above everything. Nothing could touch her; nothing could shake her. Nobody could teach her anything because she already knew everything. That was the girl as I remembered her. Her words forced me to remember another girl though: a side of her that I hadn’t seen or thought of in a long time. In an instant, I realized that I was wrong to assume that I knew her mind better than she did; I was wrong to tell her that she hadn’t really been in love with me. I had impacted her life in ways that I had never really considered (or had at least forgotten about). She always played so tough and, even though I knew it was just a wall she used to protect herself, I had forgotten that the wall wasn’t so thick as to actually keep anything from ever making it through.
After we hung up, I thought about the reaction I had stowed after being floored and humbled by the impact of her words. I remembered something that I had told myself over and over in those days: that I had to stay with her because – as bad as things might have been with me – I knew that they’d be far worse without me. At the time, I thought I could actually save her (save both of us) and that we could get well together. While I was absolutely wrong on that point, I really did look out for her and things really would have been far worse for her had I not been there. That part was true. For everything that I had done wrong, I couldn’t (or shouldn’t) discount the good that I had done as well.
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Before we hung up that night, she also commissioned me to paint something for her. I’ve been working on it, off and on, ever since but I finally finished it last night. In making it, I reflected on our relationship, which now spans twenty months. Three incidents came to mind that struck me as being particularly significant. I journaled about them directly on the canvas but it’s so layered that most of my words were washed away by watercolors or obscured by acrylics or food coloring.
The first incident was a night I had forgotten about – a time when the question of our love’s authenticity was nowhere near my mind. It was late at night, storming, and we were parked in the lot at the treatment facility that had kicked us out a month prior. [The treatment center and patient residence were separate properties, so the building was empty; it was a place to park that we knew cops wouldn’t come around]. We were in the backseat, fooling around, and had stripped down to nothing. Then – at some point, for whatever reason – we got out of the car, totally naked and in spite of the sheets of rain that were slamming down on top of us. Standing upright, in that parking lot, in the middle of that storm, we had sex. If that sounds dirty or cheap or vulgar, it wasn’t. We may have been living like homeless, scummy, junkie street urchins – and maybe we were – but in that moment we were young, in love, and free – invincible. I felt like I had an amazing secret that the rest of the world would never know or understand. It was beautiful. I thought so then and – in that way – I still do.
The second was the day we ripped off a drug dealer and almost got ourselves killed. In anticipation of this entry’s length, I went ahead and wrote out that story two days ago in a separate entry. It’s a very different anecdote and has nothing to do with love or freedom; it’s just sad and desperate.
The third incident (and the only one of which my journals of are still somewhat visible on the canvas) was the recent phone call itself. It forced me, for the first time, to really look at and question the narrative I had constructed to explain (and discount) our relationship. Not only did she remind me that night that I don’t have things quite as figured out as I sometimes like to think, but also that truth is relative to the individual. I hate it when people try to tell me what I’m feeling and I was doing exactly that to her. I thought I was so reflective and enlightened when, in reality, I was being thoughtless, arrogant, and invalidating. Who was I to say that she wasn’t/had never been truly in love with me? Besides, what the fuck does that even mean? To be in love with someone. I think I know but does anyone ever really?
Maybe I was in love (and maybe I wasn’t). Whatever it was, I’m grateful for it – the good memories and the bad.
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Related entries/pieces:
October 4, 2013
So smart I got life lessons dripping out my asshole (also: charm); pay me (…?)
Expressive art. Self-deprecating humor. The ninth painting of ten in my series, “The Weak End.” If you’re at all familiar with my work, you’ve already read everything that I could possibly say about this painting or the two days over which I worked on it.
I do, however, have a new (almost-finished) painting that will be featured here soon. In presenting it, there are three stories that I’ll want to share. Were I to include them all in a single entry, it’d be a little overwhelming. So…
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The true story of my afternoon on April 28, 2012.
We met in a treatment facility that we had both transferred to from others. It was from her previous rehab that she knew Bill. He wasn’t a patient of theirs, he was an employee. He had clean time. (Emphasis on had). He started using yesterday.
J had a habit of not counting his money until he was back in his car. We didn’t have any money, but if we could find someone to throw in a hundred, we could pad the twenties with small bills to make it look like as much as three. We called Bill and he met us with a hundred dollars cash.
We had shorted J before but only by twenty or thirty and we’d always eventually (sort of) paid in full. In any case, we bought from him everyday. We were junkies; he knew we weren’t going anywhere.
I made the call and with her by my side and Bill in the backseat, we met up with J. As soon as we made the hand-off, I put the car in gear and drove off as quickly as I could without raising suspicion – but it’d only be a matter of time before he sat down and counted that money. He called within a minute. I had (I thought, slyly) taken a residential street so that he wouldn’t see us in traffic, but before I knew it, he was there. He slid around us, cut off our path, and was out of the car. I floored it in reverse, struggling to keep the car from backing into any of the others parked on the narrow street. He chased after us and almost grabbed hold of me through the window when I swung the car out into the intersection and into drive. His girlfriend had taken the wheel when he got out and she picked him up. They were right on us immediately and we proceeded to play bumper cars across the streets of Delray Beach, running every red light, driving on the wrong side of the roads. Our car was already beat up but his was really nice. Or had been earlier that day anyway.
As soon as J was back in the car, he was back on the phone. As we swerved around and into each other, I tried to reason with him. “It’s only two hundred dollars. Report the damage as a hit and run and turn it in to your insurance. This isn’t worth it.”
“This car isn’t insured or registered. It’s not even my plate. You owe me a lot of money – and the dope – and I’m beating the shit out of you.”
“I’ll get you money later in the week but I’m not giving the drugs back so you might as well give up now.”
I got us to the on ramp for I-95, but our car was old and slow. We didn’t stand a chance at outrunning him. Smashing the fuck out of his car hadn’t deterred him so I had to get creative. I swerved around other cars, trying to lead J into an accident that might actually slow him down.
“I’m gonna flip your car and kill you,” he said.
“That’s the only way you’re getting the drugs back. Chalk it up as a loss and give up before it gets any worse.” I was pretty bold for someone shaking so badly.
I tried a new technique: slamming on the brakes to take us from 90 mph to a dead stop in the middle of the interstate – counting on the cars around us to prevent J from doing the same. After a couple stalemates, where he pulled onto the shoulder up ahead to wait, knowing we had no option but to start driving again, I started to lose hope. How had we not passed a cop yet? How many other drivers must have called this demolition derby in by now? It was only a matter of time before this all ended very badly – one way or another. And my fucking fuel light was on.
“My boys are getting on at Lantana and are gonna light you the fuck up. You and your girl are as good as dead.”
I guess he didn’t notice that we also had Bill in the back seat. (Quite an experience for someone so freshly off the wagon, huh?)
Eventually, somehow, I was able to lose him. After an exit, I tore across two lanes and into the grass back toward the off-ramp at the last possible second when I’d be able to do so and J wouldn’t without losing sight of us for long enough for us to turn and leave him guessing which way we had gone.
J didn’t follow and when I got to the first red light that I wouldn’t be running that afternoon, I eased into a stop with a police car right next to me. My headlight was dragging on the street in front of the car. The front bumper was partially detached and the back bumper was smashed in. The light turned green and the distance between us and the cop increased until I was able to exhale.
And then I laughed. We all laughed. A lot. It wasn’t funny but it was amazing in its way. As fucked up as all of it is in hindsight, in that moment we were triumphant and I was a hero. (Nothing could be further from the truth, of course, but it felt that way). We had no right to be alive. It defied all logic that we were driving away, unscathed and with heroin. I dropped Bill off at his car and drove back to the trailer park where she and I were renting a windowless room with no door to the outside. I left the car at the opposite end of the park and we got out to walk. We lived at the entrance of the park and J’s house was only a mile down the road; I didn’t want to run the risk were he to go out looking for us.
We walked into the trailer, into our room, shut the door, and shot up. I don’t remember anything that happened after that, but the next day, we packed our shit to leave for Miami.
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“The Weak End” series:
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October 2, 2013
When I was in pre-school, my dad once asked my teacher, “Racey brings home art almost everyday – why doesn’t Sam ever bring anything home?”
“Because it doesn’t turn out the way he wants it to, so he crumples it up, throws it away, and then stares at the floor sulking until art time is over.”
Forget about art and pre-school – that’s kind of how I lived my entire life until recently.
I drew this one day in January back when I was still an inpatient at Tranquil Shores. (It wasn’t an art group but I’m like – totally rebellious, you guys). It started out as a drawing for my friend Nick but – after I fucked it up – I let it become something else. (Pen isn’t a very forgiving medium). I’m glad that I have the capacity these days to accept my mistakes as necessary – or inevitable. (They’re not really mistakes; they were supposed to happen). And this too works as an analogy for my life. I’ve fucked up plenty, even in this last year, but I accept all of it now. I’m right where I’m supposed to be.
The caption is the same as the title: EAT GUMMY WORMS AND SMOKE CRACK WITH SOMEONE WHO APPRECIATES YOU.
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Daily status update: My first Artwalk tonight went really well. Jacksonville may not be the ARTS CAPITAL of the world, but I’m really grateful that we’ve got something like this that happens every month. Looking forward to round two in November. (It’ll be just two days after my birthday)!
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Asides
September 30, 2013
I didn’t go to church as a kid, but I remember a friend once telling me about something he had heard at church that Sunday. “They said that a satellite took a picture from really far away of what they think might actually be heaven.”
I’m terrified of judgment when it comes to my spirituality or my ideas about God. I’ve had so much animosity built up around religion for so long that I get really nervous and defensive about it. (See: “Evil” / “Maybe I Don’t Believe in God”).
But I pray. Or – rather – I try to pray. Sometimes. I’m not praying to someone that can be photographed from outer space though. For me, prayer is an exercise that’s its own reward. When I pray, it’s never for myself. I only pray for other people because – in doing so – I think about them. (“Portraits of God, Nothing, and Fear”).
Most days, I isolate and tell myself that my activities through my website (and online generally) are enough sociality. Living in my little bubble of self, it’s really easy to get wrapped up in my own nonsense, problems, or [whatever]. Prayer is one way of forcing myself to remember other people in a way that affects me more than a “like” on a Facebook post. It feels good to break out of myself now and then. And it’ll usually motivate me to reach out and connect with a friend in a way that feels a little more meaningful than I might otherwise.
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“The Weak End” is a series of ten paintings.
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