As you probably know, this is the book du jour. So many people I know have read it and raved about it. Between hearing my friends' reviews and blogging, I have a general idea of its storyline. Basically, the author was a severe alcoholic and crack addict at age 23, and this book is about his experience in an inpatient rehab (although it just came out this week that most of the story is pure fiction, which has outraged a whole bunch of readers).
I was at Target last night and happened to pass by a display that featured the book. Curiosity overtook me, so I stopped in the aisle, picked it up, and started flipping through the pages. I read several parts of it for about ten minutes. Then I had to put it down and walk away. I seriously thought I was going to be sick, or maybe even pass out, right in the middle of Target.
From mid-1997 until early 2000, I was in a relationship with an alcoholic/crack addict. He was a functioning addict, meaning he didn't live on the street and that, most of the time, he held down a good job. He worked as a dialysis technician and was quite serious about it. He really cared about his patients, and often worked overtime -- not just for the extra cash, but because he loved his job so much. In fact, unless you were part of his inner circle, it was nearly impossible to detect the extent and severity of his problem. He was likeable. Smart. Funny. Good-looking enough to be a model, or so many people said. And charming, which is a trait shared by most addicts. His charm was one of the things that kept me around for three years. I was wildly and blindly in love with him.
Strangely enough, we had known each other as children. We were in the same class from kindergarten through fourth grade, until I moved out of Upper Darby to Broomall. When we met as adults, I had no idea that he had a drug problem of any kind. I guess I was just naive, but he hid it so well. I learned later that he seemed to follow a pattern in his addiction: he would go through periods of extreme self-denial, followed by a brief, intense drug/booze binge. Lather, rinse, and repeat.
We were dating for several months when one night, I went over to his house to go out to dinner, and he was nowhere to be found. Cell phones were still a novelty back then, so I beeped him several times but he never called me back. I waited for about an hour, making conversation with his mother and sister, but he never showed up. So I went home, infuriated. Two days later, he called me, strangely unapologetic for his behavior. When I'd asked him what happened, he didn't offer any explanations, just told me he had been "out and about." This phrase came to signify his periods of using.
Silly, stupid me. I overlooked it and decided to forgive him. Our relationship continued.
I could probably pen my very own novel about my experiences with him. While we were together, he was jailed twice for drunk driving (and the second trip resulted in a tattoo of my name on his lower leg), rehabbed once, and job-hopped from one dialysis clinic to another (with a brief stint working for a tree service in between). He didn't always smoke crack. It seemed that he only got the urge to use after he'd had a few drinks. So as long as he wasn't drinking, he wasn't using. But when he did drink, he'd literally disappear like smoke, only to resurface two or three days later...wallet empty, eyes bloodshot, fingertips burnt from clutching a crackpipe, lips singed from sucking on it, his skin sallow and ashy. He'd sleep for nearly a full 24 hours after he returned from bingeing. He stole various items from his family to sell for drugs. I missed family functions, college classes, and double-dates with my friends because I would sit on the side of his bed, at once both angry and despairing, watching him as he slept off his binge.
He was so beautiful, though. I couldn't walk away. When things were good with him and with us, they were great...beyond any expectation I ever had. We were kindred spirits, really. It was amazing to reminisce about early elementary school with him, because he knew and could remember almost all of the same things that I did. Of course, it didn't hurt that the sex we had was out of this world...almost like a religious experience every single time.
I thought that if I loved him enough, and was a good influence on him, he would stop. I didn't realize back then that addicts don't stop unless they're ready. Hitting bottom, and all that jazz. I knew that, despite going through rehab and losing jobs, he wasn't really ready to quit, because whenever I tried to get him to talk about his addiction, he'd clam up. He refused to talk about it. The closest he ever came was while we were watching Jungle Fever, during the scene that vividly shows Samuel L. Jackson's charcacter getting high on crack. I turned to look at David, and he was silently weeping, shoulders hitching. He told me that crack produced the sweetest, most magical high ever...better than sex, better than hitting the lottery, better than anything I could ever conjure up in my imagination, he told me. He said it smelled sickeningly sweet as it burned away, almost cloying. That he didn't care about anything when he was using, even though part of him knew it was wrong. But then he fell silent. He never mentioned it again.
Anyway, by early summer 2000, I'd had had enough. Being in a relationship with an addict is emotionally and physically exhausting. I came to the realization that nothing I did could help him, so I ended it, with all the drama and tears you might imagine. Shortly thereafter, I met my husband.
Though our relationship was over, David and I still spoke occasionally by phone. It's always been hard for me to completely cut ties with someone with whom I had such a history. Even after what he put me through, I don't hold a grudge.That's just me. After I got married, our conversations became less frequent. The last time I spoke to him was on his birthday -- August 24. I called him to say hello. He wasn't working at the time, and was kind of sketchy about what he'd been up to lately, so I suspect that he had gone back to using. It breaks my heart but there's nothing I can do about it. I just tried contacting him during the holidays, and his cell phone had been shut off.
He's either dead or in jail. I can't be sure. He would probably prefer the former. I remember him telling me that day we watched Jungle Fever how, during one of his binges, he wanted to smoke enough crack so that his heart would just explode, and he would be put out of his misery, and his family would not have to worry about him anymore.
So this is one book that I don't think I'll be reading anytime soon.
Labels: bad news, books, deep thoughts, friends, memories, sex
In My Head
