Life is fragile.
This short sentence is the first thing that comes to my mind when I look back at my behavior and quality of life during my battle with drugs, and it couldn’t be any more true -even now that all of the shit has been flushed and scrubbed away from my life, a lingering stench of decay still follows me. I bucked the monkey off my back, but I’d be a fool to think he isn’t still out there in the bush waiting to climb back on and wallop me in the skull again. As strong and invincible as we think we are, there are cracks in every wall, so we must never leave ourselves unguarded.
Toward the end, before I made the decision to give up pipe and needle, time had begun to accelerate. I was careening toward a dead-end wall at ludicrous speed. There was just enough time for me to stop myself… but it had to be right then. One little slip and I’d have lost everything: homeless and miserable at best, imprisoned or dead at worst. In a brief and miraculous moment of clarity, I saw the approaching wall and realized “this is going to hurt”.
There were many obstacles on the road to recovery, many of which I have detailed here before. The nightmares about shooting up, the money issues, et cetera. I could always hear the harsh, white stone devil calling out for me. “Just one more, just one last ride.” The hardest part was drowning out that other voice in my head that so craved self-destruction and hedonism. That’s where music and books came in handy. I was able to drown out much of the bullshit I was lying to myself about with metal or fiction. I’d listen at such high volume my ears would hurt and I could barely hear myself think, and after a few months, I was able to suffocate that horrible voice, or at least mute it. I had been swallowed by the devil himself, and let me tell you, crawling out of his asshole wasn’t easy. It was like dragging myself through miles of shit on my stomach toward a bright, puckering white light. Every inch I crawled, the light of salvation grew brighter and wider until finally I emerged.
There is reason for me to believe that all the heinous and foolish things I was involved in have shortened my life-expectancy by at least some amount. Who can tell? All I know is that I was fortunate, and still am. Count your blessing daily, and keep to the path. And for those still suffering, the way out is straight through.
Towers of Rust 