READING THIS AGAIN I REALIZE IT IS A CLUSTERFUCK OF TIME. (I WARNED YOU!) SO IF THINGS SEEM LIKE THEY SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED BEFORE I GOT POPPED FOR A DUI, IT'S BECAUSE IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN. I JUST EDITED IT AGAIN TO BE PERFECT AND I REALIZE TIME IS NOT MY FRIEND. IT WASN'T FOR THOSE 2 DAYS IN PRISON EITHER... I HAD BEEN DRINKING PLENTY BEFORE MY DUI, I JUST HAD TO DRINK MORE TO KILL THE WANT OR NEED FOR THE HERB...
MY APOLOGIES, BUT ENJOY...
After many years of smoking the herb and enjoying every
goddamn minute of it, I had to find a way to stop doing it. At 26, I had just been released from prison. I had just been
popped for a DUI for a second time and had to be urine tested every month or so
for probation for what… a whole year or two. So, even though I hung out with a few of my
buddies who enjoyed the bud too, I realized I needed something to crutch me up
on my broken soul. This crutch though could not be used against me in terms of
my probation, so I turned to crack. And when I say crack I mean alcohol.
Crack is a hell of a drug. And when you crack a new can the
aroma is intoxicating in and of itself. The hops and fermented sugars had such
a bouquet that THAT makes my mouth water now just writing about it. I friggin’ love
beer. I love it. I LOVE it. It woke me up in the morning, gave me lunch in the
afternoon, and helped me sleep at night. And if it was a weekend,
forgettaboutit. I could get out of work at 3:30PM and start drinking at 3:31PM Friday
and by Monday morning I had been up and down in so many blackouts I didn’t even
realize it was a work day. But I’d still get up, down 2 beers, hop on “the
hog” (my bicycle), and ride into work. Sometimes I’d ride home at lunch and have
a quick 4 beers in 10 minutes of lunch time I had at home just to feel level
for the rest of the workday. This wasn’t all the time, but sometimes I’d feel like
I was on the brink of death and -- forget oxygen -- beer was the saving grace of the day. Although I wish I had succumbed to the beer
sickness.
Every crack of that 10oz can would be so often in a work night
or weekend that I’d develop bruising on my index and middle fingers. So forget
writing. I had to find a way of opening my cans with something else. I had been
using traditional methods... spoons, among others. I think at one point Marlboro
was giving out aluminum cards that were the size of credit cards and doubled as
bottle openers for your birthday (smoking had its privileges beyond cancer),
and I used that card as a can opener as well. It fit perfectly under the tab
and presto! No more finger bruising for the boozing.
I’d show up at a friend’s house and get 4 beers out of the
fridge and place them in front of me. Other patrons at the gathering would ask
if I was afraid of my beer getting cold, and people that knew me would answer
for me. “Don’t worry, they’ll be empty before temperature matters…”
I had small can coolies fitted inside 12oz can coolies for the pony beers. Some
alcoholics wouldn’t think about that, but I had everything planned out. I had
beer math so I’d get the best value for my buck, and even would buy three cases of
the 10oz beers at a store across town to save 15 cents. Hey, a dollar is a
dollar, not thinking of gas costs back then. . .
I remember going into the “Beer Zoo” off Rt. 22 and standing
behind a man and his lady and they had been discussing why anyone would buy
pony cans of beers:
“Look at those little things! That’s ridiculous!” he’d
muttered under his breath… “I don’t know how or why any stupid folks would pay
for that, let alone look respectful drinking a 10oz beer.”
Not being one to back down from a word war (find me a drunk who isn't), I asked what
they were about to pay for their 30pk of Coors Light versus my pony cans…
“$25” he said.
“$25? Now THAT’s ridiculous!!!” I said.
He looked at me peculiarly as if to say “prove it”…
So I broke out my beer math and showed him that for three 24pks
of 10oz beers, I was paying 29.97 (9.99 each at the time) which was 5 bucks
more than he was for his 30pk of 12oz beers, and in fact that 5 bucks was
essentially paying for another 30pk of beer. Ounce-wise it was the same
thing. Beyond the price, the smaller beers stayed colder than the 12oz beers
due to the amount of time it takes to drink them and get new ones from the
fridge.
The man looked at his lady and took back his 30pk and came
back with three 24pks of 10oz beers.
“Thanks, man!”, he said, “You’re the shit!”
“No”, I said, “I just feel
that way. But now you know why we stupid folks buy the pony cans.”
It seems like I am
glorifying the drinking of beer to oblivion and beyond, but in fact being drunk
isn’t the greatest feeling in the world. A lot of times in fact I wished I
hadn’t drunk so much. I never really slept on beer, but I certainly blacked out
plenty of times.
There was the time I climbed a peach tree half naked. The time
I went downtown thinking my wiener was longer than it was, or at least peeking
out of my jeans when I started to urinate. The time I lashed out at my cousin’s
now wife because he loved her and wanted to hang out with her (understandably) more
than me. (she’s been a knockout since at least 8th grade…and she
even kissed me… long before I lost it on her… we had some great times but its
my own fault I am not one to keep many friends…)… the time I told some Puerto Rican
guy that my other cousin’s wife had tremendously huge breasts right in front of
her. The time I yelled at my friend’s baby’s momma telling her she’d never be
his bride (I was right on that one but at the time it wasn’t the right thing to
say.) The time I yelled at a man walking his dog telling him his dog would kill
my cousin’s dog, and in turn the man said he’d kill me. The time I locked
myself out of my friend’s house then broke back in and caused a fistfight, one
of 2 in my life with that same guy (RIP Kev). The time I mooned my aunt’s Haitian
mother. The time I got arrested falling asleep at a red light. And not learning
my lesson, I got DUI arrested less than 6 months later. The time I fell asleep
at my buddy’s house in a tent and woke up naked with my clothes all around the
yard. The time I almost got beaten up making fun of a short dude. And all those
times were with other people. Most of the times I hated was just being alone
and dealing with another night having to drink to feel regular. I wondered most nights where my life was,
where it was going, and why I was still here. I couldn’t kill myself, i didn't have the balls nor the shaft to even get it out of my jeans, so I figured
the best thing I could do was shorten my life so I could die early. Who wants
to live to 90 or 100 when some poor asshole had to wipe your poor asshole in a
nursing home? in my 20s, i thought 35 years was long enough to live.
It was fun, ridiculous, embarrassing, off-putting, friend
and family losing, and seriously fucked up all in one.
All this demise happened in about 5-6 years of HEAVY consumption. it wasn't one or two a day, it was fifteen or twenty 12oz equivalents a night
One day I went into my doctor’s office and told him I needed
to quit. If you’re going to be honest with anyone, don’t let it be your
parents, wife, husband, children, or friends. Let it be your doctor. My drinkin
buddy was in a weeklong rehab program due to trying to kill himself and even he
said “hey, maybe you ought to slow down…” This is the same guy that after court
ordered meetings would pick me up and bought me a six pack of beer. I was in
rehab for smoking, I kept telling myself. But now years later, because for some
reason rehab didn’t take… I knew I couldn’t just slow down, so it was either
continue or quit. So my doctor gave me some naltrexone. He told me it was for
heroin addicts but most research said it worked on alcoholics too.
So my end date wasn’t set. But the opportunity to do so was there.
I had the prescription in my medicine cabinet for about 3 months. During that
time all the signs kept appearing… I even remember Christian Slater on a talk
show admitting he had quit drinking on October 29th, my birthday. I figured
if he could do it… then I cracked another beer.
Not long after that though, one night I smoked a little and
decided to take a half a pill with my 16+ or so beer regimen that evening.
As much as I miss drinkin, it was the best stoned or
otherwise drunk decision I ever made.
When I woke up I had to think about where I was because I couldn’t
move. It was 2/28/2009 and I woke up on my best friend’s birthday a new man.
But
I couldn’t move.
Literally I was a mummy in my own bed. I looked down with my
eyes and all I could see were my hands with pointer fingers pointed down to my
feet, as if you made fun of a retarded person.
But I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t talk or walk, I was paralyzed but for my eyes. So
I laid there. What the fuck else could I do? I tried moving my arms so I could
at least listen to the radio… to no avail. In my bedroom at the time thankfully
there were ceiling tiles with impressions of holes within them. They made
patterns on the ceiling, and went from counting ceiling tiles to counting holes
in each tile. I made patterns of steps and crosses and blocks and whatever came
to my head with a bunch of 12” x 12” squares staring back at me. I was obsessed
with making something out of nothing and it seemed to work out for the best.
But I couldn’t move.
After two hours (it
felt like, it could have been 7 seconds for all I knew) I just finished my game
of fake tetris and decided to try moving again. My toe moved even though I was
trying to move my finger. I figured it was a start. So slowly but surely I started
moving, and now the right body parts were corresponding to the neurons’ signals
being fired at them. A finger. A leg. A tongue. I made a sound. I could hear
it.
“ok”, I thought, “time to get a drink.” It was morning after all. That was
breakfast.
I sat up and as if arms grabbed me and threw me down on the
bed I fell backward with force. Woah, this naltrexone was a hell of a drug. And
I only had half a pill.
Slowly I rose from the mattress / open casket I was on and
got to my feet. I went to the fridge full of whatever was in Marcellas Wallace’s
briefcase (the light was blinding) and beer and for the first time I didn’t
want one. It was wall to wall beer and none of them were for me. I drank a sip
of water and feeling woozy, I took a leak. I looked at my glassy eyes in the
mirror, opened the cabinet and took the other half of the naltrexone, and went
back to bed.
Later my phone beeped. It was Mike. The text read “Lets go
out tonight drinkin… Its my birthday!!!”
I didn’t want to disappoint him. He was turning I think 31, I
was 32 at the time so that would be right. So I replied “I can’t man. I’m kinda
doin’ something.”
I inadvertently gave him a birthday gift that day. He was
probably pissed that day, but I was gonna be around a while longer and we’d
celebrate his birthday and my quit date the same day for some time to come.
“what are you doing?”
I couldn’t reply because I had started the whole pill of
naltrexone to put me to sleep that night still with a full fridge of beer.
So the next day I woke up and could move. I could talk. I could
turn on the radio. I was oh-khey. Every time taking the pill you felt a little
dizzy and sort of moved outside your body but for the most part I had no
withdrawal symptoms. I didn’t have to go to meetings. I didn’t have to find
jesus or jesus’s little helpers cause I didn’t like children in a sexual way
the way priests do.
Nobody was “saving” me… but me.
Another day went by. Then another. Then I had to invite my
buddies over to drink my beer. Unbeknownst to me or them, it was a going away
party for them. Little did I know… this was the desertion of the alcoholics. I remembered the part of the lesson I had to take in my
court-ordered few weeks in outpatient rehab program at Gaudenzia on Second
street. This was the natural order of things. Your “friends” would go away, but
those who stuck with you were the ones to keep. I had one or 2 left out of the
10 or so I had. And they proved the rehab program lesson true. They’re still my
friends today. Not to say my alcoholic friends aren’t still my friends, but
more like acquaintances now. My best drinkin buddy lost his girlfriend and fell
off the deep end and nobody knows where he is now. But those who stuck by me
thru the weird naltrexone moments are still here today.
Three years. Three months. And 21 days later.
DAMMIT! I WANT A BEER! JUST ONE I SWEAR!
But I can’t. The streak would be over, and I couldn’t handle
the disappointment in myself…
One day at a time. . .
III
