Acrobaddict (36 page)

We were suddenly thrown into an uncertain world, and my relationship with Matt grew as we clung to each other in fear. He lived on Thirty-seventh Street near the Empire State Building, which received bomb threats on an almost daily basis. New York’s legendary dynamic energy was in tatters; the whole nation’s central nervous system was stressed to capacity, and everyone walked around in a state of disbelief and unease. The city’s body and all its inhabitants seemed to mimic my everyday junkie state: jittery, anxious, and terrified.

I was using more heroin than usual, which made work unbearable. A black pay phone next to the bathroom at work was constantly calling out to me, urging me to call my dealer. I walked to it, touched it, held it, hung it up, left it, and came back to it, again and again, like an insane person. I focused on that damn phone over my tables, standing next to it but forcing my hands to my sides to keep myself from calling Kimi. I’d never felt that demented before, and knew I had to stop. I found a midnight twelve-step meeting, which was perfect since that was usually when I would go to Kimi’s apartment. If I could manage not to pick up that phone, I could make it to the meeting and have a night of abstinence.

In meetings I would hear healthy people speak, people who were dealing with the tragedy of losing family and friends. The event changed everyone in the city and the outer boroughs, bringing people closer together. A strength emerged from underneath their fears, and people began to function again. While I was exempt from feeling that extraordinary strength, witnessing it in the people around me gave me a tiny seed of hope.

I finally got a sponsor, which helped a lot, and he got me to the midnight meetings. But I decided that because he hadn’t done heroin himself, he wouldn’t understand what I was
really
going through. I lied to him about my time in recovery because I was ashamed of constantly relapsing. I was trying to stay abstinent, but I was always seconds and inches away from using again.

Matt was sick of my using and watched me take the opiate blockers every night. On the one hand I loved that I had asked him to watch me take my pill to guard my life, but on the other I despised it because it meant giving up my power of choice. I wanted to be abstinent for him, but the ancient demon was stronger than both of us. I felt like I had taken Matt hostage and was dragging him through the unspeakable life of Joe. He didn’t deserve any of that.

And now I was reduced to taking those dreadful pills that removed my power of choice. I tried shooting up on them, but nothing happened. It was like shooting sixty dollars of water into my arm. I was fucking pissed. I called the pharmacist and asked how long naltrexone’s effects lasted. The answer: three days. So if I stopped the pill I could use heroin and get high in a couple of days.

What if I got in a terrible accident while on the medication? They wouldn’t be able to treat me with painkillers and I would suffer inhumanely, I rationalized. What if I needed emergency surgery? Clearly, I had to stop taking naltrexone. But how could I, with
Matt watching me all the time? I decided to replace the pills in the prescription bottle with Tylenol.

The pain of abstinence was unbearable to me. I knew Matt was tired of my broken promises, of my assuring him I would quit using for the week and then walking into his apartment high as a kite. I saw his joy of being with me fade away. Did I take away his happiness? Did my disease steal his sunshine? Was I feeding off those who cared for me like a parasite? I tried pretending everything was okay, but I had taught Matt every trick in the book to spot when I was using: itching, tiny pinpoint pupils, deepened voice, euphoria. He could now see through all my junkie lies.

I became a human yo-yo, spun alternately downward and upward by the momentum of using on and off, loving and hating heroin, its bliss and madness, warmed and burned by its fire. Matt did his best to help me through that dark period, and I ended up moving in with him. I was going to show him that I could stay abstinent and be a real human being.

Neither of us was prepared for the nightmare of me. I thought I was being sneaky when I used, hiding my syringe in the bathroom by the Q-Tip holder. He knew it was there, but said nothing about it, knowing it would kill me if he threw it out. He knew I would be more tolerable to be around if I was high rather than dope sick. One day we had a big fight because I had used the night before and he knew I was high, but of course I swore I wasn’t.

The only way of patching the hole in our relationship was for me to go back on naltrexone, proving to him that I hadn’t used, since you needed at least fourteen days of abstinence before resuming the pill. He knew I was lying about my using and my time of abstinence, but I decided to fix our fight by disregarding the doctor’s dire warnings about the serious side effects of taking the opiate blocker too soon after using. Since I didn’t feel high from the previous night’s shot, I was convinced the heroin was gone from my system.

In the cab on my way to work, I took half a naltrexone. Limiting the pill to half the dosage would eliminate the possibility of any side effects in case I was incorrect in my assumptions. I was so proud of
my decision and knew that Matt would be proud of me too, and that way I could prove to him that I wasn’t lying. It felt so good to do the right thing.

I got to work in a great mood and started setting up the dining room for the dinner shift. The restaurant always sparkled at that time of day, as daylight turned to dusk and cast a delicate glow onto the candlelit tables. In that quaint and immaculate scene, I started folding the soft green napkins. As I put the polished silverware down, I suddenly found it very warm in the restaurant. I asked the other waitress if she thought the building was hot, and she agreed it was a little warm. A gust of heat shot through my body and sweat seeped through my pores. Then, instantly, my wet skin froze and I felt a rush of ice-cold chills, immediately followed by another heart-stopping heat wave. I pulled up my white sleeves and saw my drenched arms covered with goose bumps. I was freezing cold and burning hot at the same time, and it hit me like a car crash.

At first I thought I was having a seizure or a heart attack. Oh my god, what was happening to me? I asked the waitress again if she was hot. She replied with an annoyed smile, “Nope, I’m okay.” Pain darted through my shivering body, and my bones felt like barbed wire was growing around them. I had to sit down, but even sitting hurt—that fucking pill! The doctors had warned me. Once again I was bringing pain on myself. How long would this last?

My head told me I had to go to the hospital immediately, but I couldn’t justify walking out on another shift. Constantly ill with odd things, I would have to explain again to my manager that I was sick. The room spun around me, and I stumbled over to the woman at the register by the bakery and told her I needed to borrow twenty dollars for a cab home. I got the cash and ran out of the restaurant, coatless and in my work clothes, sweating profusely in the freezing New York winter air as I hailed a cab. The fare to Matt’s apartment was twenty-four dollars. I saw him walking home from the gym and called him over for the rest of the fare to put an abrupt end to my argument with the driver. I told him something was terribly wrong with me, and we went upstairs.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I feel horrible, like I’m dying. Look at my skin; I’m sweating and freezing cold.”

“Did you eat something weird?”

“No, nothing . . . what should I do?”

“I don’t know.” He looked suspicious. I got in bed and soaked the sheets with my sweat. It was pouring from my body. Matt looked at me and put the pieces together. “So, you did use last night, and you took your pill today, didn’t you?”

“No, I swear I didn’t use.”

“Joe, I’m not stupid. This is exactly what the doctors said would happen.”

“I was trying to do the right thing.”

“I know you were. I just don’t know why you can’t tell me the truth . . . for once.”

I didn’t respond. I was too sick to speak, and I lay in bed for hours, sweating out the lies and humiliation. Work called, and I told them I was dreadfully sick. I would go in tomorrow and make something up to save my ass. I was walking on eggshells with everyone, and I started going back to meetings.

I knew one thing was true: to stay abstinent I had to leave my job. I knew if I went to work I would use, and for the first time I thought I was doing something recovery-oriented by listening to my body. I was ecstatic that I would never have to see that restaurant again. Not having money gave me the assurance that I wouldn’t use, and I put myself through a slow, two-week methadone detox. I had become a pro at detoxing.

But after a few days at home, and looking for work, the itch came back. I was going to meetings, but the voice kept taunting me. I began feeling so empty and betrayed by everyone that I desired, no,
needed
the Devil back in my life. Matt was at work and I began to freak out, convinced that if I didn’t get high I would kill myself. I felt I was
facing an impossible choice: get high or commit suicide. The high had been so far away, after almost two and a half weeks of not using, and I needed to feel it searing through my veins. I longed for the needle to pierce my skin, to poke me with its bliss.

I called Kimi and told her I wanted two bags. I didn’t have any money, and searched Matt’s apartment for something I could pawn. I loved him and didn’t want to steal from him, but my addiction was bigger than love. It was bigger than anything I’d ever known, and it had me in its grip.

After a few weeks of relapsing and job searching, I landed an opportunity that would forever change my life—an interview for a clerk’s position at the
New York Times
. Matt was upset because he knew I wasn’t abstinent and didn’t want me working there while on drugs. He made me swear that if I got the job I would stay in recovery and treat that job with the utmost respect, that I would never be late and that I would work hard. I was overjoyed and felt certain that working for a company like that would change my life and cure my addiction. Matt eventually agreed, and started to share my enthusiasm, believing the job might kick-start my recovery and give me a chance at finding some peace in my life. I was deeply grateful, and resolved to not mess up my new God-given opportunity.

32

UMBILICAL CORD

T
HE UMBILICAL CORD LINKS THE FETUS AND PLACENTA, SERVING AS THE LIFELINE BETWEEN THE TWO
. I
T FORMS BY THE FIFTH WEEK OF A WOMAN’S PREGNANCY AND SHIELDS THE BLOOD VESSELS TRAVELING WITHIN THIS TUBE
. C
OMPROMISED FETAL BLOOD IN THE UMBILICAL CORD VESSELS CAN RESULT IN HARMFUL EFFECTS ON THE WELL-BEING OF THE FETUS
.

The heroin was brown and thick, a Louisiana swamp in a plastic syringe. With God waiting for me on the other side, all I had to do was give an offering—my blood—a voodoo ritual granting entrance to the void between life and death, between my states of being. But the chilling, pain-filled memories began to crack through the promised warmth. Past demons pulled me closer and more frequently to the Devil, turning my original, perfectly high world of sweet bliss into a nightmare.

Drops of sweat on my forehead, a pounding heart, and dry lungs jostled me awake from my now-macabre opiate nods. God’s highs once guaranteed safe transport to the divine, but the Devil now stood by my unconscious body, stealing my breath and choking my life from me. The Devil’s cradling blocked the peaceful dreams of my enchanted forests and replaced them with disturbing memories of gymnastics. I had started this love affair to divorce myself from the sport, but now, like entering an added level of hell, I was thrust back into the gym, with chalked hands bound to my leather grips, as old routines burned into my mind like an endless reel of regret.

I had been able to repress those thoughts to where tragedies belong, but now, as I slumped over and fell asleep, they were freed, and I found myself on the pommel horse, heard my hands clasp the hard, wooden handles, felt the leather tear my flesh each time my body skimmed the horse. Was this my bitter irony? To have my old and new religions and loves fighting for my body and soul?

I was a nervous mess as I walked along Forty-third Street for my first day of work. White globe lights that had
Times
printed on them lined the street leading up to the famed building’s overhang bearing the same iconic font and title. Journalists paced the sidewalks, smoking, either late for a deadline or rewarding themselves for meeting one. The
New York Times
was a symbol of the city: with its namesake Times Square, it was a source of news worldwide, and had the power to shape public opinion in everything from politics to the arts. I never actually read the paper, but knew it equaled the voice of God and final judgment to many. By stealing glances at its headlines, I could inject substance into my conversations. “The
New York Times
said . . .” was my favorite way to start a conversation. But now I had to get my act in order as I entered that place of high prestige, en route to my first job that did not include reading the specials of the day to customers.