Acrobaddict (47 page)

I was assigned to portray a character called Crystal Man—symbolizing the spark of Darwin’s theories on the origin of species, the theme of the show. I was to descend from the thirty-foot grid to join the opening number. When the coach asked me to perform a few simple skills on the high bar, a small part of me wanted to climb back on and grab my lost love, but a bigger part didn’t; the other acrobats in front of me were too incredible. I wasn’t prepared to embarrass myself or to ruin their act, but in the end I did as I was asked.

I hadn’t touched a high bar for almost fifteen years, but I chalked up and started to swing, as I had for so many years before my addiction.
My palms, no longer those of an athlete, tore against the friction of the steel, and while my muscles remembered what to do, my body was slow to respond. When blood leaked out from underneath my leather grips, the coach told me to go and wash my hands. The smallest drop of water on raw, bloody flesh feels like hydrochloric acid, and rinsing my fresh wounds was agonizing. But the only way to toughen one’s skin is to keep going, rip off the old skin, and create a stronger, more protective layer of calluses. The smallest swinging movement felt like razors were digging into my hands, but I grasped the bar and continued.

High-bar rehearsals resumed the next morning as Nirvana, Hole, and rave music played to my old mental and new physical pain. Tiny Ziploc bags, straws, and CD cases reminded me of using, but the greatest trigger of all was the music.

Weeks of training and development went by from morning into night; I endured some of the hardest physical work I’d ever known. After rehearsals I felt like a shadow on the wall, searching for solace, stubborn to remain secure in my recovery. The circus challenged every level of my addiction, and I often found myself running to my room in fits of anger for no discernible reason. Part of my disease included the inability to express feelings and emotions normally, and I didn’t want to tell Robert what was plaguing me. I felt that he had given me a chance and, in return, I could offer only my weaknesses, which would make him look bad.

Everyone worked relentlessly, and after four months there was finally light at the end of the tunnel. The creation period was over and we started running the show, perfecting and fine-tuning it for opening night. But I still didn’t feel prepared to perform in public, and my overwhelming performance fear made me desperately want to quit. On top of that, I was the show’s first image, solo and spotlit, radiating light and traveling down to Earth. What if I screwed up and ruined the whole show? The first performer of a show must bring shatterproof confidence to set the tone for the other performers; I felt the heavy burden of this obligation. I couldn’t open the show as
a figure from heaven bringing the concept of evolution in complete terror—what kind of Earth would be created through such fear?

It was opening night, and I was unable to stop thinking about every terrible thing that could happen and every repercussion that would transpire after I would destroy the show. I had an hour to warm up and prepare my body for the fight. I said my prayers and quietly tried pushing the anxieties away. The hour sped by, and it was time to board the unstoppable train. I chalked my hands and slowly began climbing the thirty-foot ladder to the top of the grid.

As I climbed, I prayed for all those who kill themselves in their striving for perfection. I prayed for specific skills I wanted to perform without mistakes. Then my foot slipped off a rung of the ladder, breaking my compulsive thought process. It woke me up to the “cure” I had been seeking, which had been in front of me the whole time: though the solution was spiritual, I realized I was praying in the wrong direction. The answer was within me, based on teachings passed from person to person, from the people in my twelve-step meetings, from Jonathan and Robert, from the other artists, from the crazy and the damned. My epiphany was love. If I was going to bring anything down from the grid, it had to be love.

That revelation changed my entire system, the same way a good meeting changes one’s desire to use, and my self-centered fear dissolved into humility. It didn’t matter if I did a good job or a bad job; what mattered was my intention behind the performance. In that moment, I changed my prayer. I no longer prayed for perfection, but for the ability to share my hope, strength, and story with the one person, or the many others, suffering among the audience. I decided to perform for them an act of resilience against pain, creating an allegiance against our self-centered fears. I remembered why I was there, and why I was putting myself through this. I was doing this for them. I was doing this for all the addicts who wanted to be more but couldn’t because of their addiction. This was for that person sitting in a bar right now who knows he could be more, but can’t put down that drink. It was for the person in that long methadone line who sees no end in sight. This was for my friends,
and for all the people I’d never met who died of addiction, for those who could not climb out of hell against the unyielding forces of our disease.

I was doing this for all of them. With each step up the ladder I gained confidence, climbing right to the top, feeling each soul standing behind me like an army of angels. It didn’t matter if I messed up and got fired the next day; I had to honor this challenge in recovery—no longer for myself, but for others. I wouldn’t allow myself a drink or a pill, to sniff a line, or to open a vein, because this had to be the most honest of performances God intended it to be. By my committing to that belief, the courage of light overcame the darkness of fear. Humbled by my new awareness, I wanted my character to represent strength to reflect to everyone below. I said one last prayer, and then the show announcements were made and it was time to clip into my harness for suspension.

I came down from the grid and felt powerful, safe, and connected. I had heard in countless twelve-step meetings a teaching that now, on opening night, I finally understood: to remove unwanted negative emotions from within ourselves, we must first help remove those emotions from others. I took it on as my job not to perform, but to help. I had to find someone else in fear and learn to comfort them in order to withdraw my own angst; often the darkest of men carry the brightest of lights.

It was a smooth show, and in a blur of exhilaration we took our final bows to the overpowering waves of applause and screams from the audience. I stepped forward, took my bow in the whirlwind of sound, and felt nothing except broken and numb. All that strenuous work, nervous energy, and time spent building up to this monumental moment, and the payback was nothing compared to the high off a twenty-dollar bag of heroin. This empty feeling shocked me to my core; I had expected the rewards of accomplishment to catapult me into the stratosphere. Instead I felt robbed and devastated that there was nothing more to this feeling of victory.

Where was my happy, Hallmark-card ending after entering recovery and getting this great job? In my naiveté, I’d harnessed myself to the
belief that achievements would somehow mimic my past wondrous highs—I felt a great loss in the absence of heroin and alcohol.

There was a beautiful champagne toast with the entire company after the show, and I slowly walked back to my
loge d’artiste
, as I’d come to call my dressing room, trying to conceal my inner turmoil. I changed, grabbed my recovery coin, and sneaked out. There was a huge after-party, but I wasn’t ready to watch others in their drunken victories as I soberly stood by. Walking past the thin, tented walls, I could hear everyone sounding happy and laughing.

As I continued my walk with the river by my side, alone, I cried for every pain I had endured. I cried for my recovery and for my heroin addiction. I cried for my inability to socialize in large crowds and for punishing myself over it. I cried for my loneliness and pain that still lingered in the shadows. I walked home under the same damned moon I’d always known and cried myself to sleep to, as I had done so many nights back in my bunk bed at my parents’ house.

I woke up to a sunny, beautiful morning and could not pinpoint where last night’s sadness had come from. I was grateful not to have a hangover, not to be scrounging for change to shoot up “just one more time.” I was determined to find a way to celebrate achievements in recovery. Although I wasn’t blissed out of my bones from our victory the night before, it was better than what I had experienced before—a day in recovery is better than the agony of addiction. I gave up my highest highs, but I also rid myself of my lowest lows, and now I would live balancing between the two. I was thankful for my life in recovery and for the ability to now experience life as I believed it was intended to be lived.

The company ran on the absolute dedication of everyone involved, not just the acrobats and artists, but wardrobe, riggers, technicians, creative teams, and office workers, all of whom committed their entire body and soul to their work. Seeing this kind of discipline on every level of the operation was deeply inspiring, and without that job I might have lost gymnastics to my addiction forever. There was a refinement to every inch of the creation and production, which hugely influenced my new recovery perspective on life.

The circus lifestyle required extraordinary human drive to survive its extreme physical challenges and demands. Our bodies were sore to the bones every day; walking, getting out of bed, and even sitting at times could hurt. Most of us wanted to stay in bed, but as the sun rose, we walked through the pain to the big top and began again, and unconsciously we passed the torch to those seeking a dream. Hearing Cirque du Soleil fans tell me, “You’re so lucky; it was always a dream of mine to be in a show,” ignited an energy and healing amidst the exhaustion and pain, adding great power and passion to my performance.

The show, in many ways, was a metaphor and microcosm of my life in recovery. Upon waking in the morning, I was still tired from yesterday’s show, afraid of the unknown, and wanting to hide behind my familiar mask of drugs and alcohol to feel safe and separated from the world. I didn’t want anyone to see me. But the show started every day at the same time, and I had to cast away all fears, insecurities, and negativities. I would climb to the grid ten minutes before the performance started, and the show would begin on time whether I was mentally prepared or not. I got into my harness, got checked by my riggers, and, after the preshow announcements began, spun myself into a tight ball.

Spotlights drenched me in a warm glow, and in that illumination I could no longer hide from the world—any insecurities I may have had were exposed before our audience of thousands. I followed my breath, in and out of my body, and slowly unrolled myself.
Evolutio
in Latin means “unrolling”—the theme of the show being evolution of the universe. Through my recovery, I realized that I had been evolving too.

I opened up my limbs and slowly started contorting my body, pushing the limits of my flexibility to create hieroglyphic shapes, tapping into the origins of my first cells. The audience remained unaware of the story I retold inside myself each night, of how I would reconnect to each chapter of myself. I connected with the boy who was endlessly ridiculed for his sexuality. I connected to the young man trapped in his Sisyphean nightmare, waking up on a sidewalk, freezing cold,
shivering and broke, dope sick and desolate, trying to figure out how he was going to eat next with no money. I breathed in the man fighting to change and struggling against his progressive and fatal disease of addiction, forever relapsing and falling further into hell. I stretched my bones and honored the man who was suffering from heavy drug withdrawal, but attempting to train and become better out of sheer desperation and inspiration.

As I began to contort even further, I would think of Jonathan, who had trained me for this very moment, teaching me to let go and be with my breath. I thought of him by my side, throughout the time when I carelessly killed my own human spirit, and I attached myself to the endless hours we trained together, trying to transform a beat-up, withering, drug-addicted junkie into a powerful body of strength, flexibility, grace, and humility. The music intensified and I opened to my last pose, extending my arms and feet out to the universe: north, south, east, and west. The band shot out a big bang and I jetted my limbs out, physicalizing the creation of the universe.

At the final crescendo I got wrapped up in a timeless state, traveling back to my origin. I returned to my parents’ basement and the moment I met my God, who bestowed the gift of movement to me. I remembered the look in my parents’ eyes and now realized that it hadn’t been surprise, but wonder, and I gained strength from the support and undying love from my entire family.

Before tumbling, I thought of Dan, remembering his instructions in execution and fearlessness. The lights exploded, the music howled, and I flipped backward and traveled to that beautiful, eternal place of my soul. In that moment I had no physical body, no time, just pure energy rushing through my veins, overpowering and transcending any blissful heroin high I could have ever produced. This was an absolute union—with my body, mind, spirit, God, and the universe.