I haven’t been able to really talk about this today. I’ve been beating around the bush all day, and haven’t gotten around to it. I haven’t told the story, and it’s still... swirling around in my head.
I was closer to using last night than I have been since I quit. Something happened. Someone I trusted stopped trusting me. Because I fucked up. Because I was inappropriate. I said something bad. She lectured me. Because I fucked up. Again. I did something wrong, and she called me on it. I didn’t mean to. I was... being myself, and it was bad. She told an op to watch me. To keep an eye on me. To make sure I didn’t fuck up again, and I was hit with a flood of clanging bars and voices over microphones. Nurses and doctors and counselors all instructed to "keep an eye on me." My dad, keeping an eye on me. And I thought...
I played the tape. Which is what they tell you to do.
What happens if I go out and use? What if?
Well, I feel better almost immediately, and I stop caring that I fucked up. Maybe I just be fucked up, maybe I go out and do something or someone stupid. Almost certainly I get laid. I go out, and get high, get laid. I have $500 in the bank. I could get a lot of high for that. I’d most likely binge for a few days and lose my job. Be locked out again. Not be able to move into my apartment.
Most. Most. Most. Importantly. I would fail my drug test when I went in to chat with my PO. Because once I picked up... $500 is enough to last even me for... a while. So then. So then I’d fail. I’d test positive, and go back to Prison. Maybe on drug charges too. I might even go into his office with drugs. I’d be locked up, five years? Ten years? Fights would start again. I’d be numb again. I’d be the Tin Man again. I’d go back to who I was. I’d probably end up adding time for more drugs. Or fighting. Everything would go back to how it was. I’d stop feeling, and stop caring. Most likely die or get AIDS in jail, and then die from that. I’d be watched and locked up, and silenced again. That’s what would happen.
I thought that out. Thought about how that feels, to be watched all the time. Prodded into speech and objectified. To become a number, and not a man. A thing. "THEIF" "ADDICT" "DEALER" "PAROLE VIOLATOR" And that would be it.
But. But but.
But if I’m being watched, and silenced, and behavior modified out here, when I’m free(ish) and supposedly getting better, and holding a job, and being clean. If I’m doing the right things, and I’m still being watched and suspected. If I’m being good, and it’s not good enough, when it’s all I have... then what’s the point of it all? If that’s the result, of having someone I was learning to trust doesn’t think I’m good enough, why bother? Why open up that trust, and that heart to have rough jagged fingers dug into the soft beating flesh? If that’s what happens... I might as well be numb. That was my conclusion. Free, and wrong, and muffled, or locked up and wrong, but free to think and say and breathe as I please? I was ready to choose locked up and free. Because all I have is my mind.
I rolled it around in my head for the requisite five minutes. Then five more. Then five more. More. More. Almost an hour. I got up. I got in the car. I headed downtown. I drove around slowly. Went by the places I know I could pick up, at any time, day or night. Drove past, two, three, ten times. Stopped. Leaned on the wheel until someone came out, thinking I was staking out the place. I could have gotten out. Asked if they were holding. I stayed in the car. I started the car again. Circled some more. I drove around until I was almost out of gas, then filled up and came home. I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling. Sometime, between five and six in the morning I fell asleep, and dreamt of rich liquors and my father’s rough face and rasping voice. I dreamt of bruises and sex and hushed intense voices that might be threats or promises or sweet deadly kisses.
I woke up at nine-thirty and started the laundry.
Paranoia is a bitch sometimes when trying to get clean.