From: pez@manhattan.com (Gizmo) Subject: The Adventures Of Smacks Past, Part 5 (Last stop on the D-Train) Date: 1996/09/20 newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard Allright. Since I have gotten a few requests for "the dark side" of the heroin game, here is a story. A real (life just stepped on my dick story.) As with all of these "adventures", the following is true. It was toward the end of 1983. My four or five year run was "over" for now. I had been in a live-in rehab program for the past five months and I was doing great. Before going in, I had over a $100 a day habit, was also on methadone, and using Cocaine when I could afford some. Everyone, including my parents had disowned me. Didn't have a dollar to my name, not a single possession and I had three court cases pending simultaneously. But that's another story. So I'm doing well. Got my health back. Doing well in the program. Started feeling good about myself. All the right stuff. Finally after being here for five months, I get my first 24 hour pass. In treatment programs of the type I was in, it takes about that long to finally be allowed to "stay out" on an overnight program. So I finallly made it. But now that I was really faced with the reality of going out, all my worst cravings came back again. I just didn't know what to do on this first night out. So I called my ex-wife and told her I would see her on Saturday. She came and got me and I told her that I wanted to get high. She had gone back to live with her parents in the meantime and she was chipping every now and then. Of course she was pissed with me, but it didn't take long for her to agree to join me. So together we went to cop, then got a hotel room for the night. The rest of the get high scene was typical. Six bags of dope, two bags of coke. But the next day! Now what do I do. I had to go back to the program. And I was still stoned. Could I get by with it. They randomly took urines. I made myself as presentable as I could and went back to the program I was in. Somehow I made it through the sign in. Somehow, I didn't get asked for my urine. Whew. But the next day, Monday, I'm feeling really sick. Not withdrawal, just lots of craving. I should have known better. All morning I'm thinking of how I could get high. And I'm going through hell with this. Being pulled this way and that as I stuggled with the urge. Later that afternoon, I get the opportunity to run an errand for the program. Oh shit. I knew I was in trouble. I knew I was going to cop. And I did. Now, really stoned again, now what do I do? My luck couldn't hold out. I had to be back soon, and I was way too fuckup up to get by with it. So I called the program and gave them some childish excuse about having found out my mother was sick and in the hospital. This bought me some time, but not enough. By 10PM I was still stoned. I'm at my parents house, and they can see that I'm fucked up again. Total disbelief on their part. And they are heart broken too. Well, soon I'm on the phone to the program, trying to convince them that it's all on the level. They insist that I have to be back by midnight, or I'm gonig to get put under what they call a "contract." That's a program term for being punished. "Fuck it, I tell'm. I'm not leaving my mother, and blah blah blah." So here I am with my ex-wife who came over by now, stoned out of my mind, my parents in tears and all I could do was wait for them to go to bed so I could do the rest of the shit in my pocket. The next day, I go back to the program. And of course they take my urine, and of course they know I lied to them, and of course I'm in big trouble. "Go sit on the fucking bench and stare at the wall, mother fucker," the counselor says. And this I do, for a while, as the dope is wearing off. I'm told that I'm going to have to sit on this fucking bench every day for the next week from 6AM until 11PM. I have to eat my meals there and the only time I can get up is to go to the can. After the week is up, I'm to literally start the whole fucking program over again. Up at 6AM, down in the basement hauling out the garbage for a house with over 200 residents in it. Hands and kness cleaning and scrubbing floors, cleaning stains with a toothbrush. And this was to go on for about 2 months. Pure hell. Well after about five hours of sitting there, I can't stand it anymore. I pick myself up and split. They give me the few possessions that I had and I'm out the door. Now what? I'm still on probation. The probation stipulates that I must stay in and finish a program. If I leave before the time is completed, I violate and do the time in jail! But for the moment all I can think of is getting high, and I have no money. Somehow I make it to the cop spot. I sell my sony walkman for two bags of stuff. Not enough. I want to get stoned. I call my ex-wife and tell her to bring money. She does not have any. She can't help me, shes in enough trouble for all this. She's furious. My parents know about it by now, her parents know. Everyone is telling me to get my ass back to the program. But there is no way I'm going back, right? Aimlessly wandering the streets near where my wifes parents live, I'm scheming for a way to get money. I spot an empty car left running on the road. Without even thinking, I jump in the car and peel off. First I take the car and sell all the fairly new tires on it. The gas station must have thought I was a real sicko to sell him my tires and ask for four old used ones to be put back on. Hell, it got me eighty bucks. I drive down to the spot, cop some dope and head for an abandoned building. All alone in the dark, I'm really wondering what in the fuck just happened? Two days ago, I was clean and feeling fine. Now in just two days, I'm right back where I was before I went into treatment. Was this what they meant by "a dark night of the soul?" Worse was ahead. >To be continued in Part Six<