Maracujá - I Love You (Period)

I am an addict. Or rather a former addict. I used to have an addiction problem that I explored in my twenties. I found that I loved drugs and I loved alcohol in excess. That in turn led me to understand that I have an addictive personality. I craved people like I craved substances. I wanted to be seen and heard. I wanted to be the life of the party. I grew up with a very limited social structure and I spent a lot of time day dreaming about the fabulous life. Everything in life meant living to the extreme. However, when you are poor there is no such thing as the glamorous life. Everything is structured around tropes involving poor white trash. We have babies at an early age. We use food stamps. Our neighbors call Social Services on us, because our parents discipline us in public. We go to school wearing hand-me-downs or clothes that were not bought from a brand name store. Despite having advantages that most other races don't have due to white privilege, there were still limitations and social stigmas attached to families that came from the other side of the tracks. Regardless if families from different social structures lived right across the street from one another. The hierarchy had already been established. I never understood why, I only knew I hated it.

I never really wanted to live a life in total excess. To me, having too much always meant that I would have to work to keep the things that I had. When you have too much in a family that doesn't have enough sometimes family members will steal the things you love. I "lost" so many things growing up, because people couldn't leave well enough alone. I would have clothes stolen from my clothes line. My cassette tapes and CD's would get stolen. I would have hidden Christmas presents disappear without explanation. I learned to keep my personal possessions limited or they would come up missing.

I loved going out to bars/dance clubs in my late teens and early twenties. Being independent was a part of the adult equation that I was all too eager to exploit. The nightlife was a seedy beast that called to me with cheap alcohol, powdery substances and men with loose morals. I remember the first time that I tried meth. I had never tried anything harder than marijuana up until then and meth made me feel like Superman. It wasn't until I had been hooked on the shit for a few months that I realized what coming down actually meant. I used to think that I was a smart kid. In elementary school they pushed D.A.R.E. on children like it was a drug itself. I remember having to recreate scenarios in class with other students in which we would act out peer pressure tactics. To this day I don't ever remember anyone ever coming up to me trying to pressure me to do anything. I think that I was always curious as to how drugs affected me. I found out the easy way what I loved about them and I took advantage of opportunities that were presented to me to get high.

I have low self esteem. When I was high, I loved everything and everyone! I could talk to people about anything. I became a social butterfly and I interacted with folks who shared their passions with me. Drugs amplified my romanticism with life. I stayed out all night, dancing in night clubs. I met up with people at house parties in random locales around Phoenix. I worked in a bathhouse and I made friends with dealers who would give me stuff if I found them potential buyers. I craved the entire existence, because I got drugs, sex, food, and attention without having to give up anything. I mean, I gave up things like my self worth or my time with friends and family. I was concerned with living, or trying to evolving, that I was okay with overlooking the things that I gave up.

I mentioned in another post that I had some friends named Ray and Paul. I loved both of these men like they were my family. Ray supplied me with most of my drugs. We all spent time together just talking about all kinds of shit. I remember a time when we all spent a night (that had rolled into day) in bed just talking about the complexities of life. We were really starting to come down and the crash was hitting us harder than expected. I attempted to sleep, but their California king bed wasn't very comforting with 3 meth-heads trying to get some sleep. Later that day, they took me back to work and I dragged through my shift as best as I could. This was during the holiday season of 1996. I lived in a shitty apartment in far east Mesa, by myself. I drove a shitty '79 Dodge pick-up that belonged to my Mom. My list of friends had started to get smaller so quickly after high school. I was happy to have Ray and Paul in my life. Ray was murdered sometime after the new year in 1997. He was involved in a drug deal gone bad/drug turf situation. It broke my heart more than anything in the world. I would spend hours reading the Christmas card that he and Paul had given me. I remember it saying "we will always be here for you! We love you! Ray & Paul". I'd cry some more, get high, and then try to escape back into my existence as if nothing had happened.

At some point I decided that I needed a change. A friend of mine had convinced me that the Mexican Mafia was hunting down all of Ray's friends to make them suffer the same fate that Ray had suffered. It scared me enough to quit my job and hide myself in my secluded apartment. I didn't need dealers to supply me with drugs, because I had friends in low places that could always help me out. At one point I dated a guy who liked smoking meth and he would share with me. I figured that I could continue my drug use, as long as I remained functional and I went to work. It wasn't perfect all of the time, but it kept me grounded. Then things started to get stupid. I would put my trust in someone who would take my money and give me powdered products that were not drug related. I'd get "weed" that was mixed with cooking herbs. I was giving my money away to crooks and I wasn't getting the thing that I craved. The final straw came when I gave a step cousin $85 to buy half of some good shit. He was supposed to spend $170 total for the drugs and waited patiently for him to let me know when I could collect my share. Days went by without a word from him. I worried that he was fucking me over! When I finally confronted him he said that his parents ransacked his room and found my "half" of the stash and they flushed it down the toilet. He had conveniently already consumed his half. That was when I said to myself that I was done with drugs. I moved back home and I avoided those people I used to get high with. I fell off the wagon a few times. Crashing always brought me back to reality. It was a darker reality, but it made me realize what it was that I didn't want in my life anymore.

I hate being taken advantage of. Party people always find a way to take advantage of others to benefit themselves. I tried to be one of those people, but I have a conscious and guilt usually kept me from manipulating others. I learned how to spot tweakers and junkies. I distanced myself from them. I knew how they behaved and I knew what to believe and what not to believe. My baby sister became one of these people. I had a hard time trusting her for many years. She would deny taking things from me whenever I confronted her. It got to the point where I couldn't have her in my house, because there was too much temptation for her to steal things from me. It wasn't until she went to prison, got cleaned up, and was released that I was able to welcome her back into my good graces. To this day I have old acquaintances that I stopped talking to because they took from me. It was hard to put my personal feelings for them aside, but I knew that I was only hurting myself by keeping them around.

It's been over twenty years and I haven't touched any hard drugs. I also don't drink to excess. Drinking to get drunk never made much sense to me. I made an ass out of myself one too many times when I would drink to excess. I have learned how to enjoy adult beverages so that I don't find myself trying to recall my behavior during a drinking binge. Sadly, the only thing that I haven't been able to control is my food addiction. I used to be a svelte 195 lb beauty and I have morphed into a +400 lb beast of a man. I know how to lose weight, but I lack the motivation to get me started on the right track. This is part of addiction that fucks with me on a daily basis.

Some days I try to tell myself that I also have an addiction to sex. I watch porn. I lust after nudity. I joke with my male friends about cock and fucking. I love hook-ups (but not with strangers)! I try to understand my desires. They always seem so irrational. Lust, desire, and passion, they take root in me and fill me with a need to feed an insatiable hunger. Sometimes, when I am able to meet up with someone for some really hot sex, I am able to complete the interaction and not want anything more. Some days I am like a junkie looking for multiple fixes. The sensation to be a total whore takes over my mind and I am ready to invite multiple men to experience me all at the same time. It sends my anxiety soaring. I want to fuck all of the time! I want to be fucked and be intimate and engage in sweaty man on man sex so much that it fogs my mind. It keeps me from getting out of my bed sometimes. Jerking off doesn't help. Committing to meeting up doesn't help either, because there is a whole process that I have to go through before I have sex and it takes too much time to prepare for it. I find myself chasing the high, and crashing hard when I have fed all the little demons in my head. Then I put myself in bed and try to recuperate until the feelings come back.

Now I know this sounds like I don't love myself enough (or at all). An outsider might look at me and say "Chris, you have destructive behavior", but I don't think that I am being destructive. I know when my behavior is out of control and I know when to hold myself accountable. It can be a daunting task trying to reel it all in, but I manage to put myself in check long enough to realize what it is that I am doing. I am not always able to answer the questions in my head. It takes time and patience in order for me to figure myself out. I don't know when or if I will ever be able to understand the things that I do. I figure that it will come to me someday. If I am lucky.