I Don’t Wanna Fall

I don’t want to ride this roller coaster.  Think I want to get off, but they buckled me down like it’s the end of the world.”  Matt Alber, “End of the World”

This is the end of day 8.  I made it through what the smoking cessation people call “Hell Week” and I’m much relieved.

Joe is in the living room, unable to peel himself off the sofa, and, at this exact moment, puking his guts out.  I guess in addition to the 2 days he was slamming heroin into his arm, he’s been heavily abusing benzos for a couple of months; not an easy detox.  I feel bad for him, but I’m not the one who dangled him over.  I’m safely buckled down into a workable routine of “willing to go to any lengths.”

When Jake and I were talking to Joe last week before he left the house and didn’t come home, I asked him if he remembered what detoxing was like, if he remembered being sick on his parent’s sofa for days before he begged them to take him to treatment.  He said he didn’t remember.

Honestly, I don’t remember detoxing much either.  For meth, detox consists largely of sleeping around the clock and eating everything that isn’t nailed down.  But I remember my turning point.  I remember the heartbreak.  I never yet have gotten too far away from that.  Writing about it, and working with others are the key things I can do that keep it clear in my mind.

I want to move really far away from it.  I want it to seem unconcionable that I should ever have been there.  I’m not convinced you can move that far from a bottom except by knowing exactly where it is.