When my head cleared I started to think about
getting out of jail. The judge said I needed to complete the drug
program before he would sentence me. I filled out over a dozen requests
to be moved back there. I finally filed a grievance. Within
thirty days I was back on the drug wing. This time I decided to give
it my best effort. I decided to work for sobriety as if my freedom
depended on it, which it did.
We conducted Alcoholics Anonymous meetings
on the line two or three times every day. There were forty-six people
on the line, and all of them were required to attend every meeting.
If someone did not comply they were obliged to leave. Everyone had
meetings with the counselors twice a week. The counselors evaluated
each inmate based on what they heard. That was the place where it
was best to open up. The counselors also gave out written work to
be done on the line and returned to them. That was so they could
have concrete evidence of your progress. One of the counseling sessions
was an educational class designed to make your recovery easier, and to
explain the written material. The other session was nothing but dialog
between the “clients” and the counselors. Just in case someone wanted
to act stupid back in the dorm there were all sorts of rats to weed them
out. The head rats were called “Dorm Reps”. They reported directly
to the counselors. Ratting was encouraged, even rewarded. The
counselors said if you ratted on someone you were helping them, but if
you didn’t you were hurting yourself.
To me the whole system resembled sophisticated
and well-rationalized brain washing. I went in with a great deal
of distrust, not discounting all of the terrible things that happened to
me. I found out that the reason I distrusted so much was because
I was not a trustworthy person. That took me a while though.
The first thing I had to do was suspend my disbelief and allow someone
to help me. The easiest way to do that is to talk about your problems
with other people. I have always been a secretive person. That
prospect didn’t sound good at all.
After I heard everyone else there talk I became
relaxed enough to open up. A lot of the other prisoners had problems
far worse than my own. I could see that my own case wasn’t as earth
shattering as I thought it was. That also facilitated my ability
to speak. Of course once I dug deeper I found that very few of the
other inmates actually felt the depth of depravity into which I had spiraled
out of control. It was only my legal problems that were relatively
minor. The rest of my life was a complete disaster.
I didn’t have too much of a problem opening
up about my drug habit. Speaking about your habit could become a
contest to outdo the other speakers. What came as a challenge was
opening up about the things I kept very private: my personal desires, goals,
ambitions… all of the roots of my behavior. The past was another
thing I kept locked deep inside. It also had a lot to do with my
addiction. Not everyone shared private, personal information, but in order
for me to realize the whole problem I had to.
Once I broke the barrier of silence and admitted
that I had been a participant in heavy sadomasochistic activities I didn’t
have any more problems talking about myself. I was the only person
there who could say that, or who had the guts to admit that. After
I talked a little bit about it I had people come up to me and tell me they
couldn’t personally understand it, but they were impressed with the courage
I had shown in opening up about it. That fact is at the heart of
my addictive behavior. I want to hurt myself. I want other
people to hurt me. And sometimes I get off on hurting other people.
It sounds a whole lot like drug abuse, but it was a sexual addiction
My sexual addiction was the first real addiction
in my life. The pleasure contained the focus of all my desires.
I first started doing heavy drugs after my break-up with Erin. I
used the pleasure I derived from the drugs as a substitute for the sexual
release I could no longer achieve. When I discovered the combination
of sexual pleasure and chemical euphoria I was hopelessly addicted to both.
My love of pleasure and pain also says a lot about my use of needles.
I never went into any lurid details, just as I haven’t in this book, but
talking about my problems helped me. I did more than just talk about
them, too. I wrote more than two hundred pages about myself.
That work was the rough, undeveloped precursor to this one.
More important than what I said and what I
wrote is what I learned. I already knew that my addiction is a disease.
I found out the symptoms of my disease are, among other things, anger,
depression, resentment, fear, and legal problems. All of the things
I thought were inherently wrong with me actually came from my addiction.
I learned that if you want to change yourself you have to change all of
your actions. You have to believe that spiritual power exists for
you to draw upon. The whole program of recovery hinges on spirituality.
I came to understand that if I could embrace spirituality with an open
and willing heart my entire lifestyle would change. Every aspect
of it would be improved, even down to physical appearance.
I learned that denial is addiction’s greatest
asset. If one refuses to believe there is anything wrong with his
or her life, obviously the desire to change will be muted. I had
to make myself aware of the challenges to my health, sanity and freedom
in order to face them. To do that I would have to make admissions.
That having been done it is important to remember at all times that addiction
is the enemy. Addiction loves for its victims to forget. That’s
when it meets no resistance, steps in and regains control. Above
al it is important to remember that no one can stay clean forever without
the help of other people who are familiar with the problem. “To believe
that you are man or woman enough to overcome the problem alone is to suffocate
your chances of survival with sugar coated bullshit.” (In the exact words
of my good friend Dean France)
I learned that to get my life back I had to
reeducate myself to think and feel instead of reacting and choking my feelings
out. I had to wake up to the truth, that I don’t need all of the
shit I used to poison my body and my mind. I don’t need to medicate
in order to feel good. It would be better to meditate. That’s
exactly what I began to do.
As for sex, well, I didn’t have any problem
telling the counselors and everyone else that I doubted I would ever be
able to give that up. Kevin Fisher, the nice black counselor, told
me that it was only sex for instant personal gratification that posed an
obstacle for most addicts. I didn’t tell him that I never embarked
on sexual adventures for instant personal gratification. I thought
that I had made it abundantly clear that I looked at sex as a medium for
the mutual pleasure of each participant. My sexual habits were a
lot more complicated than the average person’s on whom the comments about
“instant personal gratification” were based. The counselors didn’t
want to deal with my case in front of everyone else, probably because I
was atypical in their treatment community. They didn’t want to disturb
the other people in my group by talking about my problems. The kind
of sexual lifestyle I enjoyed freaks out normal people. The truth
of the matter was that I needed to confront my sexual addiction as if it
were my greatest problem, or else I would never overcome my addiction to
drugs. Unfortunately I did not see that quite so clearly then as
I do now.
By the time I had been in the program for
ninety days I didn’t feel self-conscious talking about anything in my life.
Just the stories I could tell about my life as a junkie earned the respect
of the counselors and “my peers”. Kevin and Dean told me they felt
I would go on to help people with my story, which was very extreme by conservative
standards. That was why they decided to make me a dorm representative.
The fact I was the most educated and literate person on the line had a
little to do with it as well. That meant I could help less fortunate
people by explaining the complicated things to them. It was the counselors
opinion the program needed people like me. I didn’t see it that way.
I can honestly say that the program gave me
the insight and the knowledge I needed to overcome drug addiction.
What it did not do was change my mind about the world. I remained
a cynic throughout my participation in the drug program, just as I was
before and just as I always will be. I learned that sobriety allows
me to be bitter and twisted with a clear mind and an equally clear conscience.
I learned that as long as I don’t let those feelings eat me alive and push
me to do drugs, as long as I am honest and open about my cynicism, there
is absolutely nothing wrong with feeling the way I do. Many people
in the treatment community will disagree with what I have said. That
is to be expected. After all, they are agents of the propaganda machine.
I am certain to be labeled as misguided and paranoid, but how else could
such dangerously free ideas be discredited effectively? I happen to reject
positive thinking. The drug treatment community vehemently despises
negative thinking. Does this mean our love affair is over? Not necessarily.
I often thought that one of the reasons I
was a drug addict was because I was a radical thinker. I found out
the two have nothing to do with each other. I can be a more effective
radical thinker without drugs. My thoughts had been shackled down
by addiction. Once I was clean my mind began the long ascent back
up to the level it had once honored me with, to the state of beauty God
granted me the ability to achieve. This inner peace and clarity of
mind means nothing in the frame of my social standing or what place I hold
in the order of things, but it means everything to the status my spirit
may achieve.
I found out that to be truly radical I had
to stop worrying about the rest of the world and look deep inside myself.
I still keep all of my negative ideas about society and politics; they
mean nothing if I lose touch with the spiritual entity I am. I strive
to remain a positively dynamic creature despite having such a low opinion
of my fellow man. I seek to go far away from the confines of the
physical world, into a limitless expanse of spiritual energy. I reach
out for the energy with longing and find that I can bring it into myself.
Upon opening my eyes I realize a deep feeling of inner peace. That
is the goal I hope to perpetuate. That is the result I crave to enjoy
permanently. If my essence can be at harmony with the world, no matter
the extreme negativity all around me, then nothing can touch me.
My body may be scattered on the four winds, but the entity I am will live
still.
I do not believe in all of the constrictive
tenets of the Christian religion. I do regard the intent behind those
archaic messages with extreme respect. I have personally chosen to
follow no religion, but instead be true to love, virtue and my own understanding
of God and spirituality. I don’t feel comfortable with traditional
notions of sin and damnation. I can not buy into the simple surrender
that makes most Christians so happy. Deep in my heart I believe that
God is truly a benevolent being. I believe that He loves and forgives
all of His children who follow a path of love and virtue. I know
that anyone with faith can call upon His love for assistance. I did
that every day in the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison. I asked God
for strength to make it through the hard times I had fallen on. I
begged God to grant me the power to rebuild my battered spirit, to rekindle
the desire to live a good life. And would you know, the most beautiful
thing happened. I gradually came to be restored to health and sanity.
One day I knew that I had been saved. God had saved my life for a
reason, and He made me strong again.
The thought has crossed my mind that the only
reason I am still alive must be so that I can write down my experiences
and revelations, so that their reading may help other people avoid my pitfalls
and reach a greater understanding of their own problems. I have one
talent, and that talent is writing. If I work hard enough on the
things I want to say I produce writing that is very powerful, whether or
not you like what it says. I sincerely believe that my writing will
one day reach someone. I can imagine no greater reason why God could
have allowed me to continue my existence after all of the wrongs I have
done, and after all my attempts to take my own life. There must be
a reason I survived the experiences I have related when many others didn’t.
There must be a purpose, and until I see something else I will continue
writing.
The best thing to come out of my growing inner
peace and spirituality was the strength to deal with what happened next.
The Public Defenders office had been telling me that I was going home on
probation when sentencing arrived. Silly me, I counted the days to
my court date. I wanted to believe that I was going home, but something
inside me kept telling me it wasn’t going to happen. Sure enough,
when the judge sentenced me, a first offender with a college education
and a hatred of all things violent, he gave me three years instead of letting
me go. If I had not opened my mind to prayer and meditation, if I
had not made peace with myself, I would have done something crazy over
that by now. As it was I lapsed into unhappiness, but only for a
short while. After that my resolve to survive, to make myself better
regardless of environment, took control of my mind, and I dwelt on my misfortune
no longer. I made up my mind to keep going up no matter who might
tell me to get back down. I have never looked back. I will
never allow another human being the satisfaction of keeping my spirit trapped
in negativity, as judges are so wont to do. I placed myself in the
unfortunate circumstance of losing my material freedom, but my spirit remained
free from the confines in which my body had been placed. Now, a free
man, I am faced with going through the same experience again, because I
have no respect for the agents of the law and because my old habits die
hard. Still, nothing on earth has the power to reach my inner self
and harm me there now that I have regained my mental equilibrium.
I say to you that I did not do the things
I did for the sake of badness. I did these things because they all
felt good to me at the time. I regret many of my actions, but if
I had them to do over again there are very few I would change. Perhaps
the world would be safer if I did not exist, if other people like me were
not becoming increasingly easy to find. I am here, though, and I
am doing my best to make sure that my existence can not be completely hidden
or eradicated.
I believe in the basic evil of men.
I believe anything men can do to further their own selfish goals will be
done. I believe that our society is filled with those corrupted by
power and greed. To those people the dissemination of important information
constitutes a threat. For that reason I have worked feverishly to
finish this work. I doubt very seriously that anyone cares this has
been written, or that anyone would consider it a threat. Because
this work shows the world just how free people are to do the wrong thing,
and because no one will know I have written it, I feel it is a threat.
It is a threat to the oppressive confines of a fascist education system
with no background in morality or spirituality. It is a threat to
the profits of the drug dealers, and thus many of the people in the highest
levels of our society and government. This work threatens the widespread
ignorance of the depth of pain the addict can suffer. This work has
been very important to me. I wrote it for all the right reasons.
I don’t have the slightest desire to profit from it or become famous.
I want nothing less than to change the world for the better. I will
close with one final plea: if somehow you manage to read this and you find
something wrong with my thinking, I beg of you, please teach me the error
of my ways. Compassion would demand that from you.