The alarm goes off at 6:00 am. So far so good. How is this hard for people? My laptop plays an episode of Seinfeld. Something from season eight. George is napping under his desk at work while my hands search in the dark for the lamp. How much sleep did I get? The last episode I remember was from season seven.
I lick the grit off my teeth. Maybe I should actually brush them today, not that I’ve gone that many days without. I’m not a crackhead. My jeans are even folded neatly next to the bed.
The second alarm goes off. It’s 6:05 am, and since I’m so responsible, I’m already buttoning up my flannel shirt. What is there to complain about? I have ten whole minutes to finish my routine. That’s half an episode of Seinfeld. I drop two oval shaped pills into an old prescription bottle and place a third beneath my tongue. The label says Zoloft but the pills are Adderall. Not that it matters. As long as the drugs are coming out of an orange container, no one thinks twice.
The third alarm goes off. I’m way ahead of schedule. The city bus doesn’t leave for another half hour. George is hiding from his boss on screen as I put on my shoes and zip up my backpack. A black lump of tar rolls between the keys of my laptop. Unfortunately, even in a fake prescription bottle, heroin looks suspicious. Since I can’t risk bringing it, I smoke twice the amount I usually do.
My final alarm goes off. 6:15 am. This is too easy. I step outside the apartment, lock both the deadbolt and the bottom lock, walk down the hall to the elevator while humming the bass line from Seinfeld, and press the down button. Numbers flash across the LCD screen.
L. 2. 3.
My hands tingle like they’re falling asleep, and my body disconnects from the world. But was it enough to last all day? I can still feel my feet.
4. 5.
The elevator doors ding open but instead of getting in, I turn around. I head back up the hall, humming the bass line from Seinfeld at twice the speed, unlock the bottom doorknob, followed by the top, and step into my apartment. One extra hit couldn’t hurt.
The instructor asks why I want to teach high-school. Her students are split into groups, talking about how Barbra dropped out of the cheer routine, and oh my God do you think Bill’s actually going to ask her to homecoming. None of the groups are working on the physics assignment handout. Isn’t there something else you’d rather do with your life? The teacher asks.
The lunch bell rings. I want to say that I think being a teacher is the most rewarding job you can have, but the Adderall is wearing off. So instead, I leave with the rest of the students and find the closest bathroom.
It’s 12:45 when the next bell goes off. Third period? Fourth period? The astronomy teacher is talking about how black holes are made, how stars collapse in on themselves and destroy everything around them. Sweat pricks through the palms of my hand, and I’m kicking myself for not bringing any heroin.
I forgot to introduce our guest, the astronomy teacher says. Everyone is staring at me, and I want to hide under the desk like George Costanza. This is Matt Andersen, a physics student from the University of Washington. He wants to become a teacher, so don’t be afraid to ask him any questions.
A bell goes off at 1:00. Time for lab. How much longer until I can leave? My drug dealer says he can meet me down the street, behind the dumpster at the Domino’s pizza. The kid next to me is working by himself, his hair hangs in front of his eyes like mine did when I was in high school. His voice trembles when he asks me what the Y component of the velocity vector means.
I tell him I’ll be right back.
People have told me that being a drug addict is a full time job. That wasn’t true for me. At the job I have today1 I can clock off at 5 p.m., eat dinner with my family, spend the evening with my wife, and not think at all about work until the next morning. My drug addiction, on the other hand, didn’t respect labor laws. It operated twenty-four seven, including weekends. It consumed my entire life.
I wasn’t entirely stupid. This was something I had accepted early on. In fact, I distinctly remember telling a friend once that, “I should never try heroin because I have too much of an addictive personality.”
Needless to say, that didn’t pan out. Once I started doing heroin, quitting wasn’t an option. Sobriety was inconceivable—something for people much stronger, and more noble, than I could ever be. I also had no reason to stop. I was a still functioning member of society. I went to college, took summer classes. My grades even improved. Logically, it made sense that whatever I was going to do with my life, drugs would be part of it, even if I wanted to become a high school teacher.
Now, drugs made me believe some pretty crazy stuff: Inter-dimensional alien visitations, suicide car bombers targeting me, the imminent apocalypse. But perhaps the craziest of all was that I could live a completely normal life as a high school teacher who smoked heroin and meth.
I couldn’t (and, at the risk of sounding controversial, shouldn’t.) Addiction is a progressive disease. One by one, I jettisoned everything I ever valued in life in order to keep my drug boat afloat. No more good grades. No more going to class. No more going outside. Last of all, no more future.
Don’t worry I’m not a high school teacher
One of the insane aspects to this disease is how we can generate these ridiculous ideas and somehow normalize them--there is some brain dysfunction!
You capture it perfectly:
“But perhaps the craziest of all was that I could live a completely normal life as a high school teacher who smoked heroin and meth.”
What made you want to be a teacher or at least entertaining that idea for a while?