Imodium a.k.a. Loperamide a.k.a. the drug that will keep the glacial wall of poop sitting in my colon from evacuating my body as liquid froth. The directions say: Take two, 4 milligram tablets a day. That’ll have to be doubled.
Squares of tin foil circle me like eroded gravestones. I crumple another one into a tight ball and toss it into the corner. Tonight’s really looking like the last night. If I were in the ER, the beep-beeping of my pulse would be dropping in pitch right about now. It would sound like a dying smoke detector. But I’m not in the ER, I’m in my lamp-lit room scrounging through pieces of trash for any forgotten pieces of heroin. My friend pulls a green bottle from his backpack, placing it next to the white bottle of anti-diarrheal.
Valerian Root a.k.a. the herbal relaxation supplement that somehow does a worse job than if i were to just meditate. The directions say: Take one, 2400 milligram tablet before bed. That’ll have to be tripled, and probably mixed with weed.
My fingers are ash black, clutching the next closest piece of aluminum closest to me. This one looks promising. Long, burnt lines zig-zag across like tread marks left on tile floors by hospital gurneys. The ones that take corners too fast. But, despite these useless scorch marks, the overhead light reveals glints off sticky residue hidden in the folds. Small patches of life. I extinguish these into a final puff of smoke that I quickly suck down.
Next.
The pile of balled up foil grows higher against the corner. Beep. My friend counts fat, yellow pills from small orange bottles. Beep. The current square of metal, shaking in my hand, is a husk. No shimmering glints. No signs of promise. Beep. Next. Beep. Next. Beep. My friend pushes a sandwich bag of the fat, yellow pills toward me.
Zoloft a.k.a. Sertraline a.k.a. the anti-depressants I hadn’t taken since before I’d dropped out of college. The directions say: Take two, 100 milligram pills; one in the morning and one at night. Unfortunately, snorting them doesn’t strengthen the effects. My friend, and his blood stained lip, can attest to that.
The circle is broken. Gone, actually. The once-recyclable-trash is now just trash-trash, a crumpled mess in the corner. My friend has already accepted our fate, as he continues replacing the circle with a litany of OTC medications. The kind of stuff you would find on the bottom shelves of a Rite Aid—the kind of stuff even children could steal. How many milligrams of baby aspirin does it take to get high?
Unfortunately, the results of my friend and I’s DIY detox center were not fruitful. To be fair, we did make it more days than we could count on our fingers, but just barely. Actual sobriety didn’t take for me until February 15th, 2016.
On that date, I locked myself in the bathroom of some now-defunct sober house somewhere between San Diego and Los Angeles. A Valentine’s Day miracle had presented itself. Hidden in the folds of one of my notebooks was a small glint of sticky brown tar—a piece of heroin that had somehow made its way from Seattle, through TSA, onto an airplane, and into a semi-secured rehab. It was the closest thing to a Candy Gram that I was going to get.
And boy, do I have a sweet tooth.
Somehow, that ended up being the last time I got high. Seven years and three days ago. There was nothing special about that night. I found drugs, so I did them. Simple math. In fact, as much as I didn’t want to believe it, nothing in my life at that point was complicated. All the nuance and subtlety that came with being a human was gone, obliterated to just one desire: What can I put into my body to give me the feeling I need?
Tired? Take two, 15 milligram doses of meth.
Wired? Try five, 100 milligram puffs of heroin.
Sad? All you need is one, 25 milligram pill of Instant Release Adderall.
Happy? Congratulations.
So, no. February 15th, 2016 wasn’t anything special. It was just like all the other times I sat in my room, dolling out medication, planning how I was going to survive with only Advil and Chamomile Tea because my dealer wouldn’t get back to me. It only became special because this ended up being the time where I learned how to stop trying to constantly control how I feel, which—and I cannot make this clear enough—was not by choice.
The glorious feelings of guilt, pain, despair, loneliness, and dull, mild nausea were hoisted upon me.
Two 4 milligram tablets of Imodium; one, 2400 milligram tablets of Valerian Root; and two, 100 milligram pills of Zoloft were not enough to save me. Not by themselves. If sobriety was a cold knife to the stomach, all they did was dull the blade—which, if you’ve ever been stabbed, is not particularly helpful. Beep. They only really work after the knife is removed. Beep. I needed surgical intervention.
At the risk of extending this metaphor for too long, I never knew any “doctors1” until rehab and AA. This is where I met those who knew what I was going through and who knew how to help. In fact, they didn't just get the bleeding to stop, they also taught me how to do it myself. No more trial and error. No more liquid diarrhea. No more 12-inch blades protruding from my abdomen. With the core problem resolved, it makes medication much more useful.
Which is why I currently take one, 100 milligram, pill of Zoloft every morning and one, 250 milligram, tablet of Magnesium every night.
There is absolutely a Doctor Silkworth joke in here somewhere.
A pleasure to read, Matt. I love the moments of realization/clarity you include in these. And even though we've never met in person, I'm so glad that you're alive to write about your experiences rather than the other way around.
Recall reading stories of people with thousand dollar per day habits quitting cold turkey and taking loperamide by the hundreds. If you take enough, they do in fact cross the blood brain barrier, but its a nasty, unenjoyable buzz. Just take enough to be able to function in withdrawal, or find some suboxone and trade 5 days of sick for 2+ months of sick.