I survived death.
I hear a banging from a distant, dark, echoing tunnel. I can’t focus in on exactly why, where or even what it is I am hearing.
“It’s Check Out Time…”
Let me start here. My addiction and my relationship with her lasted many years. It has ruined relationships, jobs, self-respect, thinking, and altered my mental and physical health. The wake of destruction behind left snapshots imprinted deep in my memory, playing over and over from my every waking moment until they were permanently ingrained. Constantly trying to escape her grip yet again, I stumble and get pulled into the darkness and warmth of the seduction. It’s as if looking into a mirror and seeing beauty that slowly fades into such dark ugliness that you feel a cringe in the deepest part of your lower bowels.
After years of fighting addiction I again find myself within the walls of recovery, usually ordered or part of some type of agreement with the judicial system to gain freedom. This time its different. I have voluntarily surrendered myself wanting to escape the darkness that has taken over my total existence. Living within the walls of a protecting force of group meetings, educational classes, and mental awareness gatherings, I am intertwined with like souls and professional guidance. Daily tackling the curriculum of substance abuse I am traveling a path to redemption, normalcy, feeling – a rebirth of sorts. I have reached the milestone within the program where one is granted a pass to slowly revisit the world, a weekend with family perhaps. Yet having no family, or at least any family which would be welcoming or want me around, I thought “maybe a movie, a visit to a museum, a walk in a park, just go and enjoy living.”
Once on the bus heading to town it starts – the thoughts, the snap shots, the “what ifs?” that I continue to fight and visit, at the same time losing as a tug of war engulfs my whole being. Finding myself, or should I say placing myself, directly into the darkness I have fought so fraudulently to escape. Yet again I am a failure, overtaken by a force so much more powerful than I. The filth, despair, neglect, the darkness has overshadowed any hope of redemption. I LOST, I’M FINISHED, I’M DONE, IT’S OVER. There is nothing else. I have been marked from birth. The path is written. This is the end. I cannot bear the defeat again.
I must stop the pain. The failure has overpowered my worth. I need to win and I will as I enter the hotel room paying for 2 days, double-locking the door from within. The scene is set, the final battleground, I will gain redemption. As I heat the spoon, draw up the final poison x 3 and inject, I feel the seduction and warmth enter my veins with a feeling of victory knowing I have finally achieved the win, knowing I will no longer have to fall to this evil. I have exercised the only solution. I HAVE WON.
“It’s Check Out Time…”
50 plus hours have passed……I hear a banging from a distant, dark, echoing tunnel. I can’t focus in on exactly why, where or even what it is I am hearing.
As I lift my head it is as though I am in a dream state. I notice a large patch of hair (scalp) lying on my pillow, a remnant of my body shutting down. The banging becomes louder as I recall the setting – a hotel room, my hotel room, the final battleground. I’m dead, but not. This too I have failed or not?
As I stand here today 35 years later to the day, many battles have been fought. There has been defeat yet many victories, true feelings, understanding, knowledge, worth, real relationships, many children, many more grandchildren. Today maybe a movie, a visit to a museum, a walk in a park, just go and enjoy living.
I DID WIN!
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