Crystal Clean (28 page)

Chapter 30

Christmas, 2006.

I was adamant about buying a tree and decorating the house. “Kimbo,” my mom pleaded with me, “don’t do this to yourself. You and Andy just come here and have Christmas Eve with us. Spend the night and let’s have a nice Christmas together. Why get a tree and put yourself through all of that when you know it’s just going to make you feel worse? Honey,
please
don’t do that to yourself.”

I knew I was just going through the motions, but I kept telling myself that if I could just make Christmas perfect, maybe everything would be all right, and it’s here that I must pause...

What the hell was it about Allan? Had he ever done anything to warrant my frenzied obsession? What was I trying so hard to hang on to and why couldn’t I let go?

I didn’t love Allan. I may have been in love with him at one time, but that was long past. I was angry: With him, with myself, with my situation, with the world. I don’t know what I would have done if he suddenly said, “You know what? I love you. You and I were meant for each other. Let’s live happily ever after.” I think that may have pissed me off more than what was happening at the time.

I think Allan was my tweak.

Tweak is a lay term used to describe the uncontrollable, subconscious repetitive behaviors that all meth users, in one form or another, engage in. The one most people are familiar with is picking. You’ve seen the scare-tactic pictures of meth addicts who have sores on their faces and arms. The user will pick incessantly at something that’s not there. They’ll pick and dig at their skin until it bleeds and scabs and then they’ll pick some more. They can’t help it. It has to do with the massive amounts of dopamine the brain produces with meth use. You only need look at the pictures to know they’re unable to control the picking behavior. No one
-
in
or
out of their right mind
-
wants to look like that. Years ago, when I was in my twenties and using crank, I went through my own picking phase. The scars on my face are my permanent marks of shame that I’ll wear for the rest of my life.

Tweaking isn’t limited to picking. “Tweakers” rock, make jerky, twitchy body movements, clean obsessively, take things apart, draw the same thing over and over, play a certain video game, shop
compulsively...gamble compulsively...and maybe even obsess over a person compulsively.

The few people who knew what my situation was back then always asked me, “why?” Why didn’t I leave? What was so intoxicating about him that made me want to stay? Until now, I’ve always said, “I don’t know,” because that was the truth. Even with all I’ve learned about my addiction and about meth itself, “I don’t know,” was my honest answer, which always left me feeling weak. “I don’t know,” is a child’s answer. “Allan was my tweak,” is the best I’ve come up with, because there had to be a reason and it certainly wasn’t that I was madly in love.

I was scared. Good or bad, my relationship with Allan was the longest I’ve ever had with a man. I thought it was my last chance. It’s the same reason I married so many years before. I was afraid that it was the best I could do, and that if I didn’t have a man who loved me, I must not be worthy of love.

That’s a heavy load to pin on someone whether I was conscious of what I was doing or not. I wanted so desperately to be loved, and felt so unworthy of it, that I clung to whatever shred of hope I might have of finding love. It took a long time for me to begin to understand that what I needed most was to love myself.

I knew I had to get out of the house and away from Allan. The situation was toxic and it was killing me. I knew this, but I still couldn’t let go. I didn’t want things between Allan and me to end. I didn’t want to lose him, but I knew that’s what was best for me. As depressed as I was, he was just the opposite, buzzing around making plans for his move to Twin Falls with anticipation and excitement, and the happier he seemed, the more betrayed and angry I felt.

We’d always divided Christmas Day between our families’ homes, but that year, there was no discussion of our plans for the holiday.

On Christmas morning, I sat in my rocker drinking coffee and chain smoking, waiting for Allan to get out of the shower. Andy was in his room watching
Star Wars
. He spent the night at home so we could enjoy Christmas Eve together and go to Grandma and Papa’s for the day. All my gifts for Andy were at Mom and Dad’s, so we were just waiting for Allan, who was getting ready to pick up his son on his way to his parents’ house.

While Allan dressed in his room, I could hear him on the
phone with his son saying, “Merry Christmas,” and finalizing plans to pick him up for the day. When he hung up, he knocked on Andy’s door. “Hey, man. Come on out here.”

“Oh, I coming,
Allan
!”

“Merry Christmas, man,” he said, giving Andy a big hug. He pulled a present from the pile of gifts under the tree. It was wrapped in typical Allan fashion: too much tape and no bow. I usually did the wrapping for both of us, but not that year.

“Oh, it’s a movie!
Enna
Star Wars
?”

“No, man. It’s
Gremlins,”
Allan tells him. “You’ll like it.”

“Uh, no fanks,” Andy said, waving his hand dismissing the unfamiliar movie. Allan wasn’t offended. It takes Andy a while to get used to a new movie. “
Allan
come Gamma Papa’s?”

“Not this time, man. Have a good day.” He gathered his things and he walked out the door.

Andy returned to Darth Vader and the Death Star as I sat stunned and fuming before screaming, “You rat-bastard, son of a bitch!” at his truck as he drove off down the street. I was enraged and seething with anger as I stormed around the house cursing him under my breath. I was pissed that he didn’t get me a gift, but I felt blindsided by his cavalier attitude. The fact that I didn’t get him anything was now justified by his negligence.

I was in my room furiously getting high when an idea popped into my head. The more meth I smoked, the more brilliant I felt until I knew what I was going to do. I don’t consider myself a vengeful woman, but the more I thought about what is probably the stupidest, most ass-jacked thing I’ve ever done, the better I felt.

I finally put my pipe down and went to the basement, bringing back the biggest box I could find
-
about two-and-a-half feet square
-
and set it in the middle of the living room floor. From my room, I gathered all the porn tapes, DVDs, books and magazines I’d bought over the years that we used to share. I went to Allan’s bathroom and, using a stepladder, collected all his magazines on the top shelf of the cupboard where he kept his towels. I put all these things into the box, carefully wrapped it complete with a jaunty red velvet bow. I wrote, “Merry Christmas, Allan,” on a gift tag, set the box dead center of his bed and stood back to admire my work. I felt elated and justified.

Christmas Day at my parents’ house was all holiday cheer and merriment. The house smelled heavenly with a ham in the crock-pot and Mom’s traditional cinnamon rolls fresh from the
oven. There were cold cuts and crackers, cookies and fudge, nuts and candies in little dishes all over the tables and counters. All I wanted was to go home and get high. I didn’t want to be around anyone. I only wanted the day to end.

When I got home, Allan was already there, sitting on the couch, as usual, watching television. “Hey,” he said. “How was your Christmas?” I didn’t know if he’d opened his present yet, but he was acting normal, so I guessed he hadn’t.

“Fine. How was yours?”

“Pretty good.” I stood there in the living room for a few seconds, watching him load his bong and take his first hit, filling the room with the pungent smell of pot. Then he laid down, turning his attention to the television. I felt stupid standing there, like a pitiful third wheel sitting in the front seat of a car while her best friend and her date are making out in the back.

I went to my room, pulled out my pipe and bag of meth and spent the rest of Christmas getting high and playing black jack online until the next morning. Andy was still staying with my parents. One way or another, I had to sell the house and we’d have to stay with them for a while, at least, until I figured out where we would go. There was no point, my mother reasoned, to move Andy until I had settled down. She was right. I’m so grateful to my parents for taking care of Andy through those final weeks of my addiction. I was in no shape to take care of him and he didn’t need to be any closer than he already was when I finally hit bottom.

Allan didn’t say anything about the gift I left him. I didn’t know if he’d even seen it yet, but I decided he must not have. Maybe he was too busy getting stoned and holding down the couch.

Chapter 3
1

A few days after Christmas, I received two phone calls. The first came at 12:30 in the afternoon as I was leaving Lou’s, where I’d been playing the machines. It was a beautiful day, but the sun stung my eyes as I emerged from the darkness where I had spent my morning. I won close to a grand that day, but even that windfall brought me no pleasure. I planned to stop at Rite-Aid on my way home to make my daily deposit of two hundred fifty dollars to someone on the Isle of Man via Western Union so I could play slots online at home. I had three thousand dollars in my online account but it wouldn’t be enough to get me through the day. When it came to my addictions, there was never enough.

Gambling was something I didn’t discuss much at the Walker Center. I mentioned it in group a couple of times and it was always treated as a joke by the other clients, and ignored by the staff other than an occasional comment segueing into cross-addiction that had nothing to do with gambling. Maybe because the Walker Center is a drug and alcohol rehab, they don’t focus on other addictions such as sex or gambling. All I know is that is was never addressed, and being an addict, I certainly wasn’t about to give up all my vices.

The first phone call was from Probation and Parole informing me of my meeting with my P.O. the next day. I was beginning to hope I’d been lost in the system, but of course, that didn’t happen. The second call was from a friend of a friend who heard the house was for sale and wanted to look at it that night. I would have to cancel my relapse prevention group, but everyone there knew what was going on. I had to sell the house and this was the first time anyone had shown interest. Allan was all set to leave at the end of the month come hell or high water.

I was high for my first meeting with Julie, my probation officer. She was icy, and I tried not to appear loaded. She asked me questions in a staccato, monotone voice that I would come to loathe, looking at me only a few times as she clicktey-click-clacked on her computer keyboard. Her demeanor was as rigid as her voice as she gave me the address of the building for my first urinary analysis. I had to be there by 5:30.

I went directly to GNC to get a cleansing formula
-
the same one I bought for Allan when he was on probation, and for a
couple of my boys who needed to pass drug tests. It always worked for them and I had no doubt it would work for me. At home, I drank the thick, grape-flavored syrup and filled the bottle with water according to the directions. The formula made my mouth and throat tingle, but I gagged it down anyway. I had to. I was detoxing.

I finished what was in the bottle and filled a gallon jug with water, as I needed to drink that amount to get the desired results. I still had a few hours before the test so I played online slots, drifting away from myself into a separate reality where nothing else existed.

When I realized it was time to get tested, I’d only consumed about a quarter of the water in the jug. I took two long drinks but the container was still more than half-full.
Fuck it
, I thought.
I’ll be okay
. Some was better than none.

It was my first U.A. but I knew what to expect. I’d heard about the process from enough people, but it was humiliating sitting on the toilet, holding a plastic cup between my legs while someone watched my every move. At first, I had stage fright and couldn’t pee despite my full bladder. When I was finally able to go, I kept missing the cup and I could feel my face flush as I moved it back and forth between my legs attempting to provide enough of a sample for the test. I glanced at the half-filled cup as I handed it to the woman before washing my hands. My urine was cloudy, but yellow. At least it didn’t look diluted. A diluted sample is the same as failing. There are no do-overs on felony probation.

The meeting that night at the house went well. The man seemed interested and told me he’d give me a call early the next week.

The day after my U.A., I was sitting on the floor of my living room, getting high with Mike, the son of a man I knew who’d spent his whole life in and out of prison. I bonded him out of jail a couple of times and he recommended me to his son when he needed a friend bailed out.

I began spending a lot of time with Mike when I got out of rehab. Life made him tough and street smart and I felt safe knowing that even when he wasn’t with me, he was only a phone call away if I needed him. He was in his early twenties and had the most striking blue eyes I’ve ever seen. In a box of crayons, they would be cornflower blue, and I swear they could pierce your heart. He and his girlfriend drifted from house to house, because neither of them had a place to stay. Mike started selling meth for me to make
enough money to keep them in dope.

We were in my living room getting high while I weighed out a quarter ounce for him, when my phone rang. I checked the caller ID.

“Oh, shit!”

“Who is it?”

“I think it’s my P.O., Julie.”

“You better answer it,” he said, blowing out a huge hit from the pipe. “If you don’t, she’ll come here and probably kick the door down.”

“Shit.”

“Kim,” she said in that clipped, monotone voice. “You had your U.A. yesterday. You want to tell me what happened?”

I felt the color drain from my face as I sat frozen with the phone to my ear. I tested positive for meth. There was silence while she waited for me to answer.

“I...I don’t know what to say, Julie.”

“You need to come see me. When can you be at my office?”

I looked at the clock. High noon. “I can be there at 2:00.”

“Fine. I’ll see you then.” My stomach was churning with slithering eels.

“What did she say?” Mike asked, loading another bowl.

“I failed my U.A. and I have to go see her at two.”

“Who do you have?”

“Julie Bryant.”

“She’s my P.O., too. She’s tough, but you do what she says and you’ll be okay.”

“Jesus, Mike. What’s she going to do? Am I going to prison?”

“Naw. She’ll probably just give you a warning. Everyone fails the first U.A. and she knows that. She’s just letting you know what’s up.”

“Fuck, man. I don’t want to see her.”

“If you don’t, she’ll come here and arrest your ass. Just go. Everything will be okay. Don’t worry about it. Here,” he handed me the pipe. “You already failed. She knows the drug isn’t out of your system yet so you might as well smoke up.” I took the pipe and spent the next hour and a half getting high and worrying.

I was in the lobby at P & P when Julie opened the door and called my name. Walking down the hall, I had to ask where to go.
Walls and dividers that all looked the same to me separated the offices, and I knew if I had an aerial view, the place would have looked like a rat maze.

Back in her office, I started bawling when she said she was sending me to jail for two days as punishment for the failed drug test. She was smug as she asked why I was crying.
You fucking bitch
, I think.
Why the hell do you think I’m crying
? She called and arranged for me to check myself in that Friday. I’d be spending the weekend in jail. I was surprised she was giving me until Friday and that I was to check myself in. I assumed she thought spending a weekend in jail would be more of a punishment than a couple of weekdays would, but it made no difference to me. My days were all the same, running together as I went through the motions of being a person.

I told Allan, when he got home, about my failed U.A. and impending weekend in jail. All he said was, “I thought you were done with that shit.”

Julie ordered me to check myself into Ada County Jail at nine in the morning that Friday, but as usual I couldn’t get high enough to leave my house. At 11:00, I decided I’d better get going or Julie would show up and take me herself.

Just as with my arrest, I was booked, fingerprinted and strip-searched, but I was too depressed and exhausted to care. I planned to sleep the weekend away, assuming I wouldn’t be in long enough for them to put me on any kind of schedule. It was all I could do to stay awake as I waited in a tiny room in the booking area. I waited over an hour and a half before a guard finally took me to the dorm. My bunk was right across the aisle and one bed over from the one I slept in then. I took off my white Keds with no laces and lay down where I immediately fall asleep.

I woke once, sometime around midnight, stumbled to the toilet and drank greedily from the water fountain before falling back into bed. I slept through breakfast. Someone woke me to tell me I’d been assigned to sweep my quadrant of the dorm. I fought to keep myself awake long enough to finish my chore, and was drifting off again when I heard a guard at the foot of my bed telling me to get my ass up for head count. Through bleary, unfocused eyes, I saw everyone standing at the foot of their bunks staring at me. I dragged myself to a standing position long enough to be counted. I slept through lunch and dinner, waking only a couple of times to use the toilet.

I
was processed
out by eleven thirty Sunday morning. I drove home, got high and took a shower. Allan was away for another snowboarding weekend with friends, so I didn’t expect him back until night. I called Mike and arranged for him to meet me after I checked into a hotel. I didn’t want to be there when Allan got home. I didn’t want to sit in my room listening to him watch TV until he went to bed. I decided I’d work all night and go home after he left in the morning. It was too painful being at home.

I had to meet Julie on Monday. Back in her office, she asked me how my weekend was and I just sat in the chair, silently wishing she would die. I hated her and I blamed her for putting me in jail. I may have been the one who failed a UA, but she was the one responsible for me spending two days and nights locked up. That’s the way my mind was working
-
or not
-
at the time. Obviously, I was the one responsible for landing my ass in jail, but I didn’t see it that way at the time. The whole world was against me and I was a victim.

She ordered me, as part of my probation, to move in with my parents, effective immediately. My living situation was affecting my mental health and my recovery, she said, and if I didn’t move in with my parents, she would impose more jail time.

Families and friends so often want to fix things. It’s agonizing to watch someone you love fall, but until the addict/alcoholic hits bottom, there’s nothing to do but wait. You wait and hope that the person you love is still alive when that happens. That’s the reason it’s so important not to rescue an addict from legal trouble. Don’t bail them out. Don’t pay for attorneys, because getting involved with the legal system is very often the only thing that separates an addict from that fatal fall.

I hated the system. And it saved my life. As I said before, an addict’s emotional maturity stops at the age they were when they started using. I was a child: willful, stubborn and egocentric. Julie, my P.O. was, in a way, a surrogate parent. She force-fed me my broccoli and though I still loathe the vile weed, I’m alive because of it.

She made an appointment for me to go to the meth clinic for more intensive outpatient treatment, because my relapse prevention group and therapy sessions with Sarah obviously weren’t enough to keep me sober. The plan was for me to begin attending classes three nights a week at the clinic, starting with my intake the
next day. She also signed me up for Cognitive Self Change. CSC is a program offered through the Department of Corrections designed to help people change their thinking errors. I immediately renamed the class “How to Quit Thinking Like a Criminal.” I left her office pissed off at the world. I hated everything and everyone, but mostly I hated myself.

Leaving Julie’s office, I got a phone call from the guy who came to see the house. He made an offer and I immediately accepted. After closing costs, the profit would be just over three thousand dollars, but I didn’t care. I just wanted it done. It was January 15, 2007 and Allan was moving out at the end of the month whether the house sold or not. Time was my enemy so I took the offer, glad to be near the end.

After that, things happened fast. We closed on the house on January 26 and had to be out by the end of the month. Meanwhile, I was supposedly staying with my parents, although I spent most of my time at the house packing. At least that’s what I told myself. The closer I got to the deadline, the more paralyzed I became. I couldn’t do anything but get high and gamble. I was free falling into an abyss and the soundtrack for my life was a requiem.

Allan was gone, Andy was still with my parents and I spent long days and cold nights in the house by myself. The only people I saw were Mario and my boys, and the quantities of meth I was moving was increasing. I was on a rollercoaster barely hanging on while the cars careened around the track, and I had no way to stop it.

So many years. What the hell happened? All I’d wanted originally was a little help getting through finals. Five years later, there I was; alone, without my son, sitting in the dark in a house I was trespassing in, looking down the barrel of three to five years in prison, sucking on a glass dick, and inconceivably, I was still certain that I could quit at any time.