Sex and Crime: Oliver's Strange Journey (26 page)

One thing every drug addict I met or read
about seemed to have in common was a traumatic childhood. Almost
all of them had been abused in some form or another, or abandoned
by someone important in their lives. I've met many more addicts
since then, and I have yet to find one who did not have traumatic
abuse or abandonment in their past.

Anyway, Tory invited Alice and me to spent
Christmas with her and Brianna. Alice was so excited, because this
was the first time ever that her mom had allowed Alice to bring her
boyfriend. I couldn't really blame Tory for that. Virtually all of
Alice's previous boyfriends were dope dealing scumbags.

Christmas morning, Alice handed me a
card:

"Merry Christmas, Sweetie!

I truly hope you have a great Christmas with
me and my family. I am soooo glad you're here with me this year.
You've helped to make it special. I don't know how to make that up
to you. You've done so much for me and my family. I wish I could do
more for you. This is a very special Christmas for me. It's the
first time I and my mom have allowed someone to share it with me
and my family. I wanted to give you all that I have. But it wasn't
that much. I feel like I owe you everything. Merry Christmas.

I love you. Princess"

I was so touched. That card meant the world
to me.

A few days later, we went to Florida again.
Then we spend New Years Eve in Savannah. It's supposed to be the
most haunted city in America. And the Kehoe House, a ritzy bed and
breakfast, is supposed to be the most haunted house in Savannah. So
that's where we stayed, hoping to see a ghost. Well, we didn't. Go
figure. We also went ghost hunting at an old civil war cemetery at
night. No luck.

When we got back to Liberty, Alice, on her
own accord, set a concrete date for her rehab. She said she would
check herself in on January 11th, 2011. 1/11/11. What a great date
for a new beginning!

One or two nights later, we were watching
the movie Dreamland in bed. I fell asleep, and while I was
sleeping, she wrote me this letter:

"Hey there Sweetie :-)

As you're lying in bed sleeping next to me,
I was just thinking how sweet and kind you are to me. I don't think
I've ever said a simple "thank you." But, thank you! Thank you for
e-v-e-r-y-t-h-a-n-g! Literally, jokes aside. Thank you.

Thanks for "taking me on" so to speak. Thank
you for being kind. And as much of a cliche as it may be, it's
true... Thank you for being you.

I just watched Dreamland (as you know.) And
in this one scene, after the sick girl goes out on a date, her
first date with her soon-to-be boyfriend, who she deeply loves, she
walks in her house and asks the two people in the room something to
the effect of:

"Have you ever had that feeling when
something great is happening, and you feel like God is giving you
this great moment that you're not good enough for, and you're not
sure why, but it feels great?"

This, our time together, our relationship,
the things we do, that's my great moment from God. Like when
something good happens & you can't believe it's happening to
you. You feel like you don't deserve it or it's not meant for
you.

Well, you are my great moment, sweetie. I
just wanted to say thank you for that. I appreciate you and the
things you do for me. You should and deserve to know that sweetie.
xoxo

Love, Alice aka Princess"

When I read that letter the next morning, it
actually made me tear up. I was so touched. I loved that girl so
much. When Alice saw me tear up while reading her letter, she
smiled. She told me she loved me, hugged me, gave me a kiss, and
then we made love.

It was only a few more days until January
11th. We decided to take a little trip to Niagara Falls. We had
ordered Alice's passport a few weeks earlier, and it finally came.
So we were going to go check out the Canadian side of the Falls.
Our first international trip together! It was great. We had a lot
of fun. We even went to Toronto for two days.

When we got back to Liberty, January 11th
was only two or three more days away. Suddenly Alice began to
change her mind and started saying that she wasn't ready yet and
she would go to rehab on February 1st instead. It was the same old
story: Not today. Not today. Not today.

I reminded her that it had been her own idea
to go on 1/11/11 and that she was so close to finally changing her
life for the better and being happy. She didn't want to hear it.
She got hostile and told me if I didn't stop pressuring her into
getting clean, she'd leave me, stay in a motel and post an escort
ad on Backpage.

So I applied what I had learned from dealing
with Donna, and used some reverse psychology. I told Alice that I
was sick and tired of all her broken promises and that if she
really wanted to go back to spreading her legs for every guy in
town, and she really wanted to go back to sucking everyone's dick
again, then go ahead. I told her I had tried my best, but obviously
nothing I did was going to get her clean. She was a lost cause.
Completely hopeless and worthless, and I told her to pack her
things and I'd drive her to the Howard Johnson in Middletown right
now.

She began to cry and told me she didn't want
to go, and she promised she would go to rehab.

On the morning of January 11th, she woke up
early and packed her bags like a little trooper. She didn't
complain. She didn't argue. She didn't try to bargain. She didn't
offer me sexual favors to let her do drugs just one more day. She
really kept her word, and let me take her to the rehab center in
Rhinebeck, New York.

That was probably one of the happiest days
of my life. After everything we had been through together, she was
really finally going to rehab, and we really were going to move to
Florida together. Yayyyy!

When we arrived at the rehab center at 11
am, they told us Alice's insurance wouldn't approve her for a
28-day program, unless she showed signs of withdrawal. She had just
done heroin before we left our condo, so she wasn't going to go
into withdrawal for a while.

The admissions people told us there was
nothing they could do, until her vitals showed signs of distress.
So now Alice and I sat in the waiting room, waiting for her to go
into painful withdrawal. This was insane! It's hard enough to get
an addict to go to rehab, but to make them jump through hoops once
they are there is just crazy. Everyone else in the waiting room was
in the same boat. A bunch of them couldn't take it anymore and left
to get high.

I expected Alice to cave any minute now and
start whining that she wanted to go home and get high. But she
didn't. She sat there quietly, with her head leaning against my
shoulder, holding my hand, waiting to get dope sick. Hours went by.
She seemed to melt like a snowman. She got weaker and weaker. She
ended up lying down across some empty chairs. She started to feel
like shit, and they still wouldn't take her in, until they got word
from the insurance company. This kind of shit does not happen in
Europe, where they have universal healthcare.

Finally, at 7 pm, they took her in. We
kissed and said good bye. I never saw her again after that.

Some guy I had met a few months earlier, who
was also dating a drug addict, told me that his girlfriend had been
in rehab 27 times over the years. And a bunch of times she had met
a dope boy in rehab and ran off with him. He said that happens a
lot. He warned me that it might happen with Alice, too.

I mentioned that to Alice, while we were
waiting for her insurance to approve her. I told her I was worried
she might meet someone in rehab and run off with him. She laughed
and said: "I would never leave you. Where would I ever find another
guy like you? You have treated me better than I have ever been
treated in my life. Trust me, you don't have to worry about me
leaving you."

Well, she left me anyway. That guy had been
exactly right. About 10 days into the program, Alice ran off with
someone she met in rehab. It wasn't even a latin dope boy this
time, but some old white lady who pimped out young girls to pay for
her own drug habit.

I was devastated. I couldn't believe the
rehab administration didn't even bother to call me to tell me that
Alice had run away. I was her emergency contact, for fuck's sake.
But the lady in the administration office told me that "running
away" did not constitute an emergency. It happened on a daily
basis. I told her that I was worried sick, because I had no idea
where Alice was. She said I should call the cops and file a missing
person report.

Later that night I went to the police
station in Liberty. It was snowing. There was only one cop in the
building. He sat behind a glass enclosure. I walked up to the
window and told him that my girlfriend had run away from drug rehab
and I would like to file a missing person report.

He looked at me for a second and asked: "Why
would you even want to find her?"

"Uhmm, because I love her," I replied.

What kind of a stupid question was that?
What the hell was wrong with this cop?

He said: "Yeah, you obviously love her,
otherwise you wouldn't be looking for her. But trust me, she
doesn't love you. She's just some drug addict. They're all the
same. They don't love anybody. That girl doesn't give a shit about
you or anyone else. If I were you, I would run the other way. Don't
go looking for her. Count your blessings that you got rid of
her."

Then he got up out of his chair, opened the
door of his glass enclosure and came out into the room I was
standing in.

"I'm not talking to you as a cop right now.
I'm talking to you as Dr. Phil. You look like a nice guy. You
obviously care a lot about this girl, but take my word for it,
she's not worth it. I don't even know her but I can tell you she's
garbage. You know, we cops, we are guys, too. But nobody in this
police station would ever want to date a drug addict. We'd rather
be single. You're better off without her. Drug addicts are the scum
of the earth."

"Uhmm, ok, thanks for the advice," I said
and left. I was speechless. I really didn't know what to say to
this guy. He was a cop. He dealt with drug addicts on a daily
basis. So it's not like I could tell him he didn't know what he was
talking about. And what got to me the most was that he wasn't
trying to be an asshole. He genuinely tried to be helpful and give
me good advice. Somehow I got the feeling that he had been in my
shoes at one point. Maybe he used to date a girl who got addicted
and then broke his heart.

I went home. The next morning, I called the
police department in Rhinebeck. I spoke to a detective who was a
lot more sympathetic. Maybe because he worked in the town where the
rehab center was located, so he probably dealt with distraught
family members of runaway addicts every day. Or maybe because he
had seen how desperate those addicts in rehab were to turn their
lives around. Who knows, maybe he even had a drug addicted teenage
daughter.

He told me that there really wasn't much he
could do to find her, but he would help me any way he could. He
told me to talk to all of Alice's friends and acquaintances. He
asked me if I had ever driven her to a dealer's house so she could
get drugs. I was scared to admit it, but I figured I owed it to
this guy to be honest, if I expected any kind of help from him.

"Yeah, I did. I know I shouldn't have. But I
didn't know what else to do. If I hadn't taken her there to get
drugs, she would have just run off and gotten them anyway," I
said.

The officer told me not to worry about it.
He said he knew what I had been going through, and that loved ones
of addicts always fall in that trap. They try to help the addict,
and then end up enabling them instead and making things worse: "You
try to help them get off drugs, but somehow they manage to make you
help them get drugs instead. Funny how that works."

Patty had told me a long time ago that love
makes you vulnerable and addicts know that. When their addiction
takes over, it turns them from loving human beings into sociopathic
predators with the singular mission of chasing the next high, no
matter who they have to betray to get it. And they know that the
easiest, most vulnerable targets are the people who love them.

When you love someone, you do things for
them you wouldn't do for anyone else. And when you really love
someone, you forgive them over and over again when they hurt you.
Addicts consider love a weakness they can exploit. And when their
families have finally learned how an addict operates, the addict
searches for new victims. Addicts throw the word love around,
because it's the mightiest weapon in their arsenal. Even more
powerful than sex.

Patty told me that they really can't feel
love the way a sober person does, because the drug disrupts their
brain chemistry to the point where they can't bond with another
human being, the way sober people do. But they get really good at
pretending to love you, because it gets them what they really want:
drugs.

A drug addicted hooker will tell some random
guy after having sex with him two or three times that she loves
him, because she knows that if he believes it, he will end up being
her braindead goon who will do almost anything for her, like give
her money if she claims she is about to get evicted, or her cell
phone is about to get shut off, or her baby hasn't eaten in two
days, or she needs to get bailed out of jail, or she supposedly
needs an abortion.