Rehab @ MindSay 
drugs
I recall one day driving down the streets of my hometown, a friend who's face is blank to me in the driver's seat. We were passing the Salvation Army where many men stood outside in the cold, puffing cigs, men who's lives had come to an emptiness they could not forsee.
As my eyes scanned the sidewalk where they loitered , I had a brief vision of myself standing among them, watching the cars of lives go by that would never be mine.
It was at this moment my companion nudged me out of the brief daydream and said: "You know, if you don't get a hold on things one day that could be you."
Prophetic indeed, for five years later, in the throes of another self-destructive whirlwind, I found myself unbathed, broken, and homeless at the door of the Salvation Army rehab center, looking back toward that same sidewalk as I entered, wondering if I should have heeded my brief daydream and the words of my faceless friend.
BDS
Late one night in early August 2001, I was driving around the ebon streets, headlights shining off the damp pavement from a light summer drizzle. I'd always drive when I couldn't sleep, listening to music, watching nomads of the night peering from behind darkened doorways, slinking between alleyways, hiding in the shadows of abandoned buildings, hawking their nocturnal wares.
One particular street, known for its depravity, often in the news for prostituion, drugs, and random violence, drew me in that fateful night. After a few passes I noticed a female form through the grey dimmed streetlights, a familiar face so I thought. I pulled over, called out the name and it was her. A girl I used to wait tables with at a local restaurant years earlier. She approached with caution until she saw my face, called out my name, climbed in the car and we hugged. She looked gaunt and pale, quite a change from the vibrant vivacious girl I once knew. We drove around for awhile, chatting about life, laughing and smoking cigarettes like they were being outlawed the next day.
After some time she asked if I'd drop her at a friends place, I obliged, glad to help an old friend. She asked if I'd like to come in, I hesitated, but climbed out and followed her into the house. It was a debris dump, sidewalk furniture, unkept floors, dirty carpet, kitchen empty of anything save a table where three other girls sat talking. I stood, listening to them conversate. My friend pulled a glass pipe from her purse, took a piece of what looked like a small white chunk of soap, put it to the end of the pipe, lit it. I heard the crackling of the substance as she slowly inhaled, watched as her head tilted back in ecstasy as she let the white smoke creep from her nostrils as if she were afraid to let it out. I knew it was crack, and though I'd never tried it or seen it, I had street smarts. Street smarts enough to be afraid of the stuff. I'd heard stories. I'd seen the damage. I'd witnessed death.
All the girls were sharing the pipe, eventually they offered me a hit, I declined. But the more I watched them, the less afraid I became. They didn't seem freaked out, they seemed calm, laughing, talking, enjoying themselves. No one was falling out, nodding off, or running around the room in a frenzy, the scene was laid back. My fear dissipated and I accepted a hit. They showed me how to do it, and I lit it up. To this day I can't describe the feeling, and to this day I wish I'd never felt it. But there I was, in a dump on the seedy side of town, with one friend and three obvious prostitutes, smoking crack.
I stayed at the house for over 12 hours, smoking all night and into the day, calling off work with some lame excuse, driving the girls around to cop again and again in the dark of night, with no thought to my own peril. I sat downstairs while one by one guys came and went, I could hear the sounds of sex for money through the thin walls, but I didn't care anymore, I wanted the rock just as bad as they did. I was hooked. And they were glad to share.
Over the next couple months as I quickly slid into addiction, I sold everything I could sell, stole from family and friends, never ate, hardly showered, everything I did was about copping the rock. The streets of night became my home, the daytime for schemes of fancy, all in the name of crack. My mind is haunted with every single memory of that period of my life.
Crack became my god.
After selling all I could sell, after ripping off and scheming everyone I could, I was down to my last hit with nowhere to go, no one to turn to, no one I could think of to give me money for more more more. I was at the end of my rope. I drove up into Woodlawn Cemetery, one of the largest in the city, high upon a hill overlooking the valley, a beautiful view. Here, I decided, I would end it. I would suck down the last big hit in one shot, hoping my heart would burst and I'd go on to the next life and away from the hell I was living in.
I got out of the car at the peak of the highest point in the cemetery and sat on a stone bench near a gravestone and finished off what I had. It didn't have the result I'd hoped, and all the despair, regret, shame, guilt, and sorrow crashed in on me at once and head in my hands I sobbed like a newborn.
From behind my tears I glanced straight ahead at the gravestone in front me and this is what I read:
And I, too, sing the song of all creation
A brave sky and a glad wind blowing by
A clear trail and an hour for meditation
A long day and the joy to make it fly
A hard task and the muscle to achieve it
A fierce noon and a well-contented gloam
A good strife and no great regret to leave it
A still night and the far red lights of home.
In my cracked out stupor I stumbled to the car, grabbed a piece of paper, probably trash of some sort, found something to write with, and word for word copied down the above.
I drove straight from the cemetery to the ARC, the Salvation Army Adult Rehab Center and checked myself in. I spent three months getting clean.
Just one of the hundreds of stories I could tell about my life.
Joseph (BDS)
If you haven't noticed, im always bitching and moaning on here, but its for the simple reason that this is where I do it. It's the reason I made one. Anyhow...
Well, spring break is almost over. Pretty lame if you ask me. We're given this long, beautiful, illusionous taste of freedom, only to be thrown back into the merciless rigors of the school system. It's not all bad though, spring break is the best time to catch up on everything that simply can't be done during a normal week. I painted for the first time in forever, practiced piano, violin, and guitar EVERY day this week, and got to sleep more than an average of 6 hours. It's really quite wonderful.
What's a tad bit stressful is that some unfortunate events during my school's yearly junior trip are coming back to haunt me. My older brother has been in rehab about 3 weeks now, and during junior trip (in which my whole junior class, a whopping 105, went to dc for a week) i talked to him. He sounded so horrible, he was going through withdrawals and very unhappy there, and I just kind of snapped. Started bawling in the middle of the hotel lobby. Very uncharacteristic, none of my friends knew what to do lol. So anyways, apparently word has gotten around, so now random people are asking me why I was crying on junior trip. It's really none of their business.
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