A Date With Use, To a Love Affair With Drugs, a Tragic Comedy

The lights came on, but I don’t think that’s what woke me. Despite the memory being fuzzy, at best, I think it took a nudge or two to actually and only partly rouse me. After all, I was in a deep, seemingly comfortable sleep with my legs propped up as if on an ottoman and my head laid back in my office chair at my desk in the newsroom of a daily newspaper. It was a Tuesday morning. On my desk, strewn about in disarray, was bag of weed, rolling papers, a couple pills and a few small bottles of Everclear.

I was the sports editor and staff photographer. I say ‘was’ because, after this incident, I would be asked to leave permanently — that day making for my last at that newspaper. The nudge or two that woke me came from a police officer and his partner that had come on the behest of the publisher of the newspaper, who was also standing there, along with my managing editor and the rest of the staff. As I woke up, I quickly stood up. Through the haze of the night before, I suddenly realized where I was. The heaviness of the situation began to sit on my chest like a lead brick holding down paper.

The only thing I could say as I opened my mouth to speak was, “Okay .. Good morning, everyone … I’m not about to stand here and defend myself.” I was a spiraling addict, and now it was on display. I attempted to apologize, but I knew it was not worth fighting for. Instead of taking me to jail — for possession of marijuana (illegal in the state of Oklahoma), controlled substances, public intoxication or a number of other charges — the two officers just said, “You have a good boss … he just wants you to leave and not come back.” So, that’s what I did. And, saving the backstory for further on in this story, I haven’t been back.

***

My mother was the type of woman that stands firm in her opinions, in who she. She was firm in the world but soft to her children and would give you the shirt off her back if you wanted it. My little sister and I were everything to her, and she never wanted us to want for anything. My dad — quiet, collected, rigid and fairly hard on me growing up — was a good man. They raised us in the best way they could, I’d argue.

I grew up in a home that was conducive to ambition, conducive to being a dreamer, a reader, a seeker of truth, a lover of science. After all, I grew up in the “country” — what everyone around me called rural areas. There were no neighbors, save for my dad’s brother about a half-mile from our house. We were a thirty-minute drive from the city of commerce for us and twenty minutes from a few small-town convenience and grocery stores. It was a treat to go to any one of those places. I had a few dogs, a little sister, my parents and my own thoughts as friends for much of my formative years. I developed a love for reading, which I did a lot of. I also developed my writing skills in those days, or, in the very least, fell in love with the idea of writing and being a writer. I’ll leave it to someone else to evaluate whether or not it’s skillful. That has burned within me ever since I first read Mark Twain’s works.

Being a Christian household, I was raised on the kind of morals that most Westerners think to to be the absolute norm — no lying, cheating, stealing, violence, or disregard for others with ‘treat others as you want to be treated’ as an ethical backdrop. I was the kind of kid that took everything philosophical very seriously. It was important to me and remains as such. My mom used to tell me to be careful with that. I didn’t listen.

By the time I made it to high school, my parents had instilled in me the importance of making good grades — not just decent grades, but they saw no excuse for me not having the best grades. I was punished for getting ‘Bs,’ and ‘Cs’ were out of the question. For much of the early days I took them seriously. I was in programs like ‘Gifted and Talented’ all through my elementary and middle school career, but by the time the other desires of the common teenager arrived in my life, I began to resist dedication to my studies. I did manage to graduate with honors as a Texas Scholar … even if barely.

I haven’t mentioned it yet, but this is important. I had started playing guitar at a young age. During my high school years, it developed into one of those dreams young people have. I was going to do it professionally. Even though I had done much of the credits required for and Associate’s Degree, I didn’t go right into college after high school. Instead of that, I had gotten lucky enough to meet connected people within the music industry, so I began playing music for bands that needed a lead guitarist. I couldn’t have done it without my parents’ support, but for the most part, I had a young kind of career playing guitar. I toured all over the world — Singapore, Japan, Costa Rica, the U.S. and the military base island of Diego Garcia. I turned 19 years old in Tokyo and 20 in Costa Rica. My 21st birthday was spent while on tour in America, somewhere near Boston where I lived for sometime during those years.

There was no censor of what kinds of activities or people I was around, and if you can imagine a drug and drinking problem starting, you’d think it would have commenced during these years. It did not. Sure, I drank. We partied. I tried drugs and was around the use thereof. But I didn’t get involved, and it was really a circumstantial thing.