Addiction: A Tale of Sadness

Why was I tossing and turning in my bed. I had sweat pouring down my head. It was scary. I had to think about something. I was suffering through hell. I take a cigarette out and try to light it but my hands are shaking too hard, and I just throw the cigarette into the bed and just shove my face into my knees. I let out a deep sob. I don't really know where I am or where I am going. Youth was not a great thing if you ask me. I was introduced to drugs and alcohol early on. It helped me calm down when my fuckin' parents were arguing near my fuckin' bed room. I try to light the cigarette again, and this time it works. I take a long, slow drag out of it. I figure that I need my sleep, so I put my head on the pillow. Dreams are coming. I toss and I turn. I see all my old dope buddies offering me a hit out of it, and I feel a strong force on my shoulder, and I wake up and see that it is a orderly that is shaking me awake. He says, "Breakfast". But for some strange reason, that I cannot comprehend, I am not hungry. I tell the guy "eh, I am not hungry, can I stay in the room?" The guy replies "sure, suit yourself." he walks away from me.

Did you know that is the only fucking human contact I have, a stupid fat orderly? I start realizing that doing dope has damaged not just me, but my family, my friends, and my kids. I have kids, goddamn it, I just remembered, and it's my daughter's birthday. I walk out of my room, and to a pay phone. I dial the house number, and it rings for what seems like an eternity. Finally, someone picks up. "Hello?" "Yeah, it's Mark" "Hey, Mark" "Hey" "listen, I got limited time, can you put Chloe on?" "Yeah, sure, Mark" She give the receiver to her, "hey, Chloe, what's up sugar rabbit?' "Hi, Daddy" "Happy birthday, dear" "Thanks, dad" "Are you coming here for it?' "Sorry, sweetie, I can't. I am still fixing my things that I told you about." "Oh, ok, dad. It's ok." I literally felt her heart broken in two in these words. I was like "well, I got to go. I am sorry sweetie, can you put mommy back on?" "Sure daddy." "I love you, sugar bunny" "I love you dad." She gives the phone back "Hey, Jessica" "hey" "How you holding up, Mark?" "I am doing ok." I think night terrors are not ok, but I didn't want to send her into a panic over widrawl symptoms. "That's great to hear." "How are you doing, Jessica?" "I am doing fine, just raising Chloe by myself, paying bills by myself" "Hey. Come on, I am in RE-FUCKING-HAB. I cannot get a job." "Oh, you used your last job to support your dope habit, nice way to take care of your family, jackass" "Well, I was thinking." I was not thinking, I was not thinking when that cop pulled me over and searched my car and found my stash. "Yes. I needed to be smarter than that." "Well, I might take you back if I find that you are clean and sober enough to love me again." "Jessica, I have always loved you, even through my drug habit" "Mark, I got to go. Chloe has a party tonight and I got to bake a cake for her." "Well, ok." "See ya, and love you"

She says "yeah" and hangs up.

I look at the phone receiver, and I slam it down. I walk back to my room and jump into the bed so hard, the springs creak. I pull the covers over myself, and think of it as a protective shield from the world. I feel the push of the orderly and again and again, but I just avoid it until he leaves. I get out from the covers and light a cigarette. My hands are even shaking worse than they were before. Damn Jessica. Damn her. I take a long slow drag and then slowly exhale. I have 143 more days of this. What can I do? Wait. Wait and Pray.

As I woke up the next morning, the tale of the phone call loomed over my head as I took out a cigarette out of my pocket and started to put it in my mouth but then I realized that addiction is a harrowing thing. I started to think about my wife and the cigarette slowly creeped back into my pocket. I remember the last fight that we had before I went into rehab. "WHAT ABOUT MY needs" She told me. I started packing up. I was really silent as her yelling blasted into my ear, and I saw that my daughter was on the stairwell watching this. I looked into her eyes and saw that she was hurt. Our eyes never left each others for a second, and then I felt a quick shove on my back. It was my wife pushing me out the door. I hang my head in shame but I picked it up, and let out the biggest smile that I could, and it made my daughter laugh. That is the last good memory that I can muster as I sit in my room with the fucking one chair, one bed, 4 fucking walls. I say silently to myself, "I miss my family", it gradually becomes louder and louder without me noticing it. Before I could figure out what was going on, I saw a flash of white light and something hard hit my head. I woke up the next day with a big ass bump on my head and I felt queasy.

I look around the room, and it has gotten quite smaller than I expected. I go out and open the door. I go into the lobby and meet Dante at the recreation room. He and I met when he checked in for huffing cleaning products. He told me that he lost some major brain cells but it gets you high as fuck. Well, back to the story. He and I were in the lobby. He asks "hey, bub. How's your head?" I reply back "Well, it hurts like hell." "Well no fucking wonder, the orderlies bashed your head in." Heh. Did I tell you he says fuck as much as he can? Heh. Well, he and I settled to get the orderlies back. We set up that I would be in my room and then I would pretend to spaz out like I was facing widrawal and shit. Then, Dante would beat the fuck out of the orderlies with whatever he can find. The plan went into action as I went back into my room and Dante then got up and followed me and hid in the room with me. I started spazing out right when an orderly goes walking by and Dante starts whacking him with a leg of my bed. It gets brutal, with every whack; blood flows out of the man's body like the man had no skin, or no flesh or no bones. I never saw blood come out of a man like that. Dante then stops and just stares at what he has done for what seems like a while. He finally grunts a "fuck". I look at him, and he looks at me. We know that we are in deep trouble. I just go back to my bed and then light up a cigarette and just take in the whole damn situation that just occurred. I then see the smile on my daughter's face and that bloody mess that is right next to me is gone.

The next day, the incident that occurred with Dante was handled. He was tasered and shipped off to the solitary confinement part of the building. I was all alone. It was going to be Family Day in a couple of weeks. I cannot bear the thought of seeing my wife again. I hate that woman. The only person I care about is my daughter and that she is safe and has what she needs. I get up out of my bed, and I walk down the hall to the cafeteria. The cafeteria is a fucking ghost town. It has nobody but just that ugly as a dog, wouldn't kiss on the mouth, and would stay far away, type of person was behind the counter and I had to look at her fucking face. I half assed a smile as she put the food on my plate. I see another one of my buddies, Chris. He waves at me and I go to the table that he is at. He says "What's up, man?" I say, "HA! Nothing much." We eat at the table and discuss numerous things. We talk politics, sports, girls, our lives before this, and other shit. He is a fine, intelligent man. He has a wit to him that finds me outstand every time words come out of his mouth. I eat my food, and I drink my drink as he keeps talking. I don't really pay attention to what he is saying most of the time, I only get fragments of what he is saying but I nod my head and say things like "yeah", "that sucks", or "cool" just to keep him talking because since Dante was taken away, I had virtually no company. But he was a good guy to talk to. He and I went out to smoke. We then kept talking and then I went back into my room and thought about my family again. Then I went to sleep with that same thought in my head.

I was called into my rehab officer's office. He is basically my mom, my dad, and my grandparents rolled into one. "How you feel" he says. I say "all right", "I miss my family." "Everybody misses their family in rehab." "That is why they call it rehab. It takes you away from your every day life and shelters you from the world and what it is." "Are you some fucking philosopher or something, I said I miss my family because I am human, it is not because I am in this building or talking to you, but I did a bad thing before I came here and it tears at me inside like there is something going through my body." The rehab officer gives me a stare and sends me off. I find Chris still in the same position that he was in when I left him and the fucker's sleeping. I go up to him and jump on him, He nearly falls out of the chair, hits head on a coffee table next to him, and I fall on the floor crying laughing at that because of the way he does it. He gets up, and lets out a big grin and goes "heh. I meant to do that." He and me go to the cafeteria and pick out some food. We go down and sit down. I ask him, "How did you end up in here?" I swear, his face clenched up like he had lockjaw and he says "I don't want to talk about it, it's something that I am ashamed of." I tell him, "You can say it to me." He told me about how he got addicted to oxycotton and painkillers when he fell down some stairs and broke his leg in 3 places. He felt really bad about it. We just sat there for a long while and he said "I got a meeting in 10 minutes, can I talk to you later?" I reply, "Sure." He leaves, and then I go back to my room and lay on my bed smoking a cigarette until I fall asleep. The day was long.

I woke up the next day to find Chris on me and beating the shit out of me. I let out some yelps, yet the barrage kept continuing. I saw my blood on the walls of the room, and yet he kept coming at me harder and harder. So, after 15 fucking minutes of me being helpless while he beat the shit out of me, the fucking orderlies come into the room and restrain him. They give him a shot of opiate and he calms down like someone rubbing a dog's belly after they give him a treat. They sent me to the medical center. I was sitting there in a chair with blood on my face and holding my nose up so that it would stop bleeding on what is practically my only fucking shirt. I look around the room with my bruised up blackened eye and I see the most beautiful thing that I have ever witnessed. It was the nurse. No, she wasn't some ugly fat woman that thought she was loved by everyone. She had flowing brown hair, and had legs that were thought to never end. Her face, god, was the face of not an angel but 20 angels. She was what is said to be the perfect woman. She walks over to me, and I am shocked. Am I seeing things? Is she coming over? Yes. She is coming over. Her brown hair flows as she walks towards me, a forgotten human being. She asks me if I am alright... I stutter my words and I mumble a "yes". She takes the bandage off my nose, and I wince, but she puts her finger on my nose and starts rubbing it. For some weird reason, I felt better at that moment. She continues to keep rubbing it and but then, she is called back to help someone and I touch my nose and it doesn't feel bad anymore. She is a goddess .They send me back to my room because apparently my nose stopped bleeding and I just lay on the bed, extra cautiously, thinking about her. I see a lurking shadow out of my eye, and it is coming closer. I see it, and it jumps towards me, I get into my fighting position, and I find out that it is Chris, yet again, but he is a lot better than he was. I ask him, "dude, you beat me the fuck up" He replies "Well, I have these moments where I just spaz out and don't know what the hell I am doing" "Ah, ok. Well, I don't think of you as a friend as much as I did. He takes that offensively. He leaves because of the feeling that I installed into him.

I wake up and my nose is hurting like a fucking son of a bitch. It might be swollen shut. Thanks a lot, Chris. As I leave for the doctor's office in the building, I start seeing the families pile in. I rush and take out a cigarette and then take a quick inhale of it through my mouth. The doc says I am ok, so I go to the visiting hall, and wait for my family. I wait and I wait. I see more families arrive and go. I nervously smoke a cigarette while I wait for my wife and kid. I hear "5 more minutes". My body starts to shake. I feel nauseous. It's pure fear and sadness, I get up and say to the guard, "have you seen my wife and kid?" He replies back "Sir, you need to calm down." I take a chair and I throw it towards the guard. He ducks and the chair smashes the stuff behind him. He and two other guards jump me and start punching me. I feel the blood from my already broken nose going down into my throat. I gag, I try to speak but it comes out a murmur and the guards continue their assault. I see that my wife and kid are walking towards what am me. They see the guards, the man with blood over his face, and they see that and they leave. They see that and they go away forever. I manage to squeak out an "I'm IN HERE!", but the guards start kicking me in the ribs and I feel pain, not the everyday pain that I go through. I just let the guards stop, and pick me up.

They throw me into a holding cell. I run up to the door, and I push my bloody face up to the window. I start laughing. I start laughing at those stupid fucking guards, I laugh at the stupid fucking wife that doesn't let me see my kid. I laugh at the stupid fucking person that I took in as a friend and he betrayed me. I laugh and I laugh. I then start crying. I miss home, I miss my daughter. It is not where I want to be. The place cannot hold me! I am too fucking strong for it. I take out my last remaining cigarette and I smoke it. I smoke it till the filter is down to the bone. I smoke it, till the ashes keep crumbling onto me and that it burns me, ashes do. I don't feel them. I suffered two kinds of pain today, the feeling of emptiness and the dissipation of a marriage. They don't care about me. My daughter cares. She has eyes that care. My friends have eyes that care. Did I put myself in this place? No, they did. They care. They cared about me enough to drag my sorry ass to the rehab and throw me in here. They saw what I was doing and helped me. That night I smiled the big ass smile? I was going with my friends on a "trip". I didn't know what I was doing or where I was going until I saw the rehab and uttered a "No", and locked my side of the door. My friend had to bust it open with his hand, and they unlocked it, and they carried me by my arms and legs by all fours to that place that is rehab. They checked me in with somber faces., I showed restraint and calmness because my friends cared for me. They CARED for me. It was not my wife, it was my friends. I go up to the door, and I call for the guard.

He comes around and says "What?!?" I ask him for a pad of paper and a towel to wipe the blood off of my face. He is a nice guy and he gets the things for me. I write down what I plan to do and what I plan to have when I get out of this fucking place. I take the towel and wipe myself off. I find an extra cigarette in my pocket. Hmm, it must be fate.

What I was writing, was my story. My story that would pass on to my daughter and she would tell her kids what I was, and what I did. She would say that I was a good father and that circumstances made it impossible for us to be together. There was a Medusa in our way: My wife and her mother. Every time I think of her after what happened that family day, I feel like I become a stone and that I shatter when her name is uttered, yet when I see my daughter, I feel like that the pieces are picked up and put back together to showcase a fragile me. I have feelings, I am a human being. The wife that I knew had changed unexpectedly; she didn't understand my struggle or my problems. She constantly whined about what she was and what she wanted, yet she knew that I could not provide it, but she kept on asking. She takes what I absolutely loved and adored: My daughter, she took away what was keeping me stable and what was keeping me sane. I look for a cigarette and I light it and the smoke blows back up into my face, but I don't twitch or react at all. Then, I continue writing, she was a love that I had, but my foolishness took her away from me.. I take a long drag out of the cigarette and it makes me feel good, makes me feel better for one split second then the feelings comes back and I start to feel numb. Wait, a second, the nurse comes in and helps me out of the bed because my ribs are sore from beating I took. I cannot take my eyes off this woman. She has eyes that are so blue that you feel like you are looking in an ocean. She has long hair that seems like it could go on forever if it could. She gives me a look back and I feel her soul and her heart coming not from her chest, which supports the most magnificent breasts that I have ever seen. I lean in close as she changes my bandages and I say to her "I don't know who you are, but I feel a connection with you, I feel a bond that I have never felt" She looks at me like she was stunned, but she becomes speechless.

She leans in and we kiss on the lips. God, her lips, God, her thighs, I take her into the bed, and we do what we call love. The love lasts for while. Sometime later, I wake up and find that beautiful specimen next to me and she is asleep. I kiss her on her forehead and she doesn't make a noise. I feel the urge to go down to the cafeteria. I walk down the steps and I see Chris. I hate that guy. I walk towards him and shove him onto the wall "WHAT THE FUCK is you still doing here!?" He pushes me off of him and brushes himself off and replies "Well, I had the urge to beat the crap out of you after you looked at my girl." I throw out a big laugh and I say "Who the fuck is your girl." He points to the girl that is walking down the steps and I slowly look over and pray that it is not the nurse that I fucked the other night. I happen to see the nurse coming down the stairs and I whisper a silent "fuck" when she goes into Chris's arms. She looks at me with doe eyes and I feel pain in my body.

It's not the good old pain that I am familiar with; it is a new pain, a pain that I have never felt before. I run to my room that is fucking small as a box and I crawl into the bed that still has her smell. Has her touch. Damn it. I feel a strong feeling in my gut. When I had the addiction, I feel the urge to hit up. I feel the urge to do crank, dope, smack, and I feel the urge to run the fuck out of the building and just find the nearest drug dealer. I feel that bad.I feel no sense coming to me. I try to make clear the understanding of the situation when she comes in. "I meant to tell you" "Oh, really. Did you know that your boyfriend did this shit to me" I point to my face and I then just fall down to my bed. She sits next to me and I push her away, and she keeps trying to hug me, but I keep pushing her away. "Get the fuck out." "I SAID GET OUT!" She jumps up from the bed and leaves the room. I continue to write the story that I want to tell my daughter. I feel gutless. I feel awful. I lurch over as I continue to write my masterpiece.

After hour upon hour of writing, I finally finished my masterpiece. I felt that I needed to hide it from myself. So, I tucked it under my bed, all 700 pages of it. Hell, it would make War and Peace look like shit. It was great. I take a cigarette out of my pocket and I smoke it while I look at my bed. I see my daughter's face in there and I feel the stomach pain again. I lurch over but nothing comes out. I feel like shit. My stomach rumbles. I go to the cafeteria. I feel weird. Like I just get this shiver down my spine, I see the nurse that I pushed away. She looks sad. I walk over to her and say "I am sorry that I yelled at you, but you caught me at a bad time in my life." She is silent. She gets up and walks away.

They are probably saying "that guy is a crazy motherfucker." I walk towards the men room, and I scare off the only man that is in there washing his hands. I proceed to wash myself off with the sink water, I want to wash off any remain of her on me and then I take off my clothes and jump into the shower. I sing. I don't know why or how but I start singing Gene Kelly. I don't remember watching it as a kid or now.

I just start singing it till I get out of the shower and then I am still singing Gene Motherfucking Kelly. I sing in the mirror while I shave, I sing while get my new clothes from the orderlies. I just sing Gene Motherfucking Kelly. For no reason at all, I just do. It makes me feel good, Makes me feel whole, I don't know, but it is just a great song after I sing it over and over.. I am the shell of what I was. I take out a cigarette and I sit there and I then take out my story again and figure that I need to tell her story. She has lived a great life as I had. I need to tell it. She is my daughter after all, the only person that I love and respect, my daughter.

I write my daughter's story. I tell people what she means to me and what I do to save her. The pain becomes unbearable. I wince and lurch over. I MUST FINISH STORY. As I am in pain, a new recruit come walking in and sees me on the floor writhing and twitching. I muster out an "a story" and then collapse back to the ground. I while there, on the floor, have a moment of clarity, if you will. I knew what was my purpose, I start to get up, laughing and I am holding my stomach...you know right.

I learn that I am leaving in a few days. I got away with the incident that happened a few days ago. I then turn my thoughts to what to do when I do get out. Do I go to my parents? Do I go to my wife? Naw. I'll just stay in a hotel, and find a job. I got the money to take care of myself and I got the balls to leave my wife after what she does. I start to get angry and then I start to thrash around until thoughts of my daughter calm me and I reach a state that is tranquil and nice. "I RAN OVER SOMEONE" "I know, what I DID was fucking wrong. It is all the sudden; I don't feel myself saying it. It is out of body

The darkened room then got lighter. I yelled "What the…" I felt scared. I didn't know where this thing was going to end. It was unknown. I felt pain in my side, I held my side as of my room, and then I saw some nurses walk by the place. I left my room in the rehab, and I went to my pysch consult's office. I lit a cigarette and waited and waited. I slowly drifted back into a sleep, and then I felt a shove and saw it was my pysch consult. "What the hell are you doing here?" I told him that I had a messed up dream where I was in a courtroom and I admitted everything that I have ever done and I needed advice. He and I went into his office and we talked. I told him the dream. He told me that I felt guilt for what I did and how I did it and want to change myself . But, I had a feeling that it was not what he was saying it was. I walk into the mess hall and I see that it is breakfast and I just go to my favorite table in the back in the dark, and I light up a cigarette, its dark, but briefly lit up by the match. I sit there and think in the darkness. I had those types of dreams when I was into drugs. I felt scared and alone and hurt. There is no family; I don't know where my friends are. I just am alone. All alone. Nobody. I have hit bottom, but I got to go through with it.

My shrink wanted me to see him more after I told him about my dreams. So, Every fucking morning I go out to the office and sit in the freezer type hall, then go into his oven hot office and take a seat. I hate this guy. That time was the only time that I was willing to talk to him. I sit there in my chair and I just keep my fat mouth shut until the time runs out. I hate that guy. His smug face looking at me saying I am better than you, I control you I fucking hate that. I want to flick my cigarette into his face and laugh about it, like a hyena, but alias, I cannot because he is my mentor and I am his student and I have to learn how to control my anger because, frankly, I get sick of my other side, my bastard side coming out. That side made me do drugs kept urging me on and on. Do Drugs, do alcohol, fuck women without a condom Of course, this was before I met my wife, and she was a godsend until she started to get on my ass about damn near anything. So, that is why I mention her and my daughter so much, in these impending thoughts that I have. They are the only things that I really talk about. I spiraled out of control after I learned that my wife was seeing another man, I felt a side of me come out that I didn't know I had that day when I caught them in my bed. The bed that I sleep in, that I fuck MY wife in, not that muscle bound fuck that is in MY bed, fucking MY wife. She clearly runs to the bathroom, naked in all of her glory. The guy says Listen, Stay away. She doesn't want you anymore. After that, the rest is hazy, and I cannot remember what happened. I remember a thud and a boom then it went dark. I thought I could forgive her, I thought I could ease the pain if I kept it together for my daughter. Well, I guess not because that was broken up by her constantly yelling at me, and asking me for money, and asking where I was. What a fucking whore. I mean, she sleeps around and she is not all that great to me. I want respect. I demand respect. I hate that. Before I realize what happened, the doc says Times up. I look around and I am clearly in his office and I clearly told him what I was thinking. I feel weird. Like my own body is out of place or my own head is out of place. Why is this happening? I cannot explain it; I guess the guy cannot explain it. He punched me in the face and I fall to the floor. He says Listen, Stay Away.

Ugh. It is what I said when I woke up from the other night. My face was more swollen from the beating that I took the other night. That fuck. What was he thinking? Punch me in the face. I, for then, no reason at all start running down the hall. The hall is dark as night and it lights up as I am running, I don't pay attention, the hall is only a certain length, and I run the hall then turn and run into another hall. I keep running. My legs are hurting, I don't care. My face hurts from the swelling, I don't care. The running is helping me think. It takes me back to my first time drinking. I was 12. My father kept pressuring me to knock back the jack Daniels and the Budweiser. I take sip after sip, the taste rubs wrong in my mouth so I just keep chugging, my father tells me to drink, drink, and drink more. He doesn't understand responsibility. I drink, the light turns black, it's scary, and I hate it. The dark, I can't see. Light? naw. It's still dark. Dark as hell, dark as night, I am blind? No. I am hurt? No. My brain shuts down; I don't feel the body collapse. I feel it lurch and it falls over, but the last thing I feel is the thing that scared me the most, I felt nothing catching me. I hit the floor. I feel scared, alone. Dark. It is not that good. Dark, it makes me feel sad. I learned later that I was in the hospital after that incident. My damn father did it to me. My mother later divorced him, and I went with her. She was just as bad. She barely talked to me, let me express my feelings. My parents are dead. I had no sister or brothers. My father committed suicide when I was 18. He said in his note. "No." that was the word that I kept in my head. I was going to say it to him that night, but for some reason I kept doing it. Was it a conscious decision or was it impulse? I ran down the halls faster and faster till I collapsed in a heap on the floor, right near cocidently, my fucking shrink's office. I run in, dripping from the sweat and the blood, and I walk up to him, and I punch HIM in the face and say "Listen, Stay away"