part 7 blackout - dropout

Current mood:disappointed

i remember one night after a show, hanging out at my parents house in laplace. we had a fire out in the feild. we sat around drinking and stuff. one of the guys there had a few tanks of freon. i had huffed it before and knew what to expect. i hit some in the car and remember looking in the pasenger side mirror, i had wiped my face with my hand and for 10 seconds my ears rang from the inhalant and the reflection stayed the exact same although i had since put my hand on my knee. what i'm trying to say is that my vision was frozen with that image for 10 seconds after it actually happened.so on the way home i got the bright idea to take a hit, i did and then i heard a huge thud but it appeared as if i was still on the road but when i came to, my truck had done barrel rolls through some water on side of the interstate. i wasnt able to open the truck door when i came to, so i climbed out of the window, grabbed the tank of freon and tossed it into the woods. some guy pulled up and asked if i was okay, or if i was drunk. i wasnt. the cops came and gave me a field sobriety test, keep in mind i was soaking wet, covered in a sheet, in the middle of february. i passed it and they let me go. the ambulance offered to take me, i said no and waited for my wife. she picked me up and i remembered that i had like 5 xanax bars in a cigarette pack in the truck, so we went to the ihop and killed time until the junk yard opened, then i went there and got my pills, cologne, and other small items to make it appear to my wife that i wasn't looking for drugs, sorry. i took 3 bars right then, i had been up all night and the day before and was exhausted, but felt as if i needed them. i recovered with no serious injuries. within a few months our landlord passed away and his wife told us that we could no longer have the cat, so we moved. we moved to lake calais, it looked like it was an alright place, but it was far from that. i smoked weed with our new neighbor andy the night we moved in and before too long knew where to get it myself as well as xanax. needless to say, it wasn't long before i was messed up almost everyday. i picked up a 12 pack every afternoon on the way home from work, and drank it by myself most days. i never thought i had a problem with drinking though. one day while out back fishing i had stuffed my negative emotions for way to long and they spilled over. i cut my wrist with my fishing knife. it wasnt an attempt on my life, and i wasnt ever a cutter before. somehow i knew that if i cut myself, the pain of the wound would temporarily erase the pain of being chris. it worked. within days, my wife had set up an appt. with a dr. brown in covington, i agreed to go, but i drank a 12 pack on the way. my wife never approved of my behavior, she was an angel. she just knew that if i didnt drink, i wouldnt get help from the doc. and other times if i didn't get drunk i might get cocaine. no one deserves the punishment dished out by a person in active addiction. like i said in the intro, i dont regret these things because they have shaped the faithful, god fearing, christian man i am today, but i am sorry for all of it. as addicts and alcoholics, we dont take partners, we take prisoners. i can never repair the damage done to my lovely wife and it tears me apart most days. i took such a beautiful woman, so eager to give care and love, and tortured her beyond recognition. there are no words to describe the way it feels to remember these events and not be able to take them back. i cant tell you what it feels like to pour out my heart over the phone and have it fall on deaf ears. or what its like to have the person you love most in this world only talk to you once a week if you're lucky. i did this to myself. so, dr. brown sent me home and put me on some meds. i guess it worked for a while, before long i was doing the same stuff again. aa defines insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. by definition i was truly insane.i decided since i was doing so well, i'd go back to school. so my wife took care of making the money as she always did and i went to hammond. i stayed with my little brother and brother-in-law most nights and missed my wife allot, so i'd go home allot too. by the end of the summer i was doing crystal meth to be able to do all of the school work i needed to do. on my last exam day i crashed hard and thought i was going to die, but i made it and got a 3.0. they say addicts and alchoholics are some of the smartest, most driven people in the world. i enrolled the next semester and was losing my grip on everything. i missed my wife, i wondered what she was doing all the time, and the classes were tough. this is when katrina hit and i had a legitimate excuse to quit and i did.