Pubdate: Wed, 03 Nov 1999
Source: Fairfield County Weekly (CT)
Copyright: 1999 New Mass. Media, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.fairfieldweekly.com/
Author:    Thomas R. Adamson

THE HARD LIFE AND TIMES OF A SUBURBAN HEROIN ADDICT

Where to start? I'm going to tell you a story. It's mine, but it sure
seems like someone else's. It feels like a dream; my wife has said the
exact same thing. But it's more like a nightmare.... I close my eyes.

5:55 a.m. How come the numbers are always cohesive? I usually awake at
4:56, 5:55, 6:56, etc. My wife lies next to me.  Can she tell I
haven't slept well all night?My mind begins to race and I go to work
on my day. I have one bag of dope left to get me off empty, stop me
from gagging in the bathroom for all to hear. I have plenty of money
to call my connection, but I can't beep him from here unless my wife
is going out. So I'll start the bullshit and the back-up planning
already, a good five hours before I'll score.

If she's not going out, I'll have to go to the store for something. 
One great benefit of living in the suburbs-the pay phones allow
callbacks. I guess they don't think we use them for drug transactions
out here. Yeah right! That's why I always wait for the kids to get
their call back before I can use it. "Um, I'm waiting here for a
call." Sure, buddy, smile. We addicts can recognize each other.

So, I'll go to the store to get smokes, easy enough. How long should I
wait till I do this bag? She's still sleeping. Wait a minute. Where is
the bag? I can't remember where I hid it.  Check clock: 6:05 a.m. A
whole 10 minutes have passed. Oh, yeah, my winter coat pocket. Not a
bad hiding place for August. Now I can rest. Plan is in place...
except now the bag starts calling.

My stomach hurts, my back aches. I haven't used since 9:30 last night.
Right after we put the kids to bed. Right before Law & Order. Like
clockwork. My reward for a long day of work, watching the kids while
my wife worked late. I cooked dinner, played, bathed and read to or
with the kids. Had a cup of tea ready for her when she got home.

What's wrong with a blast before bed? So I won't read, and I
definitely won't do any writing on my novel-God, I haven't worked on
that in months and it's good, too. Oh well, I'll stare at the TV, make
conversation, watch Jack wrap up another case, and close my eyes. I
won't move for the next six hours.  Not a muscle. And yet Jane will
say to me in the morning, "Boy, you had a restful sleep."

Mary knows something's wrong, that's for sure. How many husbands power
nap for 14 hours on Sundays? Sunny Sundays? Shit, she must know
something's wrong. We haven't had sex in weeks-or is it months? It's
not like I'm not attracted or even horny. It's just, I don't know,
this routine I've gotten into doesn't include her. But she just had a
baby, so she probably doesn't even know it's been as long as it has.

I know when she wants sex now. She rubs my arm, moves into me under
the sheets. Why do I feign sleep? If anyone ever told me I'd lose my
sex drive if I did heroin, I never would have started. Yeah right.

6:15 -- time for that bag. I can't get up. Look over at her
sleeping-is she? She hasn't had a decent night's sleep in two years.
She was up with our eldest daughter two years ago every night for a
year. My daughter's allergies made it hard for her to sleep lying
down. My wife would sit up with her all night.  Then the recent
pregnancy. Now this shit. I hope she doesn't know. I gotta quit before
she finds out-it'll kill her. Ruin us, that's for sure. So much for
"Dad of the Year," because right now I'm off to the bathroom to snort
my first bag of the day.  It's 6:25 a.m.

6:26. My backache is gone, and I'm beginning to feel normal.  Not
high, just normal. After about three months,I stopped getting high;
I'm just maintaining. That's one thing that really sucks about this
drug. When I first started I got high as hell. It was a wonderful
feeling, like nothing else. I felt warm and content, just like I was
wrapped in a warm blanket and very comfortable. Best of all, no one
else knew.I can remember being at work and doing a bag or two and
walking by all the customers and fellow employees and saying to
myself, "This is great. I'm blown out of my sneakers and no one can
tell." That only lasted a short while. Now I just use to maintain. If
I don't use, I can't function. Simple as that.

I lie back down and plan my day-again. I'll run this plan over and
over and over in my head until it comes to fruition. I'll get up
around 8:30 and tell my wife I'm off to the store to get cigarettes.
I'll call my guy from a pay phone. I have to work at 11, so I'll have
him meet me in the usual place at 10:30. That gives me a half-hour
window, allowing for him to be late, or not show up at all. God, I
hope he's not out of the shit. I'm planning on buying a bundle (10
bags) today, and I don't want to have to go to the street for it. Not
with that much cash. I don't mind buying a bag or three on the street,
but bundles are a different story. If someone wants to rip me off for
$10, that's OK, but not the C-note I set aside for today. I know
bundles can be had for a lot less, but this is the safest way to do
it.

I know if I do the running, I'll eventually get arrested or hurt. So
all I do is sit on Main Street, give my guy the money, and let him do
the leg work. No more praying no cop is parked there when I turn the
corner. You talk about cops and racial profiling: These officers are
pulling over any poor white boy like me driving into some of these
neighborhoods. Last time I got pulled over on Albany Avenue in
Hartford, the officer didn't believe I was going to an AA meeting at
the church on the corner. He asked me if I was looking for girls or
drugs. I said neither, and he told me if he ever saw my car there
again he'd arrest me.  That was at least six months ago. And I still
drive through almost daily, enough for all the dealers to flag me
down. If I ever drove these streets with my wife in the car she'd
wonder why every kid on the corner was yelling, "Yo, yo, got it," as
we went by. They all know my car. But I hate doing those laps from
Albany to Main.

8:27 a.m. Time for the breakfast of champions-coffee and
cigarettes.

It's tough when you finally resign yourself to the fact that today
will be a day of begging, cheating and stealing. Not so long ago I was
a trusted person. Family, friends and especially employers trusted me
with anything. I built a reputation in the restaurant business as a
very honest person. As a bartender, handling the owner's cash
directly, I had never stolen a penny.Eventually, I was rewarded with
management positions, running businesses that did upwards of $2.5
million annually.  That was yesterday.

Today I lie in bed planning how to steal $10 for my next bag, and my
professional reputation won't earn me the key to the men's room. I
stole from my last two jobs. In my honest days I actually returned a
fellow restaurant's night deposit bag that was stuck in the drop slot
when I wanted to drop mine. (I later found out it had more than
$10,000. This was long before my drug use, but God works in mysterious
ways-if I found that now, I'd be dead.) As a junkie, I scammed the
store I manage.  When I got hired, the general manager said during
training, "There is no way any of our employees can steal cash, only
product." Of course I took it as a challenge. I lost. Fired. For
theft. For $380, my habit had forever tarnished, if not ruined, a
reputation I spent 15 years building. Three hundred and eighty
dollars. A couple days' worth of dope for 15 years.

So now I have become a liar. I'm not a good thief-don't have the balls
for anything serious-so, like most junkies, I steal from my loved
ones. My wife has already told me if I forge another one of her
checks, I can take my walking papers. I have used all the quarters out
of the change jar. I have lifted numerous 10s and 20s out of my wife's
pocketbook. I have stolen from my children's piggy bank and watched
them cry when they think they lost their money. I have pawned jewelry,
sold parts of my once-cherished music collection, even conned a local
church or two. After I fill the ministers' ears with sob stories, they
usually break down and empty their wallets. A couple of key phrases
about "getting back on my feet," "trying to do the right thing," etc.,
usually net $60-$100. Not bad for a half hour in a leather chair.

I even scammed a church that wouldn't give me money.  Offered a bag of
food instead of money, I grumbled as I bent over and picked up my food
bag. Instead of considering it a wasted half hour, with morning
withdrawal symptoms growing ever more urgent, my mind quickly went to
work. This is the part that scares me-the once-honest mind can now do
this "dishonest" thinking so quickly and so well it feels as if
someone else's brain is inside my body.

I got in the car and inventoried the food, mostly cans and some boxes
of pasta, cereal and granola bars. Maybe I could take the food back to
the store and return it for cash. But it might not work, and I needed
a guarantee. No good junkie can afford to lose two scams in a row. I'd
be puking soon, and it's hard to run when you're that sick.

So a guarantee, let me see - Oh, what's this, pasta sauce? The plan
was now complete. Probably 15 seconds had passed since I first looked
into the bag. I pulled into Super Stop & Shop's parking lot. I threw
the canned food on the car floor. I took the plastic cover off the
paper bag. My mind was already going over the conversation that would
happen at the customer service desk. Wife called ahead... Not a lot of
time... I'm in a hurry to get to work. I opened my door, put the bag
on the ground with only boxed items inside. I opened the pasta sauce
and poured it all over the boxes. I wiped up a reasonable amount with
a bandana, cleaned my hands and proceeded into the store with a bag
full of Ragu.

I didn't even want to wait in line at customer service. As soon as a
manager walked by, I said, "Excuse me. I'm the guy whose wife called
ahead. The pasta sauce just freakin' exploded all over my car on my
wife's way home from shopping."

She looked in the bag. Sauce was dripping on the floor. She said, "Oh,
my. Would you just like to get your items and I'll take care of that
right away, sir. Oh, I'm so very sorry."

"No, I'm on my way to work," I replied. "I'd really just like my money
back this time."

"Of course, sir," and she instructed the cashier to let me cut in
front of all the honest people waiting their turn. As the young girl
scanned the stuff, I worried that one of the items wouldn't be sold
here. But every item scanned without a problem, adding up to $9.26.
Perfect-a $9 bag and a phone call with a penny to spare.

As I snorted my bag, I thought of not only the nice soul who donated
the food to the church, but the poor soul who wouldn't be eating it
tonight. Just so I could get high.

8:45 a.m. Time to go score.

Or then again, maybe I'll quit today. Oh yeah, another vow to quit. It
seems lately I'm thinking about it more often. When I started, it was
different. First of all, I was getting high, real high. Blasted. I
thought I had found the wonder drug.  That's what makes heroin so
dangerous, and now in today's world of stronger dope that can be
snorted, all of those who were kept away by the fear of needles can
enter this dark world. No longer is the junkie just lying in the
gutter and begging for change in front of the train station. No,
today's junkie is me. Or like me. It could be the person sitting next
to you while you're reading this. It could be the co-worker one or two
cubicles over. Today's junkie could be your butcher, your postman or
your mechanic. He or she could be handling your stock options, your
parents' estate or even your upcoming bypass operation. Today's
junkies sleep in waterbeds and run insurance scams. Believe me, I
know, because I've spent some time in treatment.

In my first rehab there were probably 30 of us, ranging from age 17 to
60, 27 of us for dope. After three or four days of starring in The
Night of the Living Dead, I was moved from a detox unit to the rehab
side of the building. Coming out of my medicated fog, I began to meet
my fellow addicts. Almost all of us were white, middle-class
suburbanites. We almost all were snorting the drug. (See "Heroin Chic")

That didn't change much in my first stab at rehab. It was hard to get
clean when my roommate had dope with him in the hospital. I was blown
out of my socks going to classes and meetings around the clock. How
come the staff couldn't tell?  They're trained professionals and they
didn't know. So how are you supposed to know if your 16-year-old
daughter's All-American jock boyfriend is a dope fiend? You don't.

8:55 a.m. Definitely time to get the day started. My earlier bag
wouldn't be enough to get me through another day. When I first started
using, I could do a quarter of a bag and feel mighty fine for hours.
Now, within two or three hours I want another bag.  Some days I need
10 bags. That's the problem with this substance. We say we'll only do
it when our body tells us it needs it, but there's a psychological
addiction too. It's like smoking cigarettes. Every time I eat dinner I
smoke a cigarette. Every time I argue with my wife, I get high. Last
summer as soon as I got to work, I'd put on my uniform, make coffee,
go to the bathroom and get high. It became very ritualistic. When I
wasn't using, I had to have it in my pocket. If I have it in my
pocket, the whole nervousness about not having it goes away.

I've already figured I may have to call in sick to work, putting yet
another job in jeopardy. I have only a few hours to go and I can
already sense today is going to be a chore.

A million different plans go through my head, rerunning all the
different ways I've made money in the past. I can't borrow any money,
nobody will lend it to me. And since I'm no good at
boosting-shoplifting-I'll have to find someone who is, and share the
profits with them in return for driving them around.

Boosting  basically consist of stealing or shoplifting from area
stores. The key here is to grab items that can be resold to other
stores at below market value. Some items are especially in demand. 
Enfamil baby formula can sell for $10 to $12 a can (for the bigger
ones) and will get you $5 a can at a corner market involved in this
illegal game of commerce. Some of my new "friends" are very talented
in this area and can walk into any store that sells this product and
walk out with six or eight cans.  Hit four or five stores and there's
$120 to $150. All that in an hour or two, depending on the drives
between stores. Some of my friends actually have "routes," like
salesmen. These guys have it down to a science, mapping store
security, drive time between stores, what days and times to hit what
stores, and which ones to avoid. And since most of these junkies don't
have a car, I can chauffeur them around for a day and share in the
profit.

That may be the way to go today. But first I have to find one of my
"friends." They also never seem to have phones. I'll drive to their
apartments, wake them up and offer to drive them while we load the car
up with Enfamil, batteries, cologne, nail polish. The list goes on.

First, I'll go spend my last $10 and get a bag. That first one got me
off empty; the next one will help me motivate for the drive around
town.

I say goodbye to my wife and kids, but tell her I may get out early
from work, as I don't feel that well. I'm always setting up lies with
other lies. If I'm going to call in sick, I'm laying the groundwork
now by telling her I don't feel well. If I do go to work, no harm
done. If I don't, I'm already covered.

9:05 a.m. Time to get that next holdover bag before I start looking
for a booster. I get to the 7-11 and call my connection.  No answer.
Shit! So much for a quick trip to get cigarettes.  Not only will I
have to drive to Hartford (at 90 m.p.h.) to cop, but I'll have to come
up with a good reason why a trip to the 7-11 took me an hour.--this
may not work in new order.

I hop on and over the Bissell Bridge and get off on North Main. I'll
drive down Main and hit Albany Avenue if I have to. If I don't have
any luck, I'll head to the South End. I don't really like Main Street.
I use to cop regularly here but I've been told all my "buddies" are
locked up. Without a familiar face, I won't stop. Those days are over.
Last summer I learned my lesson. I didn't see my boys on my first
drive-by and after driving around the block I heard the familiar "Yo! 
Yo!" and pulled over. I had close to $150 on me -- $50 in one pocket
and $100 in another, so I wouldn't lose all my cash if I ran into any
assholes.

I pulled the car over and got out. "Hey man, what do you
need?"

"A bundle," I said, "for $80?"

"Yeah, sure follow us," two young kids answered. Being a complete
idiot and dope fiend, I followed them into an alley between an
apartment building and a house. One stayed with me, while the other
said he had to get the bundle from the basement of the house.

When he returned, in a split-second blur, I saw him reach under his
shirt for what I knew wasn't a bundle of dope. I had 20s in my hand as
I saw his arm come up with his gun toward my head. Both kids reached
for my hand and started pulling on my cash. Now, being a true addict,
I did what came naturally.  With a gun to my head and more money in my
pocket they didn't know about, I fought them for my $80.

I think they were more surprised than I was. The normal reaction would
be to turn over the cash and save your life. I struggled with them,
pulled my arm away and, realizing I still had some money in my hand
and my head was still connected to my neck, I ran out of the alley
back toward the street.

The other kids on the street were shocked. I heard a lot of talk about
the crazy white guy, and maybe I became a little bit of a folk hero to
them. Two new kids told me to get in my car, lock the doors and just
wait a few seconds. "Do you still have money?" they asked. "Yeah, I
still want a bundle, but I only have $60," I lied. (I was learning the
game, fast.) They returned in seconds with my bundle, shook my hand,
told me to look for them from now on, and I sped away. I'm sure I did
at least two or three bags as I thought about what had transpired and
what an asshole I was.

And that's how my days went for nearly a year. Lying, cheating and
stealing for enough bags to get through a day. Try to maintain a
family life and a job. I haven't been very successful at the other
two, that's for sure. But I will get through today, and awake again
tomorrow and start this sick process all over again.

Looking back now, I wonder how I ever got started. Growing up, even as
I got into other drugs, everyone was scared of heroin. It was the big
killer, the one drug to stay away from.  And of course, I would never
stick a needle in my arm.

A few of my friends were doing it, but no one really talked about it.
I went through my phases with marijuana and cocaine.  I used to do a
lot of LSD and mushrooms. And I drank. A lot.  It didn't take long
into my 20s to realize that I, like my parents before me, was an
alcoholic. I had quit smoking pot in high school, ironic as it seems
now, because I wasn't getting "high" anymore. I quit doing cocaine in
my late 20s or early 30s as I stopped enjoying staying up all night
and spending all that money. And finally, about six years, ago, I quit
drinking. I went a few years clean and sober with a few slips. But for
the most part I wasn't only clean, I was happy that way. Meeting my
wife definitely helped; as I look back now, I was "high" in a
different and healthy way.

But a few of my friends began doing dope. I had tried it once or twice
at a concert, usually at a Grateful Dead concert where my friends and
I enjoyed alcohol, mushrooms, pot and, somewhere in the mix, a
match-head-sized line of dope. I really never felt the effect,
considering everything else in my system.

But, now totally clean and sober, I approached a friend and asked him
to give me some. I don't know why. Looking back now, I don't know if I
had a good day, a bad week, or what. I was in a room where there was a
lot of the drug I grew up deathly afraid of, and now I wanted some. It
certainly didn't hurt that I didn't have to stick a needle in my arm.
Just snort it -- no big deal. I write it off now to the fact that I
never recovered from my alcoholism even during my sober periods. Most
successful people in recovery will tell you, you have to work some
type of program-AA, NA, something. Although I did go to AA meetings
early in my sobriety, I never really got involved in the "recovery"
part of it. I didn't do the work. And a few years into it, I paid the
price. For whatever reason, I picked up heroin for the first time
almost five years ago now, and it didn't take me long to get hooked.
Within three months I was using daily, and my problems began.

A year ago, I hit bottom when I realized that I was basically
homeless, family-less, broke, unemployable and mentally and physically
fading away. I had lost 35 pounds, and my face became very haggard.
Jane told me I didn't look like the person she married. There were
days when, walking upstairs, I felt like an 80-year-old man. I was
borderline suicidal. Jane and I had separated 18 months earlier and I
had nothing to live for-except my daughter and son. My daughter found
out I've done this drug, but one of my goals is, I never want my
little boy to grow up and say, "My daddy's a junkie."

They say you have to hit bottom in order to quit, and I thought that I
had each time I tried. So now that I've tried rehab so many times, and
relapsed or continued to use each time, I wonder why I've been clean
this time for three months. I don't have an answer.

I've met a lot of people like me since I started and we all agree on
one thing: You can't explain it to someone who hasn't tried it, and
yet we wouldn't wish our experience on our worst enemy. As "high" as I
got for a few short months, the "lows" have been lower than any ever
imagined. I don't consider myself a loser, a derelict, a violent
person or a criminal. But in the past two years I have been all of the
above. I recently spent a week in jail (clean, but related to
incidents from a year ago), and I had a lot of time to reflect where
my drug use had taken me. And where I could go. I have two paths to
choose. One certainly leads to jail or death. The other may lead to an
unknown ending, but it is far better than the aforementioned choices.

For today, I choose to take the other path. And I only hope and pray I
can stay on this path, and hope and pray that no one ever has to walk
the walk I just took for the past five years. I have damaged a hell of
a lot more than myself. Clean and sober, maybe I can walk away from
this. Continue to use, and I don't stand a chance.

In the past four years I've been arrested four times, been in jail
twice and been in rehab six times, not including a few attempts at
cold-turkey detoxes at my home. My life has been ruined by my
addiction. I know I can put it back together if I get clean; I just
don't know if I can do that.

Today, I've been clean for 84 days, but who's counting?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About the Author:  Adamson, not his real name, is a white male in his
30s.  Adamson today lives with a friend in a house in the suburbs,
paying rent and child support, and has held down a job for three
months without missing a day of work. He and his wife are on speaking
terms and he sees his children.

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