TOUCH OF MADNESS

I COULD NOT GET COMFORTABLE NO MATTER HOW HARD I TRIED. I LAY awake for hours and hours unable to sleep. Once I did get to sleep the nightmares continued. Each time it was something different. If not a nightmare, then some stupid song would play over and over in my head. It would be something like Starland Vocal Band's "Afternoon Delight" or Paul Simon's "Kodachrome," or some ridiculous song I never even liked. I begged God to make the pain go away. I made deal after deal with Him and promise after promise.

My clothes stuck to my body like wet paint. Every time I moved, my skin screamed to be free of whatever it was that was rubbing it raw. The worse part was that one second I was cold as ice, and the next second, it felt like I was in the desert in the middle of the summer. I would sweat freely, and after a while my clothes were drenched. I probably changed them at least three times a day. My body reeked of days-old sweat. I couldn't take a shower because it hurt too badly for water to run over my body. I was so weak I could hardly stand at times. I couldn't be still because my bones ached so badly. My head felt like it was in a vice.

Just like the college kid who has way too much to drink and then hugs the toilet bowl, I vowed I would never do this again. At that very moment I swore I never would. I hoped that was true, but I knew better. This experience would visit me many more times, and each time it would be worse than the visit before.

Diarrhea started early as well. Every kind of toxin that I had introduced into my body was warring against my guts. On the worst days, I would visit that bathroom at least every fifteen minutes. When I had to throw up as well I would just alternate positions on the toilet. Stand up. Sit down. Stand up. Sit down. What I was throwing up was black and revolting. That eventually turned into stomach bile. After a while though only the dry heaves were happening. Those also went on for a few days.

The smell was appalling. It was a stench that would eventually become all too familiar. Imagine someone sick for five days without a shower just lying in bed. It was a combination of puke, crap, sweat, and bane. It was nasty. I yawned constantly. It wasn't that I was sleepy; it was just that I had to yawn.

The mere thoughts of knowing a few pain pills would relieve the hurting became an obsession. It becomes even worse when there is absolutely no way to acquire anything for relief. It is like being within a hands reach of a glass of water when dying of thirst. The mind control was torture. Multiply these symptoms about ten times, and that is how life is while experiencing dope withdrawal.

Most times I just holed up in a bedroom while the world carried on as if all was well. Two times I was a prisoner in the detox ward at Carolina's Medical Center in Charlotte. I wasn't a prisoner of the state, but I was locked in, with no visitors and no cell phone. There was a house phone I was allowed to use twice a day for ten minutes max. The first time I was in that ward, I decided to use that phone one day to make a doctor's appointment for the day of my discharge. I was there for five days and released. I was high before I got home.

I was so severely depressed during this time that I would do anything to escape that never-ending tunnel of darkness, that black hole. Prescription pain meds were the perfect escape for me. They provided the way out of the hole. When someone is depressed, they will do whatever it takes to get away from the madness. I certainly did, and it nearly cost me everything.

SMALL TOWN

GROWING UP IN TROY, NORTH CAROLINA WAS PRETTY much small town America. When John Mellencamp released his mega hit "Small Town" from Scarecrow in 1985, I understood exactly what he was talking about. There was the upper, middle, and lower class. My family was in the middle class. I had friends in both of the other ones. We had one elementary, middle, and high school. I went to West Montgomery High School, home of the Warriors. I had many friends, was popular, and had a zest for life. I was an athlete and played varsity baseball as a starter all four years. Because of the mighty social networks of Facebook and Twitter, I have been reunited with many of my high school classmates. Other relationships diminished because of that ultimate separation of friends called high school graduation.

The landscape of Troy is mostly factories and small businesses. It is relatively a blue-collar working class community. The courthouse stands at the end of Main Street, and the hospital is on top of a hill. That hill is also one of the greatest places to sled during an ice storm, which is honestly rare. If the wind blows north and you are standing in the yard at the house where I grew up, there is always the aroma of fresh cut lumber, which was stacked in bundles at Troy Lumber Company. I went swimming at the Montgomery County Country Club. Yes, it was a "country club," but it was really nothing more than a golf course and a swimming pool. I really think it just made some folks feel like big shots because they could tell people they played golf at the "country club." For us, it was a place to hang with our friends and swim until our skin withered like a prune. A day spent away from that swimming pool meant a day of missing all the action. It is like most small towns where everyone knows everyone else; at least they did when I lived there.

Troy was one of those small towns where we had a "tab" at the local grocery store, the Stop and Shop. I would go in there after school and grab whatever food and drink I wanted, telling the clerk to put it on my parents' tab. Only the Lord and my parents know how much all those after school snacks cost! It was also a place where a young person could get an after school or weekend job if they wanted. In my later teen years I would spend my summers working at Troy Lumber or Capel Rugs. My first job ever was a weekend job for a couple of months at a joint called the Better Burger. It still stands...