It's 2013, Don't Fuck it Up with Crystal Meth

Included in this article are photos are of me and my niece and nephew within this last year. They are one of the most precious things in my life right now, and probably the closest thing this lonely old homo is going to get to a kid.

Well the world didn’t blow up at the end 2012, our Prime Minister Stephen Harper is still in office and just as creepy and disgusting as before, perhaps slightly more, and in the last week while shaking your hangovers and come downs, you’ve been telling yourself how you had so much fun on New Year’s Eve. However, in reality you can only remember about ten minutes worth of events drenched with a thick hazy fog. Hurray! It’s time to welcome a new year, and it couldn’t have come any sooner. I have open fucking arms for this one. I had two goals last year: getting off drugs, and staying off drugs. I did well, I was sober for a good 97% of the year, but I did have some fuck ups that were heavy duty. Snorting, smoking, shooting, sleep deprivation, booze, multiple hard drugs, you know the drill. This year, instead of getting and staying sober, I want to progress from being sober to getting my life started again, for myself, but also for friends and family.

A friend of mine is currently having issues within their family, a loved one falling back into old habits, and resuming the life of a slave. It must be painful to watch someone you love slip into madness and utter chaos. I’ve never had to deal with that, and I’m so fucking thankful; but I’ve been the one who descended into insanity, a world where nothing else mattered except getting high, and shifted into an unhealthy self-loathing and self-destructive time bomb ready to explode and kill myself at any second. When I think of what I put my family through, my heart sinks and I cringe just a little.

I remember at the height of my methamphetamine use (which was coupled with other drugs, and is just one of several addictions I have) about seven years ago, I hadn’t spoke with my parents for an entire year, and my siblings for maybe two or more. It’s kind of hazy. We were all in Regina, Saskatchewan which is pretty damn small for a city (only 200,000) so there really was no excuse for not seeing or talking to each other unless you’re a sick addict like I was. I remember accidently running into my sister while I was tweaked out and doing some shopping. My initial reaction was to evade her entirely, however it would have been and obvious blatant dodge, and that would only rouse suspicion as to why I am running from my own sister; she barely even recognized me. It was the quickest hello, she introduced her present day husband to me who she had been dating for a year or so, and I couldn’t say good-bye fast enough. Then I disappeared into a dark shitty hole not to be heard from.

Approximately half a year later I randomly showed up at my parents place on Christmas day while everyone was there, just expecting to casually resume family life for one day; what a fucking joke that was. I walked there in the freezing cold after a couple days of no sleep and excessive partying, with cheap shitty presents in my arms, and a few points of jib in my pocket to keep me going. In front of everyone my father confronted me and asked why my hands were trembling so much, and I couldn’t respond with a valid defense, just pure silence. “Look at them, they’re just shaking, how come?” he shouted. Humiliation, shame, self-loathing, and a pinch of embarrassment erupted in my brain, then slithered down my spine and spread into every corner of my body, making me feel utterly worthless. That’s all I remember from being in their home that day, but I remember that moment as clear as crystal (yes, pun, blah blah, fuck off). It’s safe to say I ruined that holiday.

I still loved my family with all my heart, but they were highly opposed to my lifestyle. Their reaction interfered with my addiction, and it would create feelings of guilt and sorrow which I was constantly running away from down a pipe, straw, or needle tube. I no longer even had the strength to deal with these emotions, so I simply evaded them. The hungry ghost inside me was in control, not me. I was there, but every last ounce of integrity I had was stomped and pissed on by drugs, and my addiction. My hungry ghost pulled every trick it could out of its grubby little bag of tricks to stay in power.

A person’s addiction keeps them away from people who care for them, because they are a threat to the addiction itself. The addiction wants to feed off you like a parasite. This is why I refer to it as a hungry ghost, it’s a term I adopted from a book written by a doctor named Gabor Mate, who works on E Hastings in Vancouver; another place I have found myself shooting dope, tossing away life, reality, and everything that actually matters. Addiction is almost like its own entity, living and thriving inside you, and will manipulate you at ALL costs to stay intact. Pick up that pipe, click click, start it all over again.

I’m not ashamed of who I am in the slightest, I’m actually brutally honest about my personal experiences, because I don’t think it’s right for humans to bottle shit up due to being embarrassed, or ashamed, or scared of social stigmas. However, just because I am not ashamed of who I am and what I’ve done, doesn’t mean I don’t have remorse for hurting the people who actually cared about me. And you want to know the really fucked up part about all this? I am still so susceptible to falling back into it, because hey, I’m a fucking fiend that’s what I do best, unfortunately. Even after I acknowledge all this, and what I’ve done, I still wouldn’t put it past me to give into my own selfishness and do it all over again. That hungry ghost never ever goes away; it will be there for the rest of my life, and every other person who has dealt with addiction. It just depends if you can keep it shut away or not. However, that does make me try even harder to stay sober, for myself and the people around me.

Now there is a new year before us, and it’s time to leave the past where it belongs and move forward to grow into the people we are supposed to become, not the junkie that some of us got side tracked into being. I know, sometime over the years life turned into an ugly, veiny, roid-raged dick with bitch tits and a persistent smokers cough, stomping on every chance and opportunity you get, but this is the year that changes. It’s time to grab life by its shrunken old testicles, squeeze, and take your life back!

More from Andrew Horn:

My Methadone Clinic Is the Happiest Place on Earth

The Metha-DOs and Metha-DON'Ts of Shaking Your Addiction

Look at Andrew Horn's 'Taint'