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The Chemist

Nathan Hahs

    My parents divorced when I was fifteen and I did not handle this well. I carried the stress in my neck and shoulders and, after a few months, I had pain all of my waking hours. My mom took me to the doctor, who gave me flexeril. I had this muscle relaxer for a couple of years before stopping. It eased the pain and put me to sleep. I was ever so grateful for the sleep, as I had always struggled with this.
    At nineteen, I was given a prescription of xanax by my doctor to help with anxiety. At first, I used it exactly as it was prescribed. I didn’t want to become addicted to it. I was able to maintain this for about a year, but in the end I liked being able to escape from my reality too much and began to abuse it. I was in college by this time and the xanax was making me sleepy all of the time, so I started taking caffeine pills to wake up and be able to function during class and at work. When I wasn’t taking the No-Doze, I was taking a xanax. How Elvis Presley of me, I thought.
    After a few months of this, I began to wonder if I might be a drug addict and stopped taking the No-Doze, because this was the easier of the two to stop, I figured. As time passed, my xanax prescription increased in both frequency and strength. I had started with 0.25mg prn twice daily. Now I had 1mg prn three times daily. Fear and denial has always been close compadres of mine; I was in denial about my heavy reliance on this pill, this downer, this central nervous system suppressant. I was afraid of what it meant if I was addicted. Or, maybe I just didn’t care. I now thought I needed it to function.
    Shortly after turning twenty-one, I moved, dropped out of school, and got a different job. Through my job I met Shaun. It was Shaun who introduced me to marijuana. The two of us started hanging out and we met up with a friend of his, whose father had a stash of pot. We three drove to Walgreens and Shaun bought a corncob pipe. We drove to the father of this friend (a guy whose name I never knew) to get the pot. The house was locked. I am a small guy, a physical runt. I discovered at a very early age that I liked going places I was not allowed. I had been breaking and entering and trespassing since I was old enough to join Cub Scouts. Getting into this guy’s dad’s house was not going to be a problem for me. I found an unlocked kitchen window and snuck in. I let Shaun and this other dude in through the front door. This other dude quickly located his father’s weed. He dismantled the kitchen faucet to get the screen for the corncob pipe. I was learning minute by minute about the street drug culture. This was all new to me, but I said nothing for fear of looking stupid or inexperienced. I do know how to nod and smile with the best of them, though.
    We were expecting tornadic weather that day: wind, hail, thunder and lightning. We were high and listened to the weather report as we drove around in Shaun’s car. At my suggestion, we headed directly for the storm and continued to smoke from the corncob pipe. He drove into and through the storm and, if that wasn’t good enough, turned right around and drove back through on our way back to my place. Shaun dropped me off and he and the nameless guy went on their way. I took a xanax and went to sleep. When I woke up, I felt terrible. I stayed in bed for the next 48 hours, popping xanax to hide from myself and whatever low I was experiencing.
    My family, because of my mental health, always made sure I had xanax. If I had no money for marijuana or whatever else I fancied, I would swap xanax for them. I started dating the woman who would become my first wife. She was a recreational drug user and her behavior helped normalize my own. I chose all of my friends based on who I thought would make me feel like less of an addict by comparison.
    I had three surgeries on my feet in my twenty-fifth year and was given vicadin for the post-op pain. I took it as prescribed at first, but continued with it as the pain subsided. I liked the way it made me feel, pain free...free of ALL pain, physical and emotional. I lied to my wife, mother, and doctor about the seriousness of the pain, just to get multiple refills. I maintained my lie until even I knew it was absurd. I was under general anesthetic for the first two surgeries and loved coming to after the procedure. For the third surgery, the doctor gave intravenous valium and a local anesthetic for my foot itself. Under the influence of the valium, I drooled and my eyes watered. I convinced the doctor to show me the tissue he was removing from my foot. I was affected by nothing and my usual anxiety and depression were gone.
    Having my wisdom teeth removed was as good an experience as it could have been. I had minimal swelling and no discomfort, let alone pain. Nevertheless I took my demerol and I took it as frequently as I wanted to. I loved the high and I called in sick to work for the two days following my surgery, even thought my only real reason for staying home was so I could take the pain pills and numb out. I returned to work and continued to take the demerol as often as I could and still be able to function at least reasonably well on the job. I continued at this pace until I had exhausted all three refills the doctor had given me.
    By this time my doctor had stopped giving me the xanax, so I switched to another doctor. I have always had a nervous stomach and it seemed to me to be getting worse the older I got. I complained to the doctor about being unable to eat and multiple panics each day. The doctor gave me not one, but two xanax prescriptions: 1mg thirty minutes before each meal and 1mg prn five times daily. She also gave me three refills for each separate prescription. I was VERY pleased with this. I no longer seemed to care whether or not I was addicted, I needed it to keep from going crazy. I was fired from my job and I isolated to hide my problems from everyone else and took lots and lots of xanax to feel unburdened my own life. I should add that if, at any time up to this point, I had access to any combination of the afore-mentioned drugs at the same time, you can be sure that I was combining them. I considered EVERYTHING in my life an experiment and my curiosity allowed me to justify my actions by testing cause and effect.
    Tooth problems run in my family and I was no exception. I had to have two root canals and was given lortab for the pain. Again, I was given more than I really needed and I regularly indulged. The lortab made my eyes glassy and I acted like a space cadet when on them. I told my second wife I needed them, all of them, for the pain. She asked me not to drive while on them. For some reason, I obeyed this request.
    At 32, my second wife had reached her limit of strife brought on by my mental illnesses (I had been hospitalized for depression and mania several times) and asked me to leave. I moved in with a friend who lived on the other side of the tracks. I applied for disability because of my bipolar disorder and was quickly approved. My friend is not a very social creature, but I am. Shortly after moving in with him, I knew all of the neighbors and was spending lots of time with these other degenerates. The guy next door was George Two Feathers, whose girlfriend and her two-month old son had just moved in with him.
    One night, it was very late, I was over at George’s apartment. His girlfriend Angela was there with her child and there was this guy named Shane. Angela was neurotic, going on and on about how she needed five dollars. After a while, I could take no more of her nagging and I gave her the money. She and Shane left and I asked George what my five dollars had just bought. He said that they had gone to buy crack cocaine. This made me anxious, but also very, very intrigued. I was about to try the real stuff.
    Angela and Shane were not gone very long. They returned and brought the dope over to the table where George and I were still situated and Angela placed a small opaque object on the table directly in front of me. She and George retrieved their pipes and began breaking the crack into four pieces, one for each of us. I was so nervous that George had to hold the pipe for me when it was my turn to smoke up. They walked me through the proper procedure and George then struck the lighter and I inhaled. The high was immediate. Immediate and mind-blowing, unlike anything I had known before. I now had a new best friend. As I exhaled, I slid out of the chair and onto the floor. I glanced at the clock. I wanted to time the high. It lasted 55 minutes before I felt the need to take another blast. Meanwhile, the other three blew through their share. Before I smoked again, I was kind enough to give George and Angela a small piece of what remained of mine. I was thoroughly enjoying myself and wanted us all to enjoy the drug. Shane had left sometime during my 55 minute high. I never saw him again. In keeping with the scientific testing of my life, I had started years earlier to carry around a journal with me at all times. I made detailed notes of that night’s experience and the few months that followed. I felt that this was all worth documenting. Looking back on that night, I am surprised at how long three people lasted with the little dope we had. That never happened again. I waited at George’s apartment until I came down from the high, as disappointing as it was to me that it had to come to an end at all, before going back to my apartment. I had totally forgotten about Angela’s baby in the room with us. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about much; I was getting high every day. Aside from the lying, I was having a great time and I could bury my shame with crack cocaine.
    When I was ready to face the world, I marched right back over to George’s and asked if we could get some more dope. My roommate made me pay no bills and disability paid my child support plus my grandmother was sending me money, so I had a fair amount of money to blow and I was eager to do so. It was exciting.
    I was always combining drugs to see how messed up I could get; crack was another weapon in my arsenal. George, Angela, and I started spending a lot of time together. Sometimes, I would buy the booze and they would get the dope and we’d all share. Other times, we relied on the money my grandmother was sending me for crack and, occasionally, weed. Angela had no job; she was living off George’s meager income. Soon he stopped going to work and we were all living off of mine. Angela would use her W.I.C card to buy baby food and formula at one store and then drive to another store and return it for cash. Neither of them had a car, so we used mine. We were using each other; my car proved a useful asset in my obtaining drugs.
    We would party for days on end and then crash for a few hours. I was rarely at my own apartment. I would go there to get something to eat or maybe to sleep, but I mainly crashed on George’s couch. My roommate didn’t question me about my goings-on. He was on probation and needed this plausible deniability. I rarely saw my kids, though I would use them as an excuse to get away for a day to rest. I wasn’t going to see them. I was still married to my second wife and sometimes would call her in a fit of paranoia. She would question me, as would my mother, and I would lie about how I was spending all of my time.
    One day I gave George money to buy dope. He left and I went outside to see where he went; I had grown curious about where he was getting the drugs. He seemed to have no problem taking me along when he scored pot, but was secretive about where the crack came from. As I was watching him disappear down the road, a Volkswagen pulled up in front of me and the rear window rolled down. Somehow I just instinctively knew what was about to happen. I walked over and the black woman asked me if I was a friend of George’s. I said I was. She motioned for me to come closer and we had our little drug deal right there. She told me to come and see her personally in apartment 2B, because, as she said, I was the one with the cash, not George. Now, I no longer needed my Native American friend or his crackhead girlfriend. I was proud of myself; I had handled my first buy like a seasoned pro. The three people in the car, all women, drove off and I closely watched them. George and Angela had told me that their main source for dope was ‘the Girls,’ two black, lesbian sisters who lived in the second floor apartment above the bar just two blocks from where we all lived. This was going to be easier than I thought.
    My roommate worked 80+ hours a week. It really wasn’t much trouble avoiding him. I smoked what I had bought and then walked right down to see the Girls. They let me in and I was standing right next to another neighbor of mine, Randy. He worked, so he had income, and we started sharing dope with each other, taking turns buying depending on which one of us had the cash.
    Back at the Girl’s place, we were getting to know each other better and better. The older of the two sisters, Audra, was the boss. Ariel, the other one, I soon learned was a loose cannon. A loose cannon who loved pills. I had xanax and geodon, both of which she was willing to trade with me for crack and weed. Audra had found out that I had a car, something she didn’t have and was desperate to use. After a few days, we struck up a deal: she would supply me amply with dope if I let her use my car to re-up. She said she preferred if I hung out with her or Ariel when she borrowed the car. This worked for me. She said I could even stay with her if that would make things easier. This totally worked for me. Now, I didn’t even have to leave the house to buy. I returned to my place to grab my meds and my checkbook. Now we were one big happy family: me, the Girls, Audra’s girlfriend, and lots and lots of drugs. Things just kept getting better for me. Except I now had to get used to 24 hour a day drug business and the fear of a drug raid, but that got better with time. I was going with the Girls on all of their buys, meeting all kinds of interesting people and taking notes the whole time. This didn’t seem to bother anyone. They seemed as curious by my actions as I was of theirs. As I was growing more comfortable with the situation, Audra’s girlfriend (I never found out her name, but she answered to “Hey, Girl,” and everybody involved seemed okay with that.) A few weeks after me joining the Girls, the girlfriend vanished. Audra later told me that this person was uncomfortable with my erratic behavior. Audra said she didn’t care. She said it was easier for her to find another woman than a licensed, insured car.
    My wife had asked me to house-sit for her over the summer while she and our daughter went to visit her family in California. The timing couldn’t have been better, because the Girls had been asked to leave their place. My wife, who is a kindergarten teacher, left and the three of us moved in. We continued slinging dope, and business was more lucrative than ever, because we now had access to another vehicle. We partied and partied. Audra met a new girl, Amanda, who worked in the medical profession. She got high every morning before work and we would watch her young son sometimes while she was gone. Every now and again we would go over to Amanda’s house, where she lived with her aunt and grandmother, both crackheads. The Girls seemed have no problem bringing along a white guy and introducing me to the drug culture. In this world, I was the minority. A cracker. I found this all terribly fascinating.
    My hunger for dope was growing. I wasn’t eating much, but this was nothing new for me. I only ate to keep from collapsing from malnutrition. I was making all of my decisions based on my drug addiction. I was supposed to be on ten prescriptions for my mental illnesses, but was only taking the xanax and geodon. The other eight scripts were eating up money that was better spent on dope.
    One day Audra told me she had a business proposition for me. She said if I would invest $400 with her this week, she could pay me $600 next week. I agreed. She also said she had some Ecstasy, if I wanted to try it free of charge. I couldn’t resist. I popped the pill as soon as she handed it to me. I had heard a fair amount about this drug from friends bragging about how they liked it. As the day progressed, I was unimpressed. It was nice, but I was so used to the crack, that this paled in comparison. I never tried MDMA again.
    As summer was winding down, the Girls and I vacated my wife’s place. They moved into a new apartment, with me forging work documents and letters of reference to help make them look like upstanding citizens, and I moved back in with my roommate. I didn’t stay there but a few weeks before moving back in with the Girls. Now we all seemed to be struggling to keep it together. Money was short and we couldn’t keep enough dope around to satisfy our habits. I had applied for two credit cards, with the intention of taking cash advances to buy dope. After a five-day binge, the Girls crashed. I was feeling very weak and I was getting frequent nose bleeds and having some chest pain. I was having more trouble than before thinking clearly and it was not amusing to me at this time. I took several xanax and went to my roommate’s apartment to sleep it off.
    I wasn’t sure how long I had slept, but I figured quite a while judging from the number of missed calls and texts from the Girls. I tried calling them, but the call went straight to voicemail. My body and mind were going through withdrawal. I really needed a blast. I opened the front door of the apartment and my car was gone. I was so foggy-headed that it didn’t occur to me that the Girls had taken it to re-up. I had given them my other key, after all. The only thing I could think of was that it had been stolen. I called my wife, because the car was in her name and she called the police. The police then called me, wanting to play 20 Questions. I really couldn’t think at all. I was having putting together a complete sentence. Nothing was making ANY sense to me. I don’t remember what I told the police. When they finally let me go, I was frantic. I started calling anybody and everybody to get something, anything. I got a hold of a hooker who used and she drove over and sold me twenty dollars worth of rock. I smoked it, took some xanax and passed out.
    I was awoken by my roommate. The cops had found the car. They had called my wife and told her that the driver was a known drug dealer. Wisely, my wife decided to not press charges. She had called my roommate and he got me up to go get the car. We arrived to find Ariel in the back of the cop car. She just shook her head at me. My roommate did all of the talking, because I was still incoherent. The next morning I had to answer (lie to) the questions being asked by my wife, my roommate, the police and, later, Audra and Ariel. I think it was pretty clear to everybody that I didn’t have any clue as to what I had been doing. Audra and Ariel were the most forgiving, because they needed the car to do business. I ignored the cops, my roommate, and wife and went back to stay with the Girls.
    I lasted a couple of weeks, before needing to escape again. So, I went back to my apartment, self-medicated, and went to sleep. When I awoke, I was jonesing. I went to Randy’s apartment and, sure enough, he had some dope. As the night progressed we smoke and smoked and bought more and more, usually from prostitutes that Randy knew. . After a while of this, Randy started acting strange...or stranger...than usual, but we continued to get high. Then he just got really quiet. I paused to watch him and next he started seizing. I didn’t want to deal with an overdose; it was a buzzkiller. Randy was sideways. I grabbed what was left of the crack and left to find somewhere else to smoke it. The next day Randy seemed to have no memory whatsoever of the previous night.
    Randy and I partied more days than not during the weeks of the next month. I was getting more and more desperate for dope. One night around midnight, I was at the end of my rope. I returned to my apartment from Randy’s and located my checkbook. I had no money, but I was going to write a check anyway. I had a brief moment of clarity and called my mom. She agreed to come and get me the next day and let me stay with her for a while, to get clean. Still totally trashed, I went to my car. In backing up I hit a car belonging to one of the other tenants. The collision was very loud and the neighbor came out and started shouting at me. My roommate came out and a cop pulled up. He wrote me a ticket and was going to take me jail for D.U.I., but my roommate convinced him to let me stay here, because my mom was coming the next day to take me to rehab. With my tail between my legs, I returned to the apartment, took a handful of xanax, and passed out.
    The first paragraph is a lie. At thirteen, I broke my hand. The orthopedist gave me some painkiller, the name of which escapes me. My parents let me take the next day off from school and I took my pill. It did relieve the pain, but more than that, I liked the way it made my head feel. I complained a lot, hoping to get more of the drug (either in frequency or number of pills at one time), but my parents stood firm. I don’t think anyone, least of all me, would have entertained using words like “high” or “abuse,” but I knew that I enjoyed the feeling. I remember feeling frustrated when the real pain began to subside, because that meant I didn’t need it. But, I sure did want it! My next experience with drugs begins back at the first paragraph.
    I was at my mom’s for only a few days before I landed in detox. The withdrawal from coming off the crack was intense. I was given thirty ativan, which I took in one day. After detox, I travelled to Florida to live with an ex-girlfriend. We each normalized the other’s behaviors. Over the next three years, I was in detox three more times, official rehab twice, and was arrested twice. I began combining street drugs, prescription drugs (mine and others), and whatever I could get OTC. I had no money, so I started stealing and trading sex for drugs. My girlfriend was trying to contain me, but she had gotten sucked into my vortex. Finally, I got tired of her complaining and left.
    I had been concocting a plan to leave for weeks: to move to Las Vegas to live with some old user friends of mine. I was there for less than a week, before they asked me to leave. They said I was scary. So I traveled to Denver, where I spent four days on the streets, before being able to convince another old friend to let me stay with him. While homeless, I ended up in detox three times and arrested twice. On a cold December night, I found myself alone...again. This was the last time for me. At age 36, I was tired of waking up not knowing where I was or how I got there. Not having a clue what else to do, I prayed...

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