Fall to Pieces: A Memoir of Drugs, Rock 'N' Roll, and Mental Illness (18 page)

And let’s be honest here: The other thing that leads to relapse is missing the high and wanting it back. You’re drug-sick, you’re lower than gum on a sidewalk, and you think if you can’t get back out and score in five more damn minutes, you’re going to rip out all the hair on your head and punch yourself in the face. Yes, I did punch myself in the face.

A lot of rehab experience, especially in the early days and weeks, is spent trying to outwit the very people who are trying to get you well. You make this so-called effort to pull it together, you do it for show, because it’s harder for someone to be angry with you if it looks like you’re trying. You get more sympathy when you appear to be struggling. Seasoned addicts even game the detox process—they clean up under medical supervision, then walk out the door knowing that the next high is going to be way better than the last one.

And then there’s all this complicated, overwhelming science—biology, chemistry, psychology—that allegedly explains how you got into this mess and how, possibly, you might get out of it. Professionals in all these fields study the science of addiction for their entire careers and still don’t have all the answers; an addict spends a month learning about it and—no surprise—flunks the take-home exam.
Limbic system? Opiate receptors? Serotonin? The dopamine effect? Genetic predisposition? Turns out that all those years I was worrying about my hips, I should’ve been worrying about my hippocampus, that tiny place in my brain that neurologists call the seat of memory and reason. I’d been pouring junk on it since I was thirteen. I couldn’t remember what day it was—how could I possibly absorb all of that? For a long time, I didn’t.

It’s as though you’ve been raised in the woods by wolves; now you must become a functioning human being. It’s not enough to be clean and sober—you need to rewire your brain. There are people who go through their daily lives getting to their jobs on time, raising their families, coping with kids or loneliness or creativity or the world situation, and they don’t get high. They don’t put a needle into their veins, they don’t consort with scary people hovering near the edge of city parks or dark parking lots. How do they do that? For an addict, this is a much bigger question than What is the meaning of life? Twelve-step meetings can help you learn; therapy can help you learn; maybe faith, or grace, can help you stick with it. But for three out of every four addicts, it takes multiple trips to rehab, and stays longer than a couple of weeks, or a couple of months, or longer. It depends on the drug of choice, it depends on the support system, it depends on how good the counselors are, it depends on how much damage you’ve done, and ultimately it depends on whether or not you’re really through with running. It depends on factors that no one can see or fix.

Staying in recovery was difficult for a very long time. I missed the ritual of using as much as I missed the drug itself. During one of my early attempts at sobriety, I missed it so much that I loaded a syringe with water and shot it into my arm. I knew I wouldn’t get high, but
I wanted that specific feeling—the adrenaline of expectation just before you open birthday presents, just before you bungee-jump off the bridge.

I don’t recommend
kicking heroin cold turkey. The first time I did it was before Scott went to jail. The day began as a disaster, and I had to have two friends come over and help me get him into the UCLA psych ward. Dr. Langford made intake arrangements and was meeting us there. Scott and I were dropped off, and we made our way into the building. I don’t remember much about that meeting; Scott, the doctor, and I sat at a round gray table that was made of either cement or metal. The discussion was about Scott’s need for a seventy-two-hour hold.

Hours had passed since I last shot up. I’d gone from feeling like a little girl swimming through cotton candy to a death-row inmate whose stay of execution was just about up. I wanted to go home, I wanted to sleep. Dr. Langford called me a cab, and I hugged Scott good-bye. From the look in his eyes, I knew that his run through the fluffy pink cotton had come to an end, too.

I fell asleep in the cab and woke up in front of our house. I don’t remember paying the driver, I just remember trying to steady my hand so that I could open the door. Getting upstairs to our bedroom was painful. I had to sit and rest every few steps. I was sweaty, hot, and cold all at the same time. I was wearing a black puffy North Face jacket, and by the time I reached the top of the stairs it was drenched. I lacked the energy to take it off. My skin was cold, my eyes wouldn’t stay open, and I just wanted to sleep. I crawled into bed all alone and slept facedown for at least a day.

When I woke up, I knew something horrible was happening. Panicky, I called Ivana, controlling my voice (she still didn’t know what was truly going on with me), and asked her please to bring me something to eat and some Gatorade. I knew it was going to be difficult getting back down the stairs and I started right after I hung up the phone. I sat at the top of the staircase still wearing my sweaty clothes and the puffy jacket, then went down the stairs on my butt, one step at a time. In between, I closed my eyes to stop the spinning. When I got to the front door, I unlocked it, then fell onto the green velvet couch. This time, it didn’t enfold me in comfort. It felt more like a bed of nails.

I didn’t hear Ivana come in. She brought so much food: sandwiches, ice cream, chips, Little Debbie snack cakes. I put away the first bottle of Gatorade in one gulp. Ivana wanted to stay for a while; we hadn’t seen each other in so long. And now she was worried. I insisted that it was the flu. It wasn’t hard to convince her—the Gatorade came right back up. I woke up the next morning and Ivana was gone. I had nodded off during our visit.

Then Scott called. I’d promised to come visit, but I wasn’t there. When was I coming? “I’m really sick,” I said. I didn’t even have to tell him what was happening; he knew that along with nausea came deep, bone-wrenching pain. The body doesn’t give up opiates easily. “Come here,” he said. “The doctor will give you something for the pain.”

I made my way there still dressed in the clothes I’d been wearing for two days. Scott was safe, on detox meds and being watched by a medical staff. Me, I was a do-it-yourself project. Dr. Langford didn’t like it; my doing this alone, without medical assistance and detox,
wasn’t a good idea. But I no longer had the kind of money it would take to check in for an extended stay. When I left, it was with two tiny manila envelopes containing meds for the next two days.

I vowed it would never happen again, but it did. Every time I relapsed, I tried to keep that first cold-turkey nightmare in my head, but it wasn’t enough to stop the cravings. “I will only do it today. How much harm can one day do?” Two days turned into three, three into a week. Gone again. I was in love with getting loaded as much as I was in love with Scott. Before I knew it, I was always back in that puffy jacket sleeping and sweating, and staggering off to visit my true love in between.

He was getting better, I was getting worse, and there was nothing wrong with his powers of observation. When his ultimatum came (he’d pay for rehab, but I had to go and I had to stick this time, or else we wouldn’t be able to be together), I thought about putting up a fight, and started to layer on the lies. But I was exhausted. The thought of losing him carried more weight than any desire to be well again. I’ll go tomorrow, I thought. Or maybe the day after. Tuesday’s good—how’s Tuesday for you?

One night, I had dinner with Eric, Balt, their friend Josie, and her friend Rosetta (who would later become Balt’s wife). They took me to Chateau Marmont, and I was so loaded I fell asleep in my soup. My entire face went into the bowl.

A couple of days later, after sweating through cold turkey again, I packed a bag and drove myself to Promises Mar Vista. My seventh and final trip to rehab. I spent my first few days there asleep in that disgusting puffy jacket. Heroin and I were finally done.