Masters of Horror (43 page)

What the Partnership for a Drug-Free America just doesn’t
get
is: America (and the rest of the world) takes drugs—and will probably continue to—because drugs
work
. They provide either relief, or pleasure. As a current advertisement continues to drone: “Depression hurts. Cymbalta can help”. I for one say, if you’re one of those people having a good time using stimulant X, Y, or Z—
without adversely affecting yourself or anyone else—
good on ya. Feel free to close the book now, or give it to a friend.

If you’re one of those people who
isn’t
having a good time anymore, please read on. This also applies if
you
think
you’re having a good time but your family, remaining friends, doctors, local policemen and court officials say otherwise.

In a forthcoming nonfiction book THE UNBREAKABLE HEART, I shared some ideas for people having trouble with vices, and I’d like to do the same here. Please note that I don’t pretend to be an authority of physical or mental health.

That’s all these are:
ideas.
However, I’m also of the opinion that once an idea expands a brain, it never returns to its original dimensions.

Your experience with drugs (I’ll lump alcohol in with drugs from here on in, since it is a drug, along with tobacco) or some toxic/addictive behavior (overeating, pornography, gambling, scarification) is your own. I’ll use the term ‘user’ instead of ‘addict’…I used the bus daily for months, but never considered myself a ‘bus addict’. Users have similarities and patterns, but that does not

• 
mean each of us is the same. I’ve met people that called themselves ‘alcoholics’

• 
when they hadn’t touched a drink in
decades.
Therefore, I shan’t pretend I know

• 
your situation, except that your life might improve with a period of clarity, sobriety and health. I will only mention things that
may
help you, as they have helped others I have known.

1.
Research the effects of your usage.

Thanks to the almighty Internet, we now have answers to almost everything at our fingertips. So if you smoke a pack a day, you might learn that amount of smoking will wipe out X amount of Vitamin C that your body needs to function optimally. If you drink heavily, you ought to stock up on B Vitamins. WWW.WEBMD.COM is a good place to start, as is Wikipedia. If you don’t have internet access, a few hours at the local library won’t cost you anything, and all the world’s drugs will still be available later on. And when you’re done with that…

2.
Find out what it’s costing you.

Whatever your favorite pick-me-up might be, it probably costs
something,
unless it’s oxygen, or your spouse owns a liquor store. The cost might be relatively low, or you may have already ‘rationed’ it into your current income (as in, “this chunk of my check goes to Xanax, the rest can go to groceries”). But whatever its cost is, it’d probably improve your life if you stopped spending it on a vice, and collected and/or redirected it elsewhere. For example, when I started smoking, cigarettes cost under one dollar per pack. Now that they cost over
seven
dollars per pack in my state, I’m glad I’m not getting soaked for $7.00/day, $50.00/week, $200.00/month, etc! One idea that gave me a lot of help in quitting was the fact that seven dollars and change
equaled a share of STOCK in any of a few dozen companies!
Therefore a year of healthy nonsmoking could potentially rack up 365 shares of stock that would have went ‘up in smoke’ otherwise.

Now,
that
is the cost of smoking one pack of cigarettes a day. Other substances…marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy, heroin, et. al., have a decidedly higher price tag than the average pack of cigarettes. Even most nightclub
cocktails
now cost more than a pack of cigarettes, and rare is the partier who goes to a nightclub and only has
one.

Even if your pick-me-ups aren’t immediately complicating or endangering your health, job or family, take a moment to think about what they’re doing to your finances. Or, if
you’re
not having a problem but you know a
male
friend or acquaintance that
is,
point out how much money they’re losing. (Not to be sexist—the same approach might work on women—but most men will put off seeing a doctor until their limbs fall off, whereas losing money is a cause of actual concern to them.)

3.
VISIT AA or NA, at least once, with an open mind.

This is always an option, in most parts of the civilized world. In some cases, courts will remove the ‘optional’ part and make it mandatory for you. AA and NA are not perfect—nothing is—but
they can help you.
They are in fact one of the only institutions that
want
to help you without charging you a good chunk of change: professional rehabilitation programs can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. AA and NA only ask for what you can spare. Unlike many rehabilitation programs, AA and NA will
allow you to come and go as you please.
You will not be kidnapped, robbed, or forced to do anything. The worst that might happen is that you might be scolded, by someone who’s been where you are. Ouch.

I myself have a few criticisms of twelve-step programs, but they
have
worked for all kinds of people. And sadly, there aren’t too many other options. The creator of Moderation Management (where you drink or use under a rigorous schedule of self-control) set up a pretty decent program, but then lost all credibility when they killed some people while driving drunk. The creator of Rational Recovery commands a few thousand dollars for their secret to sobriety.

4.
Take A Day Off Of Whatever You’re Using.

So, you’re NOT an addict? You only use (whatever) for a bit of fun? Great. Take a day off of it, and do something else. Exercise. Sky-dive. Write a poem. Cook a big ham dinner for some poor people. Invent something. Do crossword puzzles. Read those books you’ve been wanting to get to. Call every friend you know and catch up with them. Start buying Christmas presents early. Rest assured, you can be in the middle of nowhere and still find things to do.

The most important thing is to let 24 hours go by
without
using. Because it
can
be done. There are people who have quit heroin cold-turkey, and claimed that the first 24 hours were Hot Rails to Hell. But merely
focusing
on something else for once may make all the difference in the world.

If you
don’t
(never say
can’t
) let 24 hours go by without using, well, that should be a big neon sign right there: you’re not using, you’re
needing
. And it’s a bad place to be. Nobody says you have to
stay
there, though, and few (if any) people want you to.

When you do go 24 hours, pat yourself on the back, but not too hard. Try not to rest on your laurels and say “Well, that was easy! I’m not hooked on anything! I think I’ll celebrate with some Mexican brown heroin.” Instead, embrace the clarity and
use
it. Dust off some other goal you had—something that requires more than one day of sobriety—and go for it. Make a “To Do” List of things you have to be sober to do, and do as many as you can.

Then…
gasp
…make another “To Do” list for the next day/week/month/year!

Here’s something to do for the 24 hours you’re not using…

5.
Improve your surroundings however you can.
Basically, this means clean up your place, whatever it may be. I’m not talking about a total Martha Stewart overhaul, I’m talking about cleaning it up as well as you can, with what you currently have. Put things away, vacuum or mop the floors, clean the surfaces and windows, air the place out. If it’s already pristine (let’s face it, if you’re using, it probably isn’t), change a few things around, add some new art or live plants.

Okay, now the question on your mind is, “What the hell for?!” (especially to you
dudes
, who are mostly thinking ‘
This is GAY!’
)

It’s because a clean/overhauled living space instills a sense of pride & accomplishment, whereas a stank hovel of a living space perpetuates that lousy, cyclical feeling of
‘fuck it, look at this place, what’s the use, let’s buy some more ‘rock’.
Clearly, this is no sure-fire panacea, but it helps, and you could probably use all the help you can get.

6.
Use Your Imagination…while you still have it!

I once saw a poster of a potentially ‘hot’ female model, holding a cigarette…except that her clothes and hair were charred and she had third-degree burns all over her. The caption read:
If what was happening to you on the INSIDE was happening to you on the OUTSIDE, would you still smoke?

I’d wager that image has steered quite a few people away from buying their next pack of ‘Marble Row’s’.
Still, nobody would
think
that way
until the image was presented to them.
They’d just blaze up and enjoy their nicotine rush.

One thing I like to do, as a horror writer, is imagine my vice(s) morphed into something unbelievably foul. In a Conan comic, the Barbarian offers a wineskin to a svelte young girl.

It tastes like furniture polish!” She spits.

“
It
is
furniture polish.” He tells her.

Good enough for me. I imagine everyone else around me drinking furniture polish…even though they’re $12 shots of Schmagermeister or whatever…and my urge to join in their fun wavers just a bit.

In many programs, alcoholics are counseled to
think through
a drink. Yes, there’s the immediate gratification of the effect…but what might happen
afterwards?
A car crash, a fight, a lost job, a ruined relationship? Without thinking of the consequences, “just one drink” seems wholly innocent and inviting.

(One possibly helpful mantra to keep in mind is: “Been there, done that”. You’ve already
tried
hash or coke or poppers or speedballs or ecstasy; you’ve
received
the effect, you know what it’s like, you’re not missing out on anything. You generally don’t get bonuses from their use, like “Smoke this crack pipe—WIN A NEW CAR!” Just tell yourself “Been there, done that; boring, boring, boring.”)

When all else fails:

7.
Take it out of the equation.

One
sure-fire
, albeit temporary, solution is to take your particular vice out of the equation: not only stop using whatever it is, but
cut off all access to it.
Are you living in Heroin Central? Take a bus to Anchorage and shell some crabs in a decidedly non-heroin environment for a bit. Does your drinking light come on at five o’clock every afternoon? Switch to night shifts where you’ll
have
to be sober until after the bars close. Does the girl of your dreams smoke like a chimney? Tell her you’ll have to be cyber-buddies from now on. Do whatever you have to, but simply
don’t use
. Don’t give yourself any
opportunities
to use, either.