This three series set is about a man called “Dixon”: a man I met and loved and with whom I had a relationship and who admitted to me a month into our time together that he was addicted to crystal meth. In the turbulent 6 months we were together, we went through 5 breakups and just as many meth withdrawals. I, myself, became addicted to the idea of loving and (naively) saving him. I became addicted to his need of me. It broke me. It’s difficult to describe the strength of this connection but after 6 months of being with him, of the back and forth, and after finally tearing myself away, I became desperate and suicidal. The darkness of addiction entered me without my ever having to take a drug. I loved him and I left him: alone to live or die.
I like to believe that I while we were together, I managed, somehow, to see Dixon beyond the cloud of crystal meth and withdrawal that surrounded, shaped, and obfuscated him: That I managed to love the man lost inside the dust bowl of addiction. I like to believe, also, that I meant more to him than just a pin a light in a dark world.
Crystal meth releases dopamine into your system. You feel amazing. And the high lasts for hours. If you take it long enough, your brain stops producing dopamine. So, once you get off it, you can’t be happy. It can take up to two years for your system to level out. The withdrawals are vicious: a couple of days of deep depression and then about a week of sleeping around the clock. In the gay community, meth is widely used as a sex drug to enhance the pleasure and release inhibitions. Once off the drug, non-meth sex is dull and unstimulating. Sex is a large part of the gay community (for many, sex is a large part of being gay). So, the inability to have good sex is what usually drives users who are trying to get off meth run right back to it.
How could you live happily on Earth when you’ve been to Heaven?
If you are on crystal meth and looking to stop, there are a variety of resources available online including the New York Crystal Meth Anonymous Intergroup: Home (nycma.org)
Together we watched a small child on a small bike whizzing past adults too close to their legs, turning sharply, and squealing with delight. The child didn’t think about danger: he didn’t care about hurting himself or other people. The child only thought of the moment: his only concern was speed.
“That was me as a kid”, he said.
“That’s you now”, I replied.
Together we looked at a featherless baby bird stranded in the middle of a busy sidewalk. It had fallen from the nest. Not seeing the baby bird, a man stepped on it and killed it and walked on.
“I should have done something”, he said to me. “I should have picked it up and put it in the grass”.
“If you would have, it would have died of starvation eventually”, I said.
And we spent a few minutes discussing which was the better death.
A dream:
I was caring for a Tiger. The Tiger dozed while I rubbed ointment into its massive face to heal it. My fingers got too close to its eye and the ointment ran into it. I panicked. I wondered if the Tiger would awaken and attack. I slithered away. The Tiger followed me but shrank and then it wrapped its mouth and then its whole body around my hand and arm like a tiger-snake. I looked around and saw someone near me: “I have to feed him”, I said.