An evening at Skully's

After my first AA meeting (the one where the fight broke out), something really strange happened.  I didn't smoke any pot the next day.  Or the next.  Or for about a couple weeks afterward.  I didn't want to end up like 'those sick bastards who go to AA'.

This marked a huge change in my life.  Seriously.  I'd never put one day up on self will.  But, I'd finally seen the truth about myself; I was never going to use any drugs again.  And, I was only going to have a couple or three drinks at most.  No hard liquor.  No getting drunk.  I did not want to end up like 'those losers at those meetings'.

But, I eventually picked back up.  If I'd read the big book, I'd have known that a real addict, no matter how good a scare he gets, almost never can stay sober on the basis of self-knowlege alone.  But, I hadn't read the book, had I?  So, here I was, expecting to be able to quit, and found that I had slipped up.

Crap!

I went to another meeting, and came out with a fresh resolve to 'not end up like those sick fuckers who have to go to AA'.  This time, a fresh resolve was only good for a week.

I ran into my buddy/dealer (known as 'Skully'... it's an inside joke) on a Friday afternoon.  He was worried that perhaps something had happened; perhaps I was upset about something, because he hadn't heard from me for a few weeks.

I explained that I'd decided to quit smoking dope, and that it was really tough, so I was just laying low for a while; hanging with my dealer wasn't going to make it any easier.  Which made my friend happy; he wasn't worried about the few bags he wasn't selling to me - they'd get sold.  He was honestly worried about our friendship.


This actually made me feel a little bad, because I'd always thought he was pleasant enough, but didn't really like hanging out with him a whole hell of a lot.  I considered him pretty boring... but he had pot and coke.  And, here Skully was actually considering me his friend.  Yeah, that actually felt kind of low.


So, he invites me to stop by that afternoon on the way home from work.  He explained that he didn't want to make me start back on anything I wanted to quit, but there were a bunch of people who hadn't seen me for a while and would enjoy visiting for a bit.


After work, I stopped by Skull's place.  As promised, there were a bunch of people I hadn't seen for a while.  Somebody passed me a beer, which I accepted.

C'mon, it's just a beer.  I didn't really have any compulsion to drink.  I could take it or leave it.  I didn't have to drink a bunch; I could just have one or two.

So anyway, I start sipping on a bottle of beer.  Someone passes me a pipe.  Without thinking at all, I hit it.

Of course, as soon as I took that toke, I realized that I'd just fucked up.  Badly.  Thoughts of all the things that were going wrong in my life, and how they were damn near all caused or exacerbated by drug abuse.

And here I was again.

But, then that familiar argument came back:  I was already halfway stoned; not sober now.  Might as well go ahead and get back on track tomorrow.

This happened about six o'clock in the evening.  At six in the morning, I was still there.  The beers had kept coming, the pot had kept coming, and (hooray) Uncle Whitey made a visit - I'd blown a bunch of lines up my nose.

Then I realized that I'd better get my ass back to that fellowship hall, and hit a meeting.  I wasn't going to end up like 'those people'; I'd already crossed the line.  Now it was just a matter of how much more bad shit was going to happen.  I knew I could never use pot, coke or speed again, without consequences.

That night, I went to a meeting, where everything changed.