Everything

The question was posed to me in a round-about way: How much does addiction cost? It seems like such a simple question, yet it’s been on my mind all day. The question as it was posed, refers only to the monetary aspect associated with addiction, so I will not rant about what my addiction took from me over the years, because it would be a long list and go all the way from every job I’ve ever had, to the last thread from the last shirt on my back. This question was actually a treatment assignment during my six-month boot camp-treatment experience at Willow River Correctional Facility at the end of my incarceration, but all 16 men in my squad were given that same assignment, so it was really just a competition to see who could come up with the highest number. I believe I actually wrote down one million dollars.

As I sit here and think about how much I spent over the years, I wonder if a million might be a little high. For most of my working years—age 15 until my first sobriety of five years, and then age 26 to 35—I worked low paying jobs, or sold drugs as a means to sustain my habits, whatever they may have been at the time. Every penny that I earned—legally or not—went to some form of addiction. There were some months I paid my bills, but rarely two in a row, and even more infrequently did I pay all of my bills in one month. Fortunately, I lived an unintentionally minimalist lifestyle, and had few possessions, no credit cards, negligible utility costs, and rarely ate food. Evicted, fired, and arrested were terms commonly used to describe me.

I spent most of my money in bars, so to be a practicing alcoholic for years was costly. I enjoyed gambling, often at the expense of my employers who I would steal from in order to keep the rush of losing going. $100-$300 was easily spent at the bar when I went, and most weeks you could find me there on a nightly basis and that was for years.

With the hard stuff—meth and coke—the numbers are terrifying. Sadly, most of what I lost in the game of meth dealing wasn’t money. It was the life, soul, friendships, family, relationships, etc…. that I listed above. There’s almost nothing I wouldn’t do to get my fix, and as odd as it may be to say it, I’m grateful I had some good connections  in the trade, because I may have gone down other avenues , who knows. Would I make a great prostitute? Obviously, but it didn’t come to that. So as a drug dealer, I made sometimes $1,000 a day, for days in a row, but somehow at the end of a streak like that, I would be broke. I used more than I could afford, and in the end I had nothing. I was empty, alone and afraid.

Even in my sobriety, my third chance at life, I’m still paying for my addiction. When I left prison I walked out with just under $300. Imagine starting adulthood with no job and less than $300. To say the least it’s been uphill; starting from scratch from underpants, toothbrush, and a blanket, to a car, and a computer. Of course, I had some help with a few things when I got out, but the majority of life’s expenses I have paid on my own because it feels better to obtain things honestly.

Okay, I don’t think I can go any longer without starting over at the top because addiction takes so much more away from life than just money. It takes desire, compassion, love, dreams, desires, and goals. It gives you nothing in return, leaving only emptiness in a hollow form where there used to be thought, compassion, and a will to endure.  It pushes you so much farther than you ever thought you could go into the pits of hopelessness, and somewhere, down there near the bottom, you find the ability to tell yourself it’s okay; that you can keep on doing what you’re doing and things will turn around. You tell yourself the way you are is fine even though your moral compass points south. You find the courage to trudge on but in the wrong direction only to find that the bottom gets lower with every step. There is only one answer now to the question of how much addiction has cost because you have lost it all again. You’ve lost everything.

The Letter

After receiving a windfall of positive feedback, advice, and support, I decided that today would be the day that I tracked down the current address of my brother, and sent off that letter I’ve been waiting ten years to write. So, after work, I came home to grab a notepad, a stamped envelope, and a $200 check, and I went to Nina’s Coffee Café. Monday is normally the day I meet up with my friend in recovery, Madi, and coach her in her writing, which I did do, but I felt as if my mind was in another place. I got my coffee, chatted with a couple friends I saw there for a brief moment, and Madi found me and we got a table and proceeded to get to work. She’s to the point where she can do most of her writing on her own, and I essentially proofread it and give editorial suggestion before publication, so I had plenty of time to sit and write out the letter.

The letter itself was concise, and candid. I didn’t give detail of my ten-year interruption from life, I merely told him why I did what I did, and why I left not just him, but everybody in the dust. I asked him for an opportunity to make things right; to make things whole again. I stated that I would understand if he had no desire to speak with me, but hoped this would open the lines of communication again. And I mentioned that, regardless of the outcome, the $200 check that I enclosed should settle the monetary debt on the loan that I took out a decade ago. I was in the zone.

I looked up from the paper. My mouth was dry and my hands were sweaty; I could feel bile swirling in my stomach. I was afraid that I wasn’t doing it the right way. Already I was petrified of rejection. I pictured the letter being returned next week, me coming home to see the letter with a giant rubber stamped, Return to Sender. I mean that really mean one with the hand pointing to the return address.

I tore out the first page and set it aside and took a break to read what Madi had written, and breathe. Just breathe, Vince. I was possibly over critical of her sentence structure, so I put my head back down and put the pen back to paper. I trudged on with a heartfelt apology for not returning his phone calls, nor pleas from his wife to reach out to him, “…no matter what.” Making amends isn’t supposed to make you feel shitty, but it is sometimes tough to recall very specific conversations or events, and this was one of those times. My throat swelled, and my body started to tense. I needed to end the letter.

I concluded with my contact information, and a Sincerely, Vince. I folded the letter thrice, and tucked the check in the middle before securing the envelope. I finished up helping my friend, and she published that, and we said our goodbyes. I knew that the best thing to do was head straight for the Post Office, so that’s what I did. As this picture clearly shows, I have now done all I possibly can to make amends with my brother, and when the letter dropped, I felt as if I had released a 50 pound weight. And when that weight left my shoulders, I felt something else: love. I don’t even know why I typed that, but it’s the only word that fits the feeling I felt. It was as if something powerful went through my body, and after all of the years of pent up anger, fear, frustration, and pain with regards to Thomas, I let it go, and all that was left was love. I went to the gym to lift with my cousin, but all I wanted to do was get home to write this, and I hope it all makes sense to you, because a lot more makes sense to me after tonight. And that’s all I’ve got.

I promise you that this is my actual hand. The horrible picture was taken by the camera on my phone. Sadly, I do not own a camera that can take good pictures.

You can help that with a small donation to my GoFundMe campaign!!

Oh, here's the link to a very courageous, somewhat disturbing, and mildly disgusting post written by my friend.

Another Lunatic Rant

So, fundraising is harder than I thought it would be. My last post generated 155 page views in one day. That’s a fairly good number, but I’ve only received three donations. Truly, I think that’s pretty good for one day of fundraising for my very worthy cause, and there is plenty of time left.

From now on, to prove my point even further, I will take a picture of myself using the webcam on my laptop in very poor quality, regardless of the content of the post. It’s going to be sort of like a ransom; you give me money, or the girl loses a finger every day you don’t, except in this case, I am the little girl, and the fingers are representative of me getting closer to my goal of getting a new camera, so every day that you don't fund me, I lose a finger. I can’t make it any simpler for you. I can’t blather on all day about myself and my needs, what about you? You need good writing, and I think good writing can be augmented by good photography.

Time to depart from the topic, I suppose. Today is my last of four straight days off. It’s been fast, but rather enjoyable. I’ve been to two states, Minnesota and Wisconsin, and I’ve been out shopping at thrift stores in both locales. I now own two ugly Christmas sweaters, which easily broke my old record of zero, and for that I am grateful.  Yesterday I got to enjoy some time with the girl I've been seeing after a Thanksgiving hiatus, and I had an amazing time. I’m not quite ready to tell you all about her over a blog post, but those of you who know me will surely get to meet her soon enough and someday before long I will write more about this.

Back to the topic of work, tomorrow I’m heading back to the laminating factory for a week and a half while the Wild are out of town, and Disney on Ice takes over the Xcel Center with limited concessions, and no liquor sales. I haven’t worked a full five-day week at the factory since I resigned my full-time employment on October 1^st, and I do believe I will quickly remember how boring it is sitting in an office chair on wheels, watching a machine protect paper with plastic laminate over, and over, and over, and over… until the bell rings at 5pm. I don’t know how I used to do it every week, but I did it for a year, and I survived. I’m a laminating industry survivor. There should be a support group for that.

So that last paragraph was the single most boring thought I have ever written out. We are all worse off having read it, and may God have mercy on your soul.

It’s been roughly two weeks since I wrote the emotional duo of posts about my brief relationship with my brother, and to update you all, I’ve not had a response. Neither to e-mail, nor to Facebook Messenger, the two forms of communication I’ve tried thus far, have I seen a reaction. It’s disheartening, but expected. I’ve not given up, so this week I’m going to dig a little deeper, and see if I can find his physical address, and do what I used to best, put pen to paper. For those of you unfamiliar, mail is a form of communication largely used before the advent of the internet, and consists of finely pulped and pressed trees which are shaped into rectangles, scribbled on in ancient text hardly recognizable by today’s standards, enveloped inside more pressed trees then secured with human saliva, and delivered by a person in a grey uniform to a specific address upon proper payment of an adhered “postage stamp.” It’s a lost art, but it’s hard to ignore a letter when you receive it in the mail, even if you see a name that dredges up challenging memories, that maybe you thought you had gotten over at this point. I do have to keep in mind that this 9^th step of making amends isn’t about me, so if after this last, non-electronic attempt does not elicit a response, well, that’s it. I can’t dwell on it, as at that point I would have done all I can. I haven’t done it yet, so I won’t dwell on the future either, but it’s very much on my mind.

ComeFundMe

 

The journey to St. Croix Falls for Thanksgiving was one I will not soon forget. I feel as if a lot of stories start that way, so I thought I would try it. I got to see a part of the family that I rarely see, and in a case or two, hadn’t seen in 15 years or so. I wasn’t as nervous as I was about going to celebrate Easter with another side of my family, but I like to think that’s because I’ve grown so much in the last six months.

 

The city itself boasts a population of 2,113 according to Google, and is essentially the up-slope of a valley—I suppose it could be considered the down-slope if you’re travelling in the opposite direction—that edges the St. Croix River itself. It’s picturesque. I’ve always wanted to type that word and mean it, and there you have it. I mean that in the same way that I do when I refer to Lanesboro. You can see the town from a distance, and it’s really quite breathtaking.

 

The whole time I was there, I wanted to be taking pictures but the camera on my phone is so slow and useless, that by the time the app fired up, we were well past the shot I wanted to take. In all, I ended up with zero pictures of this beautiful Thanksgiving vacation. Not one shot of us together at the table. Not an uploadable picture of the river’s canyon from a distance or even a snap of me making a hilarious face. So this morning I decided to do something about that by setting up a GoFundMe account to raise money to help me buy a camera to help with the success of this blog.

 

I hope that doesn’t come off as greedy or irresponsible, like, why don’t you buy your own fucking camera? Or, you’ll probably use that money irresponsibly because you’re an ex-pot injector. Well, that’s just not an accurate portrayal of drug use. That’s not even how you use pot. I could afford to buy a camera but not one of the quality necessary to add a professional, photographic element to the blog that I think will add to its sincerity, charm, and overall message.

 

So, I won't hesitate: if you're a longtime reader, somebody who can afford to, or a person who just loves the idea of seeing more happen with this blog, I encourage you to donate to my cause. Any amount is greatly appreciated and I will use 100% of the total raised to purchase the camera and any related equipment. This is the link to my GoFundMe page. Please, give to me instead of some other charity. Or both, but probably just me.

 

Thank you in advance,

Vince

A First Time

This post was inspired by a coworker who asked me last night about my very first time using meth, and why I had never written about it. I’ve been thinking about the answer all night, and here’s what I’ve come up with.

 

It was the late 1900’s when I met the first girl I loved. Her name was Ramzee. She was a beauty, and I was shocked that she wanted anything to do with a burned-out stoner/pot dealer/high school dropout, etc… I’m fairly certain it was because of all of those things, so we were off to a good start. We met for the very first time at Mike Tambornino’s house when she was with somebody who was buying a bag, and she later told me that she liked my smile and my curly hair. I’m a boy, so I told her I liked her boobs, and we were off to the races.

 

 This was the point right after my house on Selby Avenue had been raided for growing marijuana, and I had quit smoking crack and doing cocaine for a while. We started spending a lot of time together, and eventually she moved in with me in that very house. Things were going well, except for the fact that I couldn’t keep my shit together. I wanted to be a drug dealer, but I had to supplement that with a job at Office Max. A quick side note, for our first Christmas together, she bought me a pair of shoes that I really wanted. I bought her a Ferrero Rocher gift box from Office Max that I used my once-a-year 20% discount coupon to purchase. I’ll never forget the blank look on her face. Since then I’ve been good at gifting.

 

Time marches on and eventually we’re ready to move out together. She wants to move to Richfield because it’s closer to her job at MN Wine and Spirits in Bloomington, so I tag along and find work at Sherwin-Williams. A side note, one night after buying a car, I got really drunk and drove it through the store-front windows of that Sherwin-Williams in an attempt to steal several paint sprayers, but I ended up leaving with nothing because I was drunk and useless. I went to work the next day to show off my new car, and the boss was shocked to see broken glass all over the bumper and on the wipers. I told him the windshield had just been replaced, and somehow he bought it.

 

Anyhow, after a few months of living together, I developed a raging alcohol addiction. I was unstoppable, and fueled by a thief that worked in a liquor store. When I’m drunk, I’m prone to foolish behavior, usually that meant buying crack, but I told Ramzee of my urges and she had another idea. Back then it was called crank. It had almost the same letters, so I was interested.

 

She made a call, and a short while later, for $20, we had enough speed to keep us up for days. This stuff was different than the shards of ice you see today. This was bathtub, chunky, green, old-school biker crank, and it was powerful. She told me she would make a light bulb functional for smoking, and she got to work. She used a screwdriver to remove the black, glass bottom part of a standard lightbulb by tapping on it until it broke. She removed that, along with the filament attached and we were left with an empty, but still frosted glass bulb. To remove the frosting, she poured in a tablespoon of iodized table salt and swirled it around and along the sides of the stem and base until it was fully transparent, and she poured it all out. Next, she flushed it out with water a few times, and then used her hair dryer to quickly dry the insides. The bulb was ready, so she took a standard Bic pen and removed the bottom cap, and ink bladder and ballpoint top, leaving just the hollow tube. This was the beginning of a whole new set of skills I would carry with me through the rest of my life; we had a functional meth pipe.

 

She put in a chunk and showed me the ropes. She held the bulb horizontally at the base and lit the underside with her other hand. When the drug began to melt, she rocked the contrivance back and forth until a sick haze began to form which she then inhaled through the tube she held with her mouth that tunneled into the mist in the machine. Then she let me take a hit.

 

It took me 19 years to find what my life was for, and that was the day that I found my perfect euphoria. From the first hit, I loved the feeling that made my whole body tense up. From my eyes that became more alert, to my teeth that were fused together every moment the pipe wasn’t in my mouth, to my brain, now fully capable of having intimate, detailed conversation for the first time in my life, everything about this drug made me feel like I was normal. I could feel my hair growing.

 

And that’s where drugs really get you. That’s why I couldn’t stop. From that day on, my life was never the same. Crank was all I wanted. I could taste it when I didn’t have it, and smell it before it arrived. I needed it to be complete. And I needed it more than I needed my job, my apartment, or my girlfriend. That was the point of no return for a lot of things. And even when I did quit for a while, my alcoholism became even more heartbreaking. I couldn’t control the amount of anything chemical that I ingested, and I spiraled down, literally in flames when I eventually started a fire in that Richfield apartment. Then I only knew sadness, isolation, and regret. Alone in a jail cell, not for the first time, I tried to piece together where I had gone wrong. Unfortunately, I was blind to the root. I would need almost two more decades of pain to finally grasp the concept of what beast lay within me.

 

Happy Thanksgiving.

Airliner

I was well into my second paragraph on the subject of me taking a break from blogging, when I had the Idea to publish that post about my brother the other day. I had the thought that I had been straying from my goal of helping spread the word of recovery, but the thought was fleeting, and I got back on track right then. Of course, I’m in recovery, so it could be said that everything I do in life could be presented in a way that reflects that lifestyle. That said, the plan is to keep going until some immovable object forces me to quit like Carpal Tunnel, Leprosy, or perhaps an acute paper cut from the laminating factory.

 

I’m going to work for the 9^th day in ten this afternoon, followed by a glorious four-day Thanksgiving break that I feel as if I’ve earned. I’ve already written about my plans to go to St. Croix Falls, WI with my mother who is returning from her trip overseas today, so I won’t recall that story other than to write this sentence. After the four days, I have to head beck to A.M.G. Laminating for a full week that I’m not exactly looking forward to, but is necessary to live the Rock-N-Roll lifestyle that I desire. Blech.

 

In all the years of loneliness and absolute isolation that I put myself through, I developed a pretty good imagination. I can drift in and out of my fantasy world at will, but I have found that these days, my life is good to the point where I can live here pretty much all of the time. My fantasies are not always portrayed in a friendly sunshine; there is dark in the light. Here is an example of how my brain thinks: For years, I have been fascinated by plane crashes. Probably since the somber aftermath of 9/11, I have thought that probably I would be involved in an air disaster, in which I would be the lone survivor, thus having an excellent story to share on my soon to be world-famous blog. Very briefly, when I discovered that I was going to California, I wondered if this would be it; my time to shine. Very shortly after I received my tickets via e-mail, I thought through the whole scene of the crash, and became famous for my harrowing story of survival, (the book would have a cover-shot of me caked in soot and wrapped in one of those shiny emergency blankets) I found out that my cousin Hannah and her boyfriend were going with me out on the same flight, so I had to change the whole story to include an amazing Christmas in San Diego with my family, followed by the inevitable tail-spin-plummet.

 

Now, this all occurred inside my head in the matter of a minute or two, and I don’t actually believe there are any real elements to it other than the time spent with my family, but, when we go on vacations, specifically on airplanes, don’t we all say the same little prayer? God, just let me make it there alive, we can crash on the way back. Or is that just me at my most sadistic? For me, I never die in my brief made-up worlds; I survive and become well-known for it.

 

So, now you all think I’m weird, and I think you’re kind of shallow for that, but I have to let that go. I can’t control how others view me; I can only control my actions, thoughts, and feelings, and act on those in a manner I feel comfortable with. I talked about this the other day with the girl I’ve been seeing, and I’m positive she thinks I’m a loon. I’m okay with that; I need to have some element of idiocy about me in order to keep this blog stimulating. And that's how you blog about recovery.

 

And Now For Something Completely Different

I’ve written once, maybe twice, about helping others in recovery get their story out in the therapeutic form of writing. This post is not mine, aside from these few short sentences. For about a month, I’ve been working every week with an ally in sobriety to get a blog going of her own, and we… she, is ready to be heard. You’ll notice right from the get-go, that her material is far different from mine, but you will also notice some similarities as time passes, and she takes flight on her own. We are both recovering alcoholics, but only one of us is in another form of recovery. And with that, I introduce to you Madison K….

 

Madi, take it away.

http://madisonrkrings.blogspot.com/2016/11/average-night.html

Suite!

It’s been a long week. I worked the last six days at Xcel, prepping and cooking, prepping and cooking in alternating day and night shifts. Some days I’m busier than others, and last night was busy by the standards of the restaurant I cook in, The Reserve. I work alone in the kitchen there, so when I need something I have to radio the information down to the main kitchen, and somebody eventually brings up what I need. I work hard. I take pride in what I produce, and the wait-staff take notice of that and are very appreciative of what I do when I’m up in the restaurant. The bosses have also taken notice of me, and what I do there on a daily basis.

 

 

 

 

 

A week ago I mentioned to one of my superiors that I thought I was capable of much more than working the slowest restaurant in the facility. He agreed, but also stated that they needed somebody competent in The Reserve so they could utilize all of their employees as efficiently as possible. Before I started working there, the consistency was spotty at best, and they would often need two employees to run the show. Consistency is the foundation of a good kitchen. The Reserve is on the suite level which literally means there are only suites; no open seating. Each suite is stocked with its own food and beverage, so it’s hard to entice people to come out of there luxury box to eat something that we charge higher-end prices for, and if they have a bad experience once, they are unlikely to return, and there isn’t much rotation in the suites as far as guests; it’s nearly always the same people.  So, since I started working there, I have established a lever of consistency and quality that all levels of management have noticed.

So, yesterday, when the Executive Chef of Levy Restaurants at the Xcel Center pulled me into his office and not just praised my work, but offered me more responsibility, I was thrilled. Next week I will be training in somebody properly to fill my shoes in The Reserve, and then I’m not really sure what. I know that I will be working in a supervisory capacity, and that I will be in a faster paced environment. Both are aspects in which I would consider myself proficient, and I think I will Xcel. See what I did there?

 

There are a couple of restaurants I can see myself in. My second choice would be Jack Daniel’s on the club level. This is a buffet style place with higher-end food that serves hundreds of hungry mouths during every event. But it's not cook-to-order, or short order cooking which is what I'm best at.

 

The Fan Zone would be my first choice, if I am given a choice. Although it’s not as fancy as either of the aforementioned restaurants, it makes up for that in sheer volume. I’ve never walked past this place and seen it empty. It’s right up my alley; burgers and fries, and that’s the area I have the most experience in. There’s nothing glamorous about it, but I’m fast, and I enjoy working in a stressful, noisy, chaotic environment, and I think I would be right at home if given that opportunity.

 

Now, none of these pictures really show much of what is actually happening inside during a game. There are over 15,000 people in that building come game time, and these places are packed with hungry fans. There is a feeling of urgency, to say the least, when game time hits and orders start pouring in, and I would like to experience that times 10.

 

Less than two months in to my new job, back in the kitchen where I belong, I’ve already been given an opportunity for advancement. This only happened because I work a good program, follow the rules, and of course, work my ass off. Maybe this will be the thing that finally gets me out of the laminating factory once and for all. Either way, I have a lot to be enthusiastic about and look forward to.