Weiland Mary Forsberg - Fall to pieces: a memoir of drugs, rock n roll, and mental illness

Crown City by the Sea

Walk Fast

Be a Model or Just Look Like One!

Love Is the Drug

Trouble

Black Again

Not Dark Yet (But Its Getting There)

The Chaos Tour

Swimming Through Cotton

Into Your Arms

I DoAgain

En Fuego

October Winds

Bye Bipolar

I knew that in order to stay healthy, I needed to restore some semblance of order to my life, to our lives: get out of bed in the morning, make a schedule and stick to it, go to AA meetingsanything to keep me busy and focused on something else besides the problem. The relapse. The inevitable relapse. But my resolve faded fast when I came home one afternoon and caught Scott standing in the kitchen with his partner in crime Ashley Hamilton, the two of them acting shady. Something was up. I looked into Scotts eyes and saw immediately that his pupils were pinnedshrunken to little black pinheads. Any junkie knows what that means. Damn it, hed done it. I cant, I muttered. I cant handle this again.

I left the house, headed straight for the corner liquor store, and bought a fifth of Jack Daniels. I stashed it in my bag, went back into the house, walked past the guys and straight up the stairs to the bedroom, where I proceeded to drink all of it. No glass, no icejust the whiskey, straight, and straight from the bottle. I was sitting on the floor, my back against the bed. There, I thought, feeling the familiar numbness flow through me. Thats better.

The relief didnt last long; in minutes, my 113-pound body reacted to what I had just dumped into it. Violent nausea hit me like a wall of bricks, and I started to shake. I got myself to the bathroom, then threw up. I threw up again, and then again. Crawling back to the bed, I somehow got up onto it and under the duvet, burrowing into the familiar darkness, the safe place where Id taken sanctuary so many times before. I buried my head in the pillow and slept until I could stand again.

Hours later, I woke up and wobbled back down the stairs. Scott and Ashley were still there. I was struck by how content they looked, how comfortable. In the space of an afternoon, Id been sober, determined, scared, angry, drunk, sick, passed out, and then hungoverand here they still were. And they looked just fine. I wanted that. I wanted to feel what they feltsomething and nothing all at the same time.

No, said Scott immediately.

Yes, I said. And then I begged. Come on. I want to know what youre feeling. You have to. You owe me.

He had no more resolve than I did. Okay, but youre snorting, not shooting. Ill cook it down and water it.

He had a fountain pen hed long since emptied of ink; it worked like a straw, siphoning up the liquid-dope solution he made. Then he handed it to me.

Its torture, that voicethe one inside the addicts head thats always whispering, Its okay if you do this. No, really. Itll be okay. Whose voice is that? I guess on some level, it was always my own.

Once Id snorted the heroin up my nose, I sat down on the couch and waited. It was the foulest-tasting thing Id ever experienced; even now, I can taste it on the back of my throat. But therell be a payoff, I thought, and waited some more. Nothing. Had Scott diluted it too much? And if he had, was he trying to save me, or was he just drug-hogging? Given our past, it was likely a combination of both. I wanted something to happen, but long minutes passed and nothing did.

I have to go home, Ashley said suddenly.

Well go with you, we both said. Yes, of course. We got into Scotts BMW and drove up into the Hollywood Hills.

Ashley was sharing a house with a girl I knew, someone whod been sober in AA for more than a dozen years, but when we walked in, it was immediately clear that shed relapsed, with pot (the classic first stumble), then cocaine. She had a friend there with hersomeone else from the programand that girl had relapsed as well. Contagious, I guess. Like the flu.

An addicts brain remembers where it left off when sobriety began, and it takes no time at all to get back therethe same train, the same station, with a renewed high that benefits from a period of being clean. On one side of the room, the two girls were drinking and doing coke; on the other, Scott and Ashley were shooting coke-and-heroin speedballs. I sat in the corner, a little apart from everyone else, drinking and snorting lines. But instead of feeling the edges smooth out, I felt an enormous weight of sadness. Sad for the choices Id made and the time going by. Sad for Scott. Why did he always go back to this? Didnt he love me? Didnt he want the happily-ever-after scenario we kept trying to write for ourselves? What was it about heroin that could be worth this, that over and over again he would choose it before me? Choose it even before his own life, and his creativity, and the music he loved? I walked into the kitchen, leaned against the counter, and looked at them all.

I want a turn, I said. For a moment, nobody spoke. I could feel the anxiety pour off the very same people who moments before were feeling nothing at all. And then they started talking all at once. No, I didnt want to hear the consequences. And I didnt want that useless dope-pen rig that Scott offered up, either. No, I told him. I want to do it like you do.

He shook his head. No, baby, you dont. You dont want to.

I moved toward him, as though I were bringing him my heart. Yes, I do, I said. I want to feel what you feel. You go someplace else when you do this. I want to go there with you.

I could see it in his faceresignation, a sadness that mirrored my own, and, weirdly, a quick flash of excitement. He couldnt deny me this.

Okay, he said. But just once. After this, I dont want you to do it again.

I agreed.

We sat down together at the dining-room table, and Scott began to organize everything wed needcotton, a glass of water, some alcohol swabs, a cigarette lighter, a metal spoon, and what was left of the black-tar heroin. And two clean needles: one for him, one for me.

The table was large and woodena family might have sat around it at Christmas, or maybe for someones birthday party. For a moment, I rested my hands on the surface, wondering about the people whod built it. What would they think, seeing us?

Scott put the heroin in the spoon, then added a few drops of water; he lifted up the spoon a few inches, moved the lighter beneath it and clicked on the little blue flame. As the water began to bubble, it turned the color of weak coffee. I could not take my eyes away. Scott set the spoon down, tore off a piece of cotton from the cotton ball, and placed it in the middle of the spoon; when he removed the needle caps and began to draw in the light brown liquid, I took a deep breath. This is it, I thought. This will be the only time Ill experience this, just once, and then Ill never do it again.