Drugs, Netflix and Chill

#Drinkingtoo, #Drugstoo, #Huggingtoo and #Chickentoo

“What did you put in this anyway?” Bruce said with a smile. “Acid.” I winked and nonchalantly picked up my guitar. He picked up his trumpet and started to play our song but about ten minutes later he asked me again, “You didn’t put acid in my drink did you?” I laughed. “Dude, I would never do that.” A few weeks later he brought me some noodles from a Chinese restaurant and I was really excited but then after I started eating it, I realized there was chicken meat in it. “Dang,” I said,”We go out together all the time and you know I’m not a carnivore.” he laughed. “Just take out the meat!” he chided. I frowned. I know that inadvertently spiking a non meat eater's food with chicken isn’t the same as giving someone drugs without their consent but the theme here is trust and safety. If I was a Muslim or Hindu and eating chicken was against my religious beliefs then I probably would feel more violated or maybe not. We are in an era where non consensual hugging is considered sexual harassment for some, and surely most of us can remember a non consensual hug from someone in our life or could at least imagine how violating it might feel I hope. Consent has been the hot topic since the #metoo and Aziz Ansari scandal of late, so i started to think about all the friends I knew who had been forced to drink or drug when they clearly didn’t want to. The phenomenon of non consensual drugging of drinks at bars which would lead to sexual or other petty theft crimes is a thing but what if it didn’t lead to these things? Is drugging itself assault? Apparently, it is. One of my sister’s friends was drugged to the point that he was vomiting and throwing up on himself for hours but for what gain did that give the perpetrator? We really couldn’t figure it out as my friends asshole and wallet were not touched by anyone while he was ill. Ansari was doing the classic,”Let me just pour you another drink…(to get the panties off)” move during his sexual coercion date (and I'm going to call it that because at the very least it was coercion if not violence). This had a selfish intention towards fucking Grace even when she said she did not want to have sex or feel forced. Boundaries are boundaries and if you have strong vices you hopefully learn that strong boundaries save lives. Things like clean needles, things like respecting sobriety or hard limits, having a caretaker or a shooting buddy to get high with you or someone more experienced who can guide you through your trip when it goes bad. Most of the drug users I know still using have hard lines because they’ve crossed them close to death and have learned from their mistakes or their friend’s deaths. This is why the idea of putting acid in my friend’s drink was probably not even a funny joke, but perhaps it was a funny joke to me because I knew it was something I wouldn’t do, and this particular friend was pretty naive so i chose to fuck with him. I think that we are in a climate where we need to assume that everyone has boundaries that we do not understand until we ask, so we need to check in with them and often so that we can proceed with confidence. Hopefully, you wouldn’t be like Ansari and not respecting a certain safe zone for only a few moments until going for the claw down the throat and panties in the next few moments. But I guess it is naive to think that everyone is going to follow these rules for the sake of your safety. People lie and they don’t even think that they’re being malicious for it! Dealers often cut their drugs with other shit and don’t tell you simply because of profit or ignorance of the consequences as we have seen with the Fentanyl opioid crisis. How many people do you know have accidentally snorted meth when they wanted to do coke (and nowadays, they can accidentally snort Fentanyl and DIE)? And yeah, the consequences are on you if you are awake and pacing for hours beyond the high you wanted or if ends up being a worse gateway to a habit that you kicked years ago. But really, just like Grace and Ansari, both are responsible and hopefully will make lots of corrective behavior adjustments so that they make better choices in the future. But this was a huge media blowup and most of these kinds of bad dates are quiet and unseen and often swept out of memory because of shame, never spoken because of self blame. How many of us were bought a bunch of drinks we didn’t want to drink in hopes that we’d be so drunk we’d fuck? We drank them and had to deal with him grabbing and slobbering all night til we ran away or slammed a door. Sometimes it doesn’t even leave the bar, just shot after shot after until you are throwing up in the parking lot and someone “rescues” you with a ride home in pseudo safety. Alcohol, drugs, hugging and chicken all seem wildly different, but when served non consensually all feel like a gross violation and some lead to major trauma and worse. But what seems like minor should not be ignored because the more you are able to see boundaries as boundaries that should be respected in all aspects of your life, the safer you will be for yourself and for those that are around you. Don’t wait for someone to jump out of the closet holding their dick in their hand, it can be as simple as a coercive drink bought when you are already drunk and we all can use this media momentum to reality check in with ourselves.

What's the opposite of ADDICTION?

I had seen the TED talk and video by Johann Hari espousing that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety it is connection. My sex worker friend and I discussed the over simplicity of this video and its valiant attempt at a reframing of an old paradigm. Half of it works for me. But, my friend J whom I have known to be in a long term relationship with a partner who died of a heroin overdose and who still has occasional use and a brand new relationship seems to defy the new norm this video maker wants us to believe. Hari is a staunch opponent of the war on drugs and this video is one that hopes to support its final obliteration in the Western minds with talks and viral animations on social media. My friend J currently does outreach to risky user communities who would be the addicts in the first isolated rat park model. "I appreciate where the video maker is coming from but such a complex issue can never be over simplified. Also it is important to recognize the rat park is a outdated study that does not include the system of of oppressions that humans face." For those of us that work or have worked closely, intimately with users and addicts we know that there is a lot more that solves or transitions chaotic or destructive use for someone.

This video doesn't speak to my experience, but maybe you? I kicked my marijuana addiction, but I still don't have my connection/inclusion needs managed...maybe I do. It's getting better here in Japan, AND once I get to Cali, I pick it right back up along with the connections that I miss, but with a NEWFOUND and successful bond with the substance knowing I can stop for any number of weeks, months etc...Weed for me came/comes with connections...its not simple, its deep deep in the crevices of the no love zone, dare you travel down there?

Hari's animated video touches briefly on trauma and its pull towards addiction, but Gabor Mate focuses more on it in his talks and theories. I appreciate his approach as well, as he has also done medical work on the most at risk area of Vancouver for most of his career. Mate quotes Eckhart Tolle saying,"all addictions begin in pain, and END in pain." and I again have to say, that wasn't true for me. My dependence began as a love bonding, continued as a love replacement and then ended with triumph and surprise. I started using marijuana daily with a partner as many people start using harder substances in relationship. Its all a fun party til you can't turn the music down when you want to right? While my daily use with that boyfriend began as a fun time, I realized how wonderful of a painkiller it was when we I used it to sooth me during our breakup. I can still describe it as "a mother's nipple when I am crawling in the darkness crying like an infant." And once I had started using weed as a coping mechanism, I seemed to never be able to stop for nearly 20 years. From the age of 22 until 39 I probably smoked every day minus great efforts to abstain for 2.5 months 1 or 2 years in a row. The typical quitting streak was 2-3 weeks. I fully felt addicted because I could NOT STOP despite my greatest efforts. I had great connection with weed. I started my career in sex worker activism when Robyn Few got me higher than a kite in a roomful of prostitution activist stoners. With the enthusiasm of MaryJane AND Robyn Few together in a smoky room we planned the beginnings of Sex Workers Outreach Project on a national level and organized Desiree Alliance in its origin years. So then, why was I not able to quit? I had a boyfriend most recently 2 years ago who tried his hardest to shame and compel me into quitting. That was the worst. So here, I am threatened with losing this new relationship over cheating on our agreement that I wouldn't smoke unless I was nauseous and felt like I needed it medically when I had a stomach infection. But the teen rebel in me HATES any exterior control so she will always cheat despite the consequences. Interventions for someone else's good do not work unless the person is on board with seeing her usage as a problem. I remember 3 of my housemates were trying to get me to cut down smoking on my bong everyday. I managed to do it for them for about 3 weeks as well. And when I confessed that I had given up one of them said,"oh it wasn't for us that you were doing it, it was for YOU." HA HA. I did end up getting kicked out of that house for other reasons but it was quite the unideal disconnected human tragedy that would drive someone deeper into addictive behaviors not away from them. Some humans can be so stupid about their caring techniques. The connection of AA works as a community replacer for many people to finally "get clean," engage in mentoring relationships and have an endless global community that will support them dropping in without an appointment at ANY TIME OF THE DAY. That IS the opposite of addiction for them for sure. And to them addiction is a medical disease. The AA model would probably not work for me either. I can be a lone wolf probably due to my trauma history. "why do people use?" Gabor Mate says,"because they have deep emotional problems that they don't have the means to resolve on their own." And he also acknowledges that with right support, addicts need to learn to BE WITH THEIR PAIN not try to escape it. Perhaps, it wasn't until I defied the boundaries of possible and moved to Japan that I was also able to simultaneously defy my other impossibility which was abstain from using cannabis for months. I consider my addiction issues resolved even though I still use the substance. J does as well, even after going through a detox program saying that was "kicking was the worst experience. one of the worst of my life. i couldn't do it again..."

I remember studying Lisa Najavits "Seeking Safety" group therapy model as a possible model to adapt for a sex worker support group I wanted to start to support myself. This group therapy model was meant to support the "co-occuring disorder" of PTSD mental illness and drug use as a coping mechanism during trauma recovery. The problem was the Najavits group model didn't seem to understand sex work outside of a risky behavior or crime and we sex worker activists begged to differ. But, in our defiance we often covered up our wounds with more substance and more sex work, AND many of us transformed our sex work addictions into sex work ACTIVIST ADDICTIONS. The glory of the fight, the media attention, the sexy community that came out of the woodwork to join you...it all seemed like the best thing to do with your time and money. Until we discovered that we couldn't escape our trauma that way. It only multiplied in a roomful of hurt people, who often went through their current coping mechanisms of hurting the community that they were supposed to be so happy to have found. I knew that I was coping with marijuana for several reasons and soothing myself from post traumatic stress disorder triggers was definitely one of the main reasons I never saw myself ever becoming sober, especially during the escort years where sexual violence and more trauma was an all too often occurring tragic continuum that I lacked the ability to deal with.

Mate states that "all addictions originate in childhood trauma." and since I earlier gave the visual of sucking on a bong feeling like the equivalent to sucking on a mother's nipple when screaming in the darkness, I'm sure I can agree that there is a strong childhood, if not infantile wound that I am attending to. A wound that I can't even put into talk therapy rooms because it likely occurred before my brain could even form words. Gabor Mate also talks about ancestral trauma. He had grandparents who were survivors of the Holocaust in Hungary, during this time all Jewish babies were meant to have incessant crying "problems." I have been hearing we hold ancestral wounds in our bodies for 5 or more generations. Finding connections when the substance connection is no longer enough. It is the courage to dig into the wound with the bravery of self growth instead of the usual escape. The CONNECTION that I lacked was the strength to connect to my pain, explore it, excavate it, overcome it, heal...When did the pain of rejection that I so needed to medicate begin? I am still discovering the truth of these imprints, with and without the aid of natural and synthentic substances.

I am a Professional Drug User.

“I’m a professional drug user.” I said on the microphone proudly in front of a small crowd of Harm Reduction conference attendees. “No, seriously. I GET PAID to do drugs.” The crowd didn't balk, it was the kind of conference where half of the attendees were high or on a contact high from the energy of the others in the room. Safe injection rooms were par of the course and most of us were high functioning attendees doing our community work on our substance of choice. The drugs I was referring to however was not marijuana or cannabis, my daily dependence for 20 years. It was primarily cocaine. The other drug that i was paid to hold space for was crystal meth which I didn't like to do myself but many of my late night clients at the time were always on. I got paid to keep the company of drug users and addicts who were caught up in a cycle of spending money on impulses which signal comfort if not actually helping or genuine, it still is aimed to soothe the consumer of sex workers and drugs. And both sides are helping each other survive so they love each other for that even if there are obvious negative repercussions, consequences, lies they tell themselves to continue a behavior or job tolerance. To date the MOST money I have collected in one day of work is still the $10,000 i got for doing massive amounts of cocaine with an escort client. $1000 for every line I could put down. I never knew i was so capable but like most things in my life, i am always surprising myself with how resilient and strong i can be without even predicting it. This man could have been the gateway to a life of hell and addiction but despite the fact that there would be years of all nighters paid to do less drugs with less pay i still never got sucked into anything i couldn't walk away from or that was too irreversibly damaging. The difference between being a professional drug user and an addict is that the professional makes a profit. The addict not only doesn't make a profit but often does more and riskier work. But both are usually doing pretty risky work. My known job title is sex worker or escort however, the majority of my clients are either not capable or not interested in having much intercourse with me. These clients pay me to keep them company or watch them do strange things without judgment. Of course there ARE SOME sex acts involved but much of the time spent is in companionship and camaraderie around drug use. Many of these guys call me often so they have my trust and i can take a Xanax and fall asleep while they stay awake until the afternoon when i am ready to leave the motel and drive back to my house. However, there is of course sometimes a definite exciting party atmosphere as part of some nights and I am indulging in some quintessential studio 54 type rock star experience. This IS of course extremely fun and hot. I learned how to share a cock just like a porn star with a real porn star and a famous DJ who ended up trying to not pay me! And despite the amounts of drugs induced, I remember the blow job just like it was YESTERDAY! And of course, there are nights and days like these for me to enjoy. In the last 5 years of me deciding to take on this sect of the sex work clientele I’ve gotten my share of excitement, adventure, repulsive and traumatic stories to share or to try to forget forever. This is what minimal screening gets you in the late night market. IF they could get through a few sentences of intuition screening on the phone and didn't sound like they were smoking a crack pipe while talking to me on the call I would feel safe to jump in my car and head over alone. The only thing i had to protect me was my stun gun and martial arts but what i convinced myself for YEARS at this time of my life, was that anything I saw or did ONCE, was never so bad.

Journal of Times I Might Have Forgotten How Painful if Not for Saving Old Journals

7/28/11 Another close race to the 1st of the month. Just used my lil disposable income to place an Eros ad. they only charged me $95 this time. I am STILL recovering from Monday. I will NEVER use this shit again. Its just my little codependent tendencies. I succumbed to the loneliness of the PNP hell. Pulled me in. And now I am even more alone with it all. I simply can't believe that I spent 8 months allowing his mediocre shit head coke/meth snorting lame ass into my body over and over. Today was going ok until it became just like a work date and I got scared. I just can't believe how much my body is being ravaged by this drug. But I guess its good because it really shows me how awful it is. Just like Carlos. He kept me on his "payroll." His lame ass. I was his cheap little dirty fuck and I loved it. Good ol Destiny Inn off the freeway. I have to drive past it every time and I have flashbacks. He sucked me in so easily because there was no one else who gave a shit. No one else wanted to hold me in the world. I was so very alone and I know exactly why I needed him. There was nothing else but my own loneliness to comfort me and it was so so sad. The last time we got high I was not having fun. It was as if I was coming down almost immediately as I went up. It was scary. I am obsessing over my ok cupid profile. TMI as always.

What a perverse addiction it is....but we all NEED TO EAT. or at least that's why I always tell myself afterwards.

I needed a lil drugs....a lil money....and...a lil LOVE. And really the amounts indeed were just that. Little.

A lil drugs cuz the lack of money, a litl money cuz the lack of love. Just the basics in doses I tried to be in control of...If that is an addiction then I guess I'm just a basic neccesity junkie phening for another cure for my lonely cries aching for someone to hold me, kiss me sweetly. It could be so much worse. I'm so glad I am blessed to live and continue to give.

I came to you cuz my pockets were in need. You were the only one there willing to let me stay the night. Some-BODY to hold and receive my love. The love that I have been dying to give someone deserving. 7 days ago I purposely self destructively, self harmed myself in an effort to PURGE this man's evil and ugly connection to my beauty. I did it in a way that was somewhat risky and somewhat reckless but in a way that I knew would not be too dangerous.

It was an amazing high for about an hour. And then it was all downhill from there...

7 days it stayed in the muscle fibers of my body nasty chemicals infusing my pure heart full of LOVE THAT HE NEVER DESERVED. I sometimes asked myself why but I was able to finally analyze every aspect of why I went to him each time he called and i was able to FORGIVE MYSELF for having the desire to have my basic needs fulfilled. My tank was running on empty and he would offer to fill me up. Not a lot, just a little and then...always the inevitable disappointment. For 7 days I felt physical pain in my body which served as a reminder of the drug that I never shall put in my body again.