Tangents for Reverting

When I first started doing drugs I wouldn’t touch a cigarette. I remember on one occasion in particular. We were at this girl’s house, whose name escapes me right now, but her parents owned a couple Wendy’s in Fort Collins, or something like that. She had a pool and hot tub in her backyard, and since her parents were away she was having a “get together.” David was going to be there, and I hadn’t seen him for a while. It’s weird how I seem to hang out with a select person for a long period of time then switch to another someone. Anyway[^n], Brandon, Amanda, Turtle Boy, and I decided to go up there. (.)[^n]
Turtle Boy, Brandon and I had our BB guns with us, because we usually needed them on hand to cause whatever mischief we thought of. We drove in Amanda’s car to Steeles Market, which had just recently closed down. We shot out the front windows on the doors and got in, we ran through the store grabbing anything that looked useful and not expired, there were still items on the shelf. Someone found some wine in the kitchen. I ran upstairs to the security room and check to make sure there weren’t any tapes in the VCR’s connected to the security cameras. I grabbed one of the two computers and the printer, they were much nicer than the computer I had at home. We bounced straight to that girl’s house
(o)[^n] We took the alcohol and soda to the house, it seemed to be in the middle of somewhere I’d never been before. (.)ii
I remember once I had what I assume to be an LSD flashback (I was doing it quite often at the time). I was driving Amanda’s car in the boondocks. We were on a dirt road from what I can remember. We must have been toward Kansas as well, because all I could see was flat lands covered in fields. Along both sides of the road was a fence. The fence was made of posts that looked like they were chopped by an axe and three barbed wires ran through the posts. I started to feel really weird in my chest, the road seemed like it stretched on forever into nothingness. Up ahead a ways I thought I saw a little girl, with brown hair. Then she vanished. It was like she became part of her environment, evaporating, yet leaving the environment unchanged. After that I looked to my left and saw a full grown woman’s skin stretched around the barbed wire and one of those horribly cut posts. It was as if she were skinned and then stretched there to dry. I vividly remember her face; eye holes, nose mouth, all stretched and wrapped around this barbed wire. The rest of her body looked like a mixture of skin shreds and blood. The face was the only thing distinguishable. I immediately started to freak out. I slammed on the gas and started speeding away. I was suddenly so afraid. Mind you I was only 15 years old, but I drove Amanda’s car more than she did because I just liked to drive. “What the hell are you doing?” I heard Amanda say. I didn’t stop for a while after that. Somehow[^n] Manda ended up driving the rest of the way. Maybe.
(o)ii Someone broke one of the alcohol bottles in the street when we got into the pool. Maybe it was Turtle Boy, it sounds like something he might do. But then again Brandon may have as well. We rolled into the house and started drinking. After smoking a bowl I got into the pool. David starts talking to me, a “long time no see” sort of thing. I really resented the separation between us when we went from friends that hung out everyday to barley acquaintances. He was there for when I first started doing drugs, or maybe he wasn’t. He was there for a lot of mischievous acts. Anyway, he pulled out a Newport 100 and offered it to me which I replied something like “I don’t smoked cancer,” something like that.
Somehow I started smoking cigarettes only while intoxicated, and then only Newport 100’s. From there I transitioned to smoking primetimes sober and Newport’s while intoxicated. Primetimes suck so eventually I ended up smoking sober.
I smoked from the ages of 15-16, about 9 months. During that time I had to go to a special school because I was expelled from the school district. So there was a school where the kids go that were out from Platte, like they had ankle monitor boxes in the school. They would search us everyday, take everyone’s contraband and lock it into the lockers. At the end of the day they’d give it all back, including our cigarettes. Anyway, then I went to Platte and Heritage. I smoked one cigarette right after getting out of Platte before driving to Heritage, and one cigarette on a visit at Heritage. (.)i
It was a cigarette that Bryce and I bummed off of some guy at the gas station by Days Market on Canyon rd. Right before that we went into Days market to see if they had any DXM available for consumption. We found the appropriate materials, but it costs more money then I had, it may have been the money from Heritage, and so I asked Bryce to steal it. That’s a shitty thing to do but I talked him into it. Then we bummed the cigarette and I think I ate them. When I got home my mom was going to cut my hair. So she cut it while the effects were starting to pour over my body. While sitting in that chair I started to feel my veins vibrating inside my skin. A streak of warm euphoria started in my chest and spread throughout my entire body. My sudden smile brings my mom’s attention, but I play it off. My smile wasn’t helpful for keeping my parents in the dark about my drug use. The way they found out that I was using drugs is because suddenly, after spending months in my dark room[^n], I came downstairs with a smile on my face and socialized with my family. I started hanging out with them, but other times I’d lock myself back in my room. They soon realized that when I was being nice to them I was on drugs.
(o) ii After heritage I didn’t smoke for about 4 months. Once Adam got out I smoked a little, then when I started hanging out at Josh and Trent’s apartment I smoked full time. Those were during the ecstasy days. During those days more than once a group of 4 would go through 3 packs of cigarettes in one night. Those nights were filled with so much life. Even the nights without ecstasy…. Anyway at my apartment I’d quit smoking and forget why I was quitting and start again, or I’d quit just to see if I could, and every time I had no problem[^n]. It was because my perspective at this point was set on the fact that it didn’t matter if I smoked or not. I knew that if I wanted to I could so I wouldn’t bother. Why waste my energy to go outside. I removed emotion from the situation.
After that I smoked through living at my parents. That was when I worked at Sento and Justin and I would chain-smoke on every break and we’d take more breaks then allowed. Anyway, there may have been an increase there, but not more than ecstasy days. Then I smoked into my mom’s apartment and through the city time. During the city times I loved smoking cigarettes, the mixture of yin and yang with a cigarette tasted and felt so good, but that was what always put me over the edge and I’d end up much skinnier. That was from like April 06- March 07.
Before leaving Beaverton to go to Utah, when Travis went to Bend, I got to figuring out that I’d been going about quitting the wrong way. I can’t expect myself to fall for any of my ploys to try to convince me I care about any of the reasons I’ve found for quitting (that sentence turned out interesting). Instead I need to switch the same switch at the revert pointvi.

[^n]: Almost got lost on a tangent.
[^n]: Exit point
[^n]: Entry point
[^n]: Somehow/someone indicates that this portion of the memory is lost at this time.
[^n]: After school everyday I’d go home and pass out all day, then when night came for whatever reason I’d wake up wide awake. This process started as me not being able to sleep at night. On your average night I’d get 1-3 hours of sleep, then go to school and go play. As I started to feel worse and worse with myself and my life, I was unable to bring myself to do anything, no seeing friends, no skateboarding, just sitting in my room in the dark. It was like this overwhelming sense of dread that shadowed every thought. Thus all I could bring myself to do was sit and listen to music, write, or drone away at the computer. Until one day I got bored enough and slept. Now cartoons and Harry Potter make me pass out almost every time I watch them. Doctors would like to explain this as “Major Depressive Disorder” and part of the criteria for that disorder are abnormal sleeping patterns.

[^n]: Revert point
[^n]: Not to be confused with Black and White