Recognizing A Hero In Addict (chapter 6)

The first time I got black out drunk was on New Year's Eve of 1999 into 2000; I was 12. I was with my parents and one of my older brothers. I've never had a problem with alcohol, but it wasn't for lack of trying. I had the usual handful of pain pills that night, chased down by the not so usual half bottle of vodka. My parents bought the alcohol, and they mixed the bottomless cocktails. My Mom always wanted to be my best friend instead of my Mom.

The second time I got black out drunk, I had just turned 16, and my parents gift to me was an immense amount of hard alcohol. The other "gift" was that they went and stayed in a hotel while my 16 year old friends and I drank with my brother and his 24 and 25 year old friends. The result was my puking on our miniature poodle, and one of my best friends getting statutory raped by a family member after I blacked out. I also vomited into a cookie jar. When I awoke in the morning, my best friend Abby was in my family member's boxers. I knew she and he had a crush on one another, but I thought he would respect me and her age enough not to pursue her. I thought wrong. He also made out with another 16 year old friend, Jill. I asked Abby why she was in his boxers, and she told me she spilled something on her pants. Somehow this seemed like a reasonable explanation, but in retrospect, it was probably just easier to comprehend that course of events transpiring instead of the reality of what actually occurred. Abby, who shared my birthday and a week ago was 15, and my family member had sex repeatedly throughout the night. I found out about a week later when Abby, my family member, myself, and Brad went on a double date.

Brad and I met at a mutual friend's house while he was dropping by to deliver some blow to him. Abby and Sarah were my best friends, and coincidentally twins born on the same day as me as well. They both were talking along the way to our mutual friend's house about how they hoped they would hit it off with Brad. They couldn't stop giggling about how cute, how cool, and how much of a renegade he was. I had never met Brad, but I figured that he was Abby and Sarah's to fight over and took myself out of the running. Brad, however, was not aware that I had taken myself out of the race.

He was 6'4, built, sarcastic, had dark brown lustrous hair and eyes, and he was completely smitten with me. He was smitten with my long, dirty blond hair, my height at 5'7, hazel eyes, and my work ethic. I worked almost full time as a waitress while still in high school, and had already saved up enough money to purchase my salvation from a house of hell-my car. I was smitten with him too, but he didn't ask for my number that night despite how much we hit it off. He did, however, call my family member and ask for his permission to date me seeing as he was almost 7 years older.

My family member traded with me permission to go out with Brad, as long as he had my permission to pursue Abby. I reluctantly accepted, and it seemed like a fair deal at the time. What I didn't know that Derek did, is that Brad mercilessly beat his ex girlfriend.

I felt so honored and lucky driving Abby and I to Brad's apartment above the coolest pizza joint in town for our first date with our "guys". More like our Men. Our first date was a double with Derek, Brad, Abby and I. We were exactly the same age of barely 16, and they were 23 and 24, respectively. This wasn't a red flag to us as we were extremely naive with Brad being my second boyfriend, and Derek being Abby's first. Brad cooked us chicken and mashed potatoes, and we watched a movie. I also tried cocaine for the first time, but certainly not the last.

Brad's occupation was in sales, and he did very well, but his standards and boundaries were non existent when it came to his clientele. The only qualifying factor to buying drugs from him was whether or not you had the money. Brad also was a complete piece of shit who though I didn't know it at 16, was additionally a woman beater and almost killer, pedophile, and all around fucking moron who sold drugs out of our house to the kids frequenting the pizza parlor connected to our apartment. He was then as much of a loser as I found out he still is today at almost 40. He never quite got his shit together.

Brad was incredibly manipulative and sweet in the beginning. I quickly became a regular at his place, and after my dad back handed me so hard that I flew off the back of our couch, Brad asked me to move in.

I called to tell Brad what happened, and he came flying down to my house (in his dad's car he borrowed since he didn't own one), and helped me pack my things. My Dad and Mom were flipping out not because of the age difference or concern for my well being. They were irate they wouldn't be able to control and abuse me anymore, and my dad at almost 60 years old challenged my young and fit, albeit fucking dumb as bricks, boyfriend to a fist fight on the concrete street. My Dad may have lost, but I was the real loser that day.

Within a few weeks of moving in, he started hitting me. I felt like my Mom by staying and putting up with it, but I didn't have anywhere else to go. Our weekend routine consisted of him getting drunk and coked out with his friends, and then coming home to take his aggression out on me. One night he threw me outside on the steps and locked the door with me outside in my underwear in the freezing cold. I didn't have my keys or clothing on, and it was nearly 4 in the morning so no one was at the pizza shop. I pounded on the door begging him to at least give me my keys, but he passed out in bed. Eventually I had to use my bare hands to break the window pane and let myself back in. I cut my hand and feet that were also bare. He heard the commotion and tried to beat me up again once he found out the window was broken, but I ran and took refuge inside the bathroom that I locked him outside of. I curled up in the fetal position and covered myself with a damp towel for the night. In the morning, without fail, he would ask me what happened as though a different person he had no consciousness of overtook him. I would tell him while he listened in horror, and then apologized and said he had no recollection of the events that he promised would never happen again. That would last until the next weekend when we would repeat this sequence of events over and over for 2 years.

I hated doing coke, but it was a readily available drug, and sometimes readily available is all that matters when you're trying to escape the reality of your own life and mind. In rehab, everyone asks first and foremost after your name, what's your drug of choice? Blow was definitely not my drug of choice, but again, it was a drug and that was enough.

Coke isn't like opiates in that you have to continue to maintain your high by snorting lines every fifteen minutes till eventually you are shaking and paranoid of everything and trying to gnaw through the air because your jaw suddenly feels disjointed. Brad and I would spend the nights alternating chopping lines out for each other and peering through the blinds to satisfy our ever Increasing paranoia.

Remember too that we had a massive supply of product in our home which added a legitimate fear to the false and perceived threats that arose as a result of the amphetamine induced paranoia and delusions. There was one night in particular that Brad was at the bar, and his friend called and left a seemingly innocent message...innocent if I was sober. At the time, what I perceived it to be was a warning that Brad had gotten arrested and I needed to flush what I had. Prior to this phone call, I had been peering out the blinds for hours watching the car outside our place, the car that in retrospect was simply in park, inch closer and closer to get a better look inside. It crept closer with every line I did until I was eventually army crawling underneath the window blinds so they wouldn't detect my presence inside. Then the answering machine message. Surely his friend was trying to tip me off, so I army crawled to the bathroom where I flushed the eight ball I had on my person. Anyone who has had a serious drug problem can relate to the desperation I was feeling as flushing your immediate supply is ALWAYS the very last resort. After flushing my drugs, I proceeded to run full speed to my car, drive maniacally to my parents home whom I hadn't seen since the incident. Upon arrival, I flew through the door announcing, "If the cops come, I'm not here!", before running to the basement and hiding inside their coal cellar with the door locked for 3 hours until I felt it was safe to come out. Cocaine's a helluva drug.

I was going to school after long nights filled with coke binges, beatings that left bruises, and eventually living in the woods inside a tent. The rule to selling drugs is not to sample your own product, and this is why. You eventually only feed your own habit, so for three months we were homeless and living in a tent in the woods. During this time, I was still attending school and work full time, and we maintained our habit which at the time was all that really mattered.

After a few months, we saved up enough, or rather I saved up enough for us to move into a new apartment. I wanted to get my own place, but at 17 now, no one would rent to me without an adult on the lease. Brad was that adult, and he was the only one I had, so I gave him the money for the place in exchange for him putting his name on the lease. It was a quid pro quo as he beat me within an inch of my life in exchange for asking his friend to turn the TV down.

It was a seemingly "normal" night as far as our routines went. Brad was out getting drunk with his friend, "Wad". This guy was very appropriately nicknamed as he was a giant pile of disgusting cum. Wad always crashed on our couch and ate our food. This particular night I didn't do my usual amount of blow and simply kept it low key with a handful of methadone, percocet, and soma before going to bed at a somewhat reasonable hour. I had to waitress a double the next day, and I was extremely sleep deprived. Sleep one night a week was a necessary evil in order to carry on this weekly ritual without completely physically deteriorating.

It was around 3am after Brad and Wad came in completely wasted. Brad came to bed where I was trying to sleep before a long day ahead of me the next day, and Wad was, as per usual, on our couch with the TV blaring to an outrageous volume. I came into the living room and asked him to turn the volume down to a reasonable level,and then I was tackled to the floor with the brute force of a 6'3 man in a full blown sociopathic rage. I was 100 lbs soaking wet, and I was begging for him to stop to no avail.

I was dazed when I landed on the ground, but I didn't have time to compose myself before the beating continued. His eyes were black and despite all the previous beatings, I knew that this time was different. I felt the warmth stream down my face and into my eyes while I clawed at the couch to get away. He grabbed my legs and threw me into the wall, and I tried to get up but he was on top of me again. I'm trying to scream but I can't breathe. Oh my fucking God, I can't breathe! Help Me, I can't breathe! Fucking help me, Wad, I can't breathe! Don't just sit there, help me! I was screaming inside my own head because his enormous hands were wrapped around my neck choking the blood flow and life out of me. Please, stop! Somebody,please, please, fucking help me! He's trying to kill me! Oh my fucking God, I'm going to die! I can't hear myself screaming. Why can't anyone hear me? Fucking help me, Wad! Somebody, please! I'm choking! He's choking me to death! Please don't fucking kill me! Brad, please stop! Oh my God, please! I can't breathe! Please take your hands off my neck, I can't breathe!

I saw my hands clawing at his arms. Blood is dripping into my eyes, and I don't know it yet but three of my fingernails are ripped out of their nail beds from clawing for my life.

Everything in my being is screaming for AIR! AIR! AIR! AIR! I am dying now. Things are getting distant and I'm losing consciousness. I can see myself on the floor now. His hands are wrapped around my neck, his eyes are jet black, the vein is bulging out of his head and so are the huge muscles in his arms applying the pressure of a thousand bricks onto my tiny neck that feels as though it's going to snap. It's getting dark now. I don't see my arms flapping anymore. Someone is screaming inside my head, but the sounds aren't coming out of my mouth and I don't know why. AIR! AIR! AIR! AIR! AIR, PLEASE, I CAN'T FUCKING BREATHE! AIR! AIR! AIR!

In a voice more matter of fact than desperate, I heard someone state the obvious before everything closed in.

Brad, don't fucking kill her. Brad, she's going to die.

With this, Brad let go of my neck.
AIR! AIR! AIR! AIR! AIR! AIR! AIR!
AIR THAT'S COMING NOW! AIR!

I am gasping for the air I so desperately need. I couldn't run. I couldn't move. It didn't matter then. All that mattered was AIR. AIR. AIR. AIR...............AIR.

My purse was on the table by the door, and while Brad thought I was still down, he was talking to Wad who, despite doing absolutely nothing, is probably the one who temporarily saved my life by snapping Brad out of his sociopathic rage, momentarily.

Brad turned around just as I was at the door with my purse and with enough vigor to simultaneously attack me at the entrance. We had a long cement walkway that led to the gate in which my car was parked outside. It was so close, but so far away, and then Brad closed the distance between us. He picked me up in the air like something you would see on WWE right before they're thrown down and subsequently jumped on top of for the finishing move. This was going to be Brad's finishing move on me. He threw me in the air back first onto the cement with no shirt on as he had ripped it off during the fight for my life. I landed on the cement and then skid on it as though my back was a sled someone was pulling in the snow, only there was no snow on this almost Summer's evening. My skin and blood covered the ground instead. I didn't have time to react as before I knew it I was running for my life. There is nothing going through your brain other than SURVIVE. DO ANYTHING YOU HAVE TO DO TO SURVIVE.

I had to get to my vehicle in order to survive, and Brad had to get to my vehicle in order to kill me. Which one would come first? I see him running after me, I see myself running, I see myself dive in the driver door and lock the door while I grab my keys out of the bag without even knowing I'm doing it, but instinctively knowing I am going to die if I am not quick enough. I put the keys into the ignition at the same time Brad put his arms and body inside the passenger door and tried to rip them and me out of the car. I had to put the car in reverse out of my parking spot, but he is a second from pulling them out of the car and murdering me along with my opportunity to flee his murderous rage. I was hitting the gas pedal but the car was in park. I threw it in reverse and I knew this was going to be it. Either I make it out alive or I die right here. I put my foot all the way down on the gas pedal and revved out of the driveway with Brad still hanging on. He was thrown out of the car and onto the parking garage. I wish I would have thrown it into drive and crushed his fucking skull and meager brain onto the sidewalk. I didn't though because I could only think far enough to SURVIVE. GET AWAY! DRIVE! SURVIVE!

My passenger door is flapping as I drive and I realize it is ripped off it's hinges from Brad hanging on till he fell off, but none of that matters now as I am alive. I have air. I am bleeding profusely. I am at Brad's parents house where his Mom begs me not to call the police.

My back is raw with skin falling off from tailbone to neck. My neck. My neck is bright red with the outline of his handprints starting to form in black. My voice box feels broken, and three of my fingernails are ripped completely out of their nail beds from fighting for my life trying to unsuccessfully remove Brad's hands from my neck. Blood is pouring from various wounds on my face and especially nose. I took a minute to clean the blood out of my eyes, and Brad's Mom hovered over me in the bathroom proclaiming that I had to do something wrong in order for her son to have done what he did. It was in that moment that I knew there was nothing to stop Brad from coming there and finishing the job. No one and nothing was going to stand in the way of him killing me that night and I knew it.