Monday night a friend and I headed downtown to attend the August edition of the Front Parlor series. This month’s theme was Drugs and it wasn’t until nearly midway through the program that I decided to participate as a story teller. While there were quite a few options in terms of what I could share when it comes to drug stories, I was inspired to be a bit less literal.*
The rules for participating are pretty simple – no notes, 5-7 minutes length and based in truth. As a person who is currently experiencing some real challenges processing that last requirement, I decided to tell a story that I wove together from the following notes…
Drug stories? I’ve got those.
*getting shot at when I 15 and on mescaline
*my boyfriend copping 100 hits of purple microdot in NYC and bringing them upstate to sell for $3 each.
*petting a green dog while tripping on green acid
*and having my name written out in an 8-Ball of coke for my 19th birthday on a mirror – in script
But, those aren’t the drugs I’m going to talk about. The drug that I find the most dangerous is a different drug – words.
I find words to be the drug that has most frequently caused me trauma.
The most recent example of this addiction began with an email.
Where have you been all my life?
What would your reaction be if you received an email with that as the subject?
The guy who sent it was someone I had met the previous night at an event for foodies and bloggers. Our conversation had been easy and friendly and I assumed his tendency was to hyperbole.
That was generous. It really was more like bullshit.
But me? I’m apparently a sucker for smart repartee and literary references. I was hooked.
Each email brought a rush to my head and a flush to my face.
We exchanged notes and direct messages and texts until we met and finally became lovers. It was heady.
Every ping, ring and ding made me high. There’s no other way to describe it. The things he said were more powerful than any opiate I could ever imagine.
But…the high didn’t last. As time went on, the words could no longer lift me because the actions didn’t align with them.
I knew I needed to break up with him. My drug was no longer getting me stoned.
So I began to work really hard to start remembering other words like:
Happiness
Fun
Laughter
and Truth
And the more I thought of those words, the more committed I became to realizing those words in my life. His words no longer held me under their power because his actions screamed far louder and I finally found the strength to walk away. I broke the addiction.
Thank God for wine.
That was the foundation for my story. There were some facts, a couple of details and enough fiction to protect the not-so-innocent. I tried to tell my tale slowly, working to stay cognizant of structure and flow and I’d like to believe it made for a much more entertaining story than it did a life experience.
A friend with food issues once told me that her addiction was so difficult to combat because food is something she will have to consume for the rest of her life. Words are the same. It just becomes a matter of being far more cautious about what one is willing to swallow.
*Generally, I am painfully literal. I think that’s what’s gotten me in trouble – I expect people to be truthful and this man was everything but honest.
DelSo 