Ryan

I’ve spent the last five years of my life taking drugs.
Five years.
And now I’ve stopped.
It’s been six weeks now and I’m at a stage where I can see clearly enough the situation I’m in, but I can’t see how to get myself out of it; how to move forward in my life.
So I’m sitting here stagnating.
And I guess that’s what I was doing this last five years as well, but see, the drugs were masking it – they were the cause of it but they were masking it too.
It’s true what they say about ignorance being blissful. There’s just no other way to describe it.
But now I’m aware, I’m so goddamn aware. I’m stuck in a pit, completely overcome by inertia and it’s not that there’s no way out, there are ways out all around me. It’s just, I can’t seem to be able to reach out and grasp on to anything.
I’ve swapped my blissful ignorance for this fucking hell of comprehension.
But I can’t go back to that ignorance. I can’t. At this stage, if I go back to the drugs, I have to allow them to become my life. See, you get to a certain point with drugs where it can’t just be a weekend thing anymore. It builds up slowly. One day, you’re with friends and you’ve all taken whatever and everyone else is buzzing, but you’re just not quite there. You fake it as best you can, but it worries you a little. The thing that really worries you though is the next time when it’s exactly the same. And then the time after that and the time after that… You freak out – ‘It’s working for everyone else, why isn’t it working for me anymore?’ You start having to take more and more just to get as high as everyone else. You do it secretly at first. Excuses and lies as you sneak back into your room to have another hit. And then you start experimenting. Different drugs, different ways to take them, different ways to get yourself more high.
Fortunately for me, I was the one with the connections so I was the one who provided the shit for all my friends. I could buy extra and not tell anyone. I even told them all that the price had gone up so that they were paying for the extra that I needed to use (I made up some shit about police raids and it being harder to get now). I resented them for the fact that they could get high off less than me. I justified it to myself that they owed me.
And then that’s when the good times stop being good. You’re fucked – you’ve never been so fucked in your life. You’re on a lot of drugs and you can feel it, but you don’t feel happy anymore. You enjoy the feeling of being fucked up on drugs, but it’s a different kind of enjoyment. It’s not fun. It’s more like fulfilling a need.
You remember what it was like when you first started it. There was so much fun to be had. Dancing all night, climbing on to roof tops to watch the sunrise, life changing conversations, random encounters with strangers, hugs, love, friendship – happiness. You felt like your eyes had been opened to something real. You felt like when you breathed in you weren’t just breathing in air, you were breathing in life; you were breathing in the whole world. Everything was connected and you were a part of it and even the comedowns weren’t bad back then. Shit, I remember being out all night, coming home, sleeping for maybe an hour and then getting up and cleaning my entire house. I was so energized. And then that night I went out and did it all again. Everything was so easy back then.
You have this false sense that you are going somewhere, that life is taking you forward. ‘New things are just around the corner’, you’d think with a smile. Which may have been true, but the thing is, you never went around the corner. You just stayed where you were, doing the same old things. You’re life stuck on repeat… and you didn’t even see it.
You never see it… until suddenly you do. And that’s it. And I know that won’t necessarily make sense to someone who’s never been in this situation, but that’s exactly how it goes.
You don’t see it; you can’t see it; no matter what anyone says or does or tries to tell you, you can’t be made to see it. But then suddenly you just do. For some people it comes in fleeting moments. They see it, the whole messy expanse of it, stretching out around them. An impossible, desolate waste land. They see where they are, they see what they’re doing, they see just how far away they are from life, from what they had, from what they wanted. It’s overwhelming, but it passes, or at least you can make it pass with another stick of the needle.
And then there’s me. I couldn’t bring myself to keep going because beyond everything else that I saw, I was struck by one thing – the line at my feet. To keep going would’ve been to cross that line. Once you cross that line, drugs can’t be a part time thing anymore; you have to make a career out of it. And then that’s it. That becomes your lot in life.
That line will always be at my feet now. You can’t step back from it. It doesn’t matter if I stay clean for one year, two years, 10, 20. It doesn’t matter. It’ll always be there, waiting for me to slip up.
The problem is, I don’t know how to go forward in a different direction. I don’t know how to get myself turned around and on the way towards something good, or at least something worthwhile. All I can see right now is the devastating, overwhelming fucking pointlessness of life. We don’t know why we’re here and we don’t know where we’re going. Everything that’s been set up in life for us to strive for has been set up by other human beings – by people who are just as clueless as I am about what the fuck we’re really meant to be doing. It’s so arbitrary and it just feels wrong. Whatever goals I set for myself I’m setting in ignorance because I don’t know and can never know what greater meaning there is.
No-one can help me because no-one knows any more than I do. People claim to have answers but they’re just kidding themselves. It must feel nice to be so convinced that you know what you’re doing.
Is happiness a possibility for me now? I don’t know. I’d settle for peace of mind.
Maybe this fog will clear. After all, it hasn’t been that long yet. Six weeks. Maybe once I’ve been clean for a while, I’ll start seeing the world the way everyone else does. Trivial little things like money, relationships, a job, a house, kids – maybe they’ll start growing in my mind. Maybe in a few weeks or a few months, they’ll start seeming like they’re worthwhile.
I have to be hopeful. I have to hope. After all, what else is there?
Do you think there’s any hope for me?
I have to hope.
I have to hope.
I have to hope.

___________
This was the last entry in my friend, Ryan’s journal. It was dated March 7th, 2007. 8 months and 9 days before he killed himself. But nobody knows that except me. I was the one who found him. I can’t remember why I’d gone over there now, but there he was, lying in his bed. I won’t go into details, but I knew he was dead. I called an ambulance, the police, I did all that stuff. It’s a bit hazy in my memory though. I went to sit with him while I waited for everyone to arrive. Pretty strange thing to do I suppose. But that’s what I did, and that’s when I noticed it. In his hand was a crumpled up piece of paper. I pulled it out. He’d written:
I’m sorry. I’m just so tired.
I took the piece of paper and put it in my pocket before anyone else arrived. I never showed anyone. The police called it an ‘accidental overdose’. I think its better that way.
I took his journal too. I guess I just wanted to know why he did it. After reading it, and especially after reading that last entry, I made a promise to myself. I promised myself that I’d never let myself end up like Ryan. And I won’t. I control the drugs, they don’t control me. I can keep it as a weekend thing. I don’t have to get hooked like him.
Man, I saw how Ryan got. His veins were fucked. It took him so long to get the stuff in.
I won’t let it get that far. As soon as I can’t use my arm anymore, that’s it, I’m finished.
As soon as I can’t use my arm anymore. If I can stop then, I’ll be fine. It’s just, there’s no real point in stopping now. I’m still fine. I’m fine enough to write this.
I won’t end up like Ryan.
I won’t.

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life, happiness, suicide, story, short and drugs