NARCANED

This story begins sometime in 2006-2007 about six months into that year homeless in Brockton. I remember a few things about this day very clearly, I had overdosed on heroin in the story I am about to tell you.

    At that time in my life I was completely suicidal but had learned that if I attempted suicide, no matter what I did, I lived and ended up locked in another nut house. So I had been using drugs and the whole scene as my way out, I was in such dangerous situations constantly I never thought I would survive. But I kept on living, no matter what. My mom and step father had adopted my oldest two children and changed their last names. I was devastated and had lost any sight of hope. I wanted to die.

    I had been riding around with a friend Gregg that day. He was playing an Eagles album and the song ‘Wasted Time’ came on. I listened to the lyrics and fell in love!

WASTED TIME

Well baby, there you stand

With your little head, down in your hand

Oh, my God, you can't believe it's happening again

Your baby's gone, and you're all alone

And it looks like the end

 

And you're back out on the street

And you're tryin' to remember

How do you start it over

You don't know if you can

You don't care much for a stranger's touch

But you can't hold your man

 

You never thought you'd be alone

This far down the line

And I know what's been on your mind

You're afraid it's all been wasted time

 

The autumn leaves have got you thinking

About the first time that you fell

You didn't love the boy too much, no, no

You just loved the boy to well, farewell

 

So you live day to day

And you dream about tomorrow, oh

And the hours go by like minutes

And the shadows come to stay

So you take a little something

To make them go away

I could have done so many things, baby

If I could only stop my mind

From wonderin' what I left behind

And from worrying 'bout this wasted time

 

Ooh, another love has come and gone

Ooh, and the years keep rushing on

I remember what you told me before you went out on your own

Sometimes to keep it together, we got to leave it alone

 

So you can get on with your search, baby

And I can get on with mine

And maybe someday we will find

That it wasn't really wasted time

I kept asking him to play the song, over and over. The part that I got stuck on was “so your back out on the street, and you’re trying to remember. How do you start it over, you don’t know if you can.” I had no more energy. I had no desire to live if my children really were better off without me. At some point Gregg and I had run into a friend, Kelly. We all hooked up and decided to share drugs at her friends house in Avon/Brockton line. Kelly’s drug of choice was heroin and mine crack. I never cared for heroin (which is probably a blessing) because it makes me vomit but I wasn’t really considering consequences in this moment. Kelly and I were both using needles to inject our drugs. At that time smoking crack had stopped working at all for me. I was smoking too much. I found out I could shoot it in my veins, so I did that. While doing that it creates a problem with your blood flow. Because I was shooting so much cocaine, I was unable to get the veins in my arms. I was using my jugular to inject all my drugs…in my neck. (little suicidal you think?).

    Kelly and I were deciding which to do first, my crack or her heroin. Since she was getting sick from withdrawal, we chose heroin first. I had no heroin in my system at all at that time, so it didn’t make any sense to do what I did. What I did was shoot ½ gram of good heroin into my neck at once. I knew right away I was going out (dying). I started leaning to the right while sitting on her bed, I remember telling her I was going out and she was begging me not to but there was nothing I could do. I guess I’ll just jump to the next thing I remember.

    I was shivering uncontrollably and could hear metal rattling, it was coming from the bed I was on. I was scared and confused. When I opened my eyes I became aware I was in an ambulance with a real douchebag of an EMT looking down on me and making derogatory remarks towards me. That is expected, no drug addicts get much respect from anyone. (Even after they clean up.) In his D-Bag way the EMT explained I had been narcaned a few times and was on my way to Brockton Hospital.

    As I was coming to in the hospital I realized I didn’t get to do my drugs and they had obviously taken them. My chest was killing me, almost felt like broken ribs. I called Kelly. She told me they tried CPR for a while, when that wasn’t working they ripped my clothes off and threw me in a cold shower where they were punching my chest. You see, the problem isn’t that drug addicts are too busy getting high to help someone overdosing. The problem is police, a lot of times we got warrants, we will likely lose our drugs, basically we will get in trouble and its kinda shitty to overdose on your friends and put them in that situation, honestly. They finally brought me to a fire station in Brockton after 20 mins of trying to get my heart beating again. At the fire station they narcaned me in the chest twice before I came back.

    I wish there was a moral to this story, or maybe even a happy ending. But I probably went to detox for a few days and was back on the streets.

    I will not forget listening to that song in Gregg’s car that day.

"So you live from day to day,

And you dream about tomorrow

And the hours go by like minutes

And the shadows come to stay

So you take a little something

To make them go away" ...

    All I ever wanted was for the pain to go away. Was never trying to inflict any on anyone else, but that is the nature of the beast.