My Life Part V: Pills

"At this point in my life I’ve done nearly every drug out there.  Cocaine, acid, heroin, G.H.B., and even crystal meth for a while.

I’ve done pills before, but G.H.B. was really my drug of choice.  So I get the run-down on the pill gig.

First I have to get medical papers.  Since the pain clinic I will visit is already shady, they won’t really verify my paperwork.  Aside from being a 20-something drug addict, I am a perfectly healthy young man.  My paperwork, however, says I have a crushed disc and a grinding vertebra in my lower back.

My appointment is made.  The day comes and I go to the doctor.  I know full well this is serious shit I’m doing.  This is a federal offense.  They call me out of the waiting room and I head back to meet the doctor.  He takes my blood pressure, rubs his hand down my back going, “Mmm Hmm… yes, ok.  I see the problem.”

The problem is you’re full of shit doc.  He sits back down and says, “What do you need for your pain?”           

Are you serious?  …You’re going to ask me what I need?

So I tell him.  Let me get some soma for my muscles, and Xanax so I can sleep better.

He did it!  Gave me exactly what I asked for.  He started me off at 150 Roxicodone, 200 Soma and 90 Xanax bars.  Unbelievable!

These drugs cost about $200 to fill at the pharmacy.  I didn’t have insurance, and paid in cash.  The street value for those same drugs was about $2,000.  This is too easy.

Doctor shopping comes in when you go to more than one doctor and get prescriptions from them too.  The legal charges they can bring against you are very stiff.  I pushed my luck in this area a little.  However, a couple of people I knew got caught doing this, so I backed off. 

Always a thinker, I came up with other ways to beat the system.  …Like buying other people’s prescriptions from them.  They really watch the waiting rooms at these clinics.  They don’t want you talking to other customers for this very reason.  There are usually cameras in the waiting room and even in the parking lots.  So everyone meets up at the pharmacy.  For every problem there is a solution.  This is when I meet my friend Kimmy.

You have read about my friend Kim.  These same drugs and this lifestyle took Kim’s life in the end.  This is a warning about the dangers of this life.  I need to do this.  I know Kim would want me to.

I was introduced to Kimmy through a mutual friend.  We moved a lot of pills between the two of us, but we also developed a friendship.  You can read about this in Kim’s Memorial.

At this time, I began selling pills.  Many of the people I used to sell coke to were now using pills.  Quickly I built up a large group of people who bought pills.  The problem was, I began t use pills heavily myself.  In order to support my habit and still make money, I began to order pills online.  This is risky.  I already bought scripts from a couple other people when they got them.  The demand for these medications was huge.  Not just that, but it kept growing.  The first couple times someone would only buy ten or twenty pills.  Within three or four weeks, they were doubling their orders.  Right now the use of pills is finally being recognized as an epidemic.  Doctors are being busted for writing themselves prescriptions because they are addicted themselves.

I was seeing this first-hand.  The same people that used to take their pills orally are beginning to mainline them.  I began seeing needles at my friend’s houses.  A girl I hung out with had me hold her purse and there was a needle right at the top.

I knew this was fucked up, but I was using too, and addiction is a beast.

The advantage I found in dealing pills is that I had a prescription for the pills I sold.  When I was pulled over and searched, they would see my name on the pill bottles.  They really can’t do anything about it.  I could fly on planes, go anywhere I want and carry all these pills legally.

One of the things I did at this time was sending the strippers I knew into the clinics to get pills.  They would go in, get a prescription, and I would buy it from them.  …Or trade them coke or heroin.  These are the drugs I was on when I went up north to see my parents.  They were easier to hide.  Until you run out and withdraw.  That’s when I had Karen the stripper fly me up some more.

Pills became my new drug.  At one point I realized what a problem they were.  I was too ashamed to go to my family for help.  There were people around who would have helped, I just never reached out to take it.

Around this time, I heard about methadone clinics:  People who abused heroin or prescription medication could go into these clinics and be dosed with methadone.  This somehow neutralizes your system so you can’t get high off street or prescription drugs.  What the hell – sign me up.

So now I wake up every morning and head to the junkie clinic to get my daily dose of methadone.  …Which, ironically, is also a drug, and very addictive also. 

On the street, people on methadone are referred to as drone heads.  It’s about being hit by a tranquilizer.  What I end up doing is using methadone myself and selling pills to everyone else.  While I’m in line for my daily dose, I’m networking.  Meeting other people just like me.  They are also getting prescription meds – so I begin to buy theirs so I can turn around and re-sell them to my customers.

Nearly everyone in my life now is on drugs.  The people I hang out with are shooting pills and heroin, smoking crack and meth.  I’m really at the bottom right now.  What should happen?  My buddy who made and sold G.H.B. completes his prison sentence and is released.  He looks me up first thing and we begin to work together again.

Seems he had been doing some networking of his own while doing his prison sentence.

Soon after his release, he begins to make G’ again.  While doing time, he met some guys who grew hydroponic weed.  Now I’m back where I started.  Selling hydro, G.H.B. and pills.  All the bullshit starts again.  The parties, the women, crazy stuff.

I remember my mom wanted to see me.  She came and we spent like a week together.  I was living with a buddy at the time.  My mom came and stayed at our bachelor pad.  To this day, my mom still talks about that visit.  We had a stripper pole installed in the living room.  Our parties were off the chain.  When the strip club closed and the girls I knew got off work, they came to the house and danced some more.  Here I am, coming up on 30, and my bachelor buddy is still like 21 (You tried to hang, I’ll give you that).

Poor guy.  We worked together doing construction work.  I’ll never forget one morning I’m standing in the driveway, waiting for him to drive us to the office.  We had partied hard the night before and at 6:30 a.m. I’m still drunk.  My stomach starts flippin’ out on me.  I run to the side of the house and start puking on a bush.  I look up and about 10 feet away stands my buddy, doing the same thing.  We look at each other and can’t help but laugh, then puke some more.  That day sucked!

Once again, I have G around, and this just causes me to live life balls to the wall.  Now I’m mixing pills into the chemicals.

The fact I’ve lived this long surprises me.  I think at times I really felt indestructible.  My buddy that did time for G.H.B. came out of prison a huge guy.  We teamed up with another guy he met while down.  I think I saw it as my ticket to do whatever I wanted.  I’m a small dude, but everywhere I go I’ve got two huge bodyguards.  I become flat out obnoxious.  This turns out interesting.  There are a lot of girls who came around and liked this stuff.  Not nice girls like you want your Mom to meet, but the other kind.

I get my own place.  Even I can’t bear to drag my young bachelor friend through the shit I live every day.  My younger brother lives 20 minutes away and refuses to come by.  I’m high all the time.  There are women coming and going. The people who have known me for years and have seen me change beg me to get help.  I can still see their faces.  The people who loved me and I shut out.  I’m falling fast, headed for the crash."