Old Habits ©

It was an interesting evening, actually it’s not over.
Hold on so I could take this patch off.
I need a smoke.
Oh that’s better.
Hush up, I’ll quit tomorrow again.
Maybe

I hooked up with some old friends tonight that I haven’t seen for awhile.
There is a reason for that.
You see……. They take me to a time where this reality did not exist.
Not only did this reality not exist but reality itself was blurred.

We accidentally bumped into each other at a local pub and did the hellos and such.
We sat down together the group I got there with and them and started reminiscing about days gone by.
The only problem is that this is the part of my past that I have been trying to bury for years.
I used to have a problem.
It’s the bane of my existence.
Last year I almost stumbled into this direction again but some friends stepped in and intervened.

Now the only time this problem surfaces is when I have been drinking and yes I have been drinking and even then I put up a good fight and have won every time but sometimes the scales tip to the other side and temptation gets the best of me, leaving me confused and wanting.

Life’s a slut sometimes isn’t it?
She tells you she loves you and then leads you astray.
Temptation is the weakness of humanity.
Addiction is our high.
Mine is cocaine.
Not just any cocaine but Free Base or what they call crack today.

Curiosity is what got me into it.
Not the curiosity of getting high but the creation.
Way back when, we used ether to make it and one mistake.
POOF!!!
I was the cook or the only one stupid enough to stand in front of a beaker full of explosive material and put a flame to it.
I would turn an ounce of cocaine into an ounce of base/ crack in 60 seconds.
I remember
I was 18 then
Lots has happened since then
The habit lasted for 13 years at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Saturday August 15 1992 was the last time I touched it.
I just said NO.

We sat around the table drinking for hours and talk shifted back and forth from the past to the present to some possible future.
We ate some and then someone said the word that stops me dead in my tracks.
I have left many a party because of this word.
I have problems walking at night on the day before garbage day because the smell off rotting garbage (Methane) smells like ether.
My stomach would roll and my brain would wake up all my senses with the memory of the RUSH I got with the first fucken smoke off the pipe.
The ones that followed were meaningless.
They were just a search for that first puff which you never find but are willing ti pay to try.

Cocaine
They wanted cocaine.
The ones that have known me for awhile know what was coming next.
I got up and called for my bill and cordially said my goodbyes.

I walked the next 6 blocks home with all past memories screaming through my mind.
I could taste it.
Right now on my tongue
The taste that lingers after the smoke has disappeared into your lungs.
Like burnt sugar
Probably a bi-product of what it was cut with.

I came home and sat down and immediately started rolling a joint.
I wiped the sweat of my fore head and took a long drag of the spliff.
Finishing the joint I lay back into my chair to watch some TV when the doorbell rang.
Opening the door, I saw the three friends I had left behind.
They came in and proceeded by asking me to do a favor for them.
I felt before they even asked, I knew what it was.
They had 14 grams of coke and they wanted it converted to crack and they didn’t know how.

One weakness
One true addiction

I said NO.
I can’t.
I can’t even look at it.
I have spent so many years fighting this battle and it’s a constant fight.
Cocaine is a mental addiction and the war takes place in your head.
Basically it’s a battle of will.

They said if they couldn’t convert it they would have to shoot it up.
Now all of this starts bringing up other memories.
My guest’s BF was a junkie on coke and I have had friends die on cranking coke.
I walked into the kitchen and thought awhile and started moving around the room I picked up the baking soda from the cupboard as I went by.
I paused for a minute at the counter just before I took the small Mason jar out of the bottom shelf.
Taking the measuring cup from the dishwasher I walked to the sink and filled it.
I filled a small glass with water and ice from the freezer as well.
I walked up to the one with the cocaine and put out my hand.
He gave me the cocaine and I went back into the kitchen.
I put all the coke in the Mason jar with the correct proportions of water and baking soda. Placed it in the microwave and set the timer to what would be needed.
When the buzzer went off I took out the jar and poured in the ice water.
The ice water hardens the pure cocaine in the jar to a hard marble like ball.
Crack cocaine
I stood there looking at it.
My hands shaking and my stomach turning
I could feel my insides loosening in anticipation.
My body craves it and my mind has always been corrupted by it ever since that first pull on the pipe.
I could hear it knocking against the glass.
It was ready.

I walked into the living room and told them it was in the jar on the counter and to take it and leave.
As they were leaving they thanked me but the last one.
When he left he said “I left you something at the computer”.
After locking the door I walked to where I am at this moment.

Sitting right here right now in front of me, is a small ball.
Looks like a small marble, pure white.
Next to it, is a pipe…………………


Walker