Alcohol

Whiskey showed up when I was about 11 and took a seat at the table like it owned the place. Before long I was living as this other version of myself, loud, reckless, and weirdly proud of it. I even had a name for him. Jack B. Longhorn. Cute, right. Real funny.

I drank hard for 25 years. Not “a few rough nights” hard. I mean years that went missing. Friendships scorched. Trust spent like loose change. I did finally quit, and the wild part is I didn’t get the dramatic withdrawal movie scene. No shaking, no sweating through sheets. Just… silence. And then the mess. Because even when your body doesn’t riot, your life still has receipts.

Marijuana

Cannabis is the one thing that actually helps me without turning my head into a carnival. It takes the edge off pain and doesn’t mess with what I care about. It doesn’t make me cruel. It doesn’t make me careless. It doesn’t rewrite my morals.

But I’m not operating in a normal world. I’m always under somebody’s microscope, and weed sticks around in the system like it’s paying rent. So the thing that helps me is the thing that can bring down consequences fast. Meanwhile I’m expected to juggle opioids and a whole pharmacy’s worth of “solutions” for chronic pain, the same pain that’s shoved me through surgery after surgery. That trade is… exhausting. And stupid. Mostly stupid.

Amphetamines

Meth has been my biggest problem. Has been for a while. I can dress it up, explain it, justify it, and at the end of the day it’s still meth.

Here’s the part that messes with people’s expectations. I didn’t turn into the cartoon version. My teeth are still there. No skin horror show. I don’t know why I dodged that. Luck. Genetics. Timing. Whatever. None of that makes it safe. None of that makes it smart.

What it did give me was function. With my bone disorder, there are days my body feels like it’s made of bad wiring and old glass. Meth can flip a switch and suddenly I can move, focus, do things. And that’s the hook that doesn’t let go. It’s not the party. It’s the pretend-normal.

Acceptance

Meth drags the worst parts of me to the front like they’ve got a VIP pass. It tramples rational thought. It steals time. And because it’s illegal, it adds a special kind of pressure, the kind that turns every day into a risk calculation.

It’s also cost me time with my family. Real time. The kind you don’t get back, no matter how sincere you feel later. So yes, it’s bad. It’s not romantic. It’s not “complicated” in a cute way. It’s a thief, and I keep handing it the keys.

I’m trying to accept what my body can’t do and stop using that as an excuse to burn down what my life still has. Life only feels like life when I’m actually in it with the people I love.

Recovery

Recovery, for me, starts when you’ve run out of tricks. When you’re so done that surrender feels less like defeat and more like finally unclenching your jaw. You let go of the familiar ways that kept you stuck, even when those ways felt like your only tools. You get rebuilt. Not into a superhero. Into someone who can live without constantly bargaining with pain, craving, and regret.

And yeah, that’s uncomfortable. That’s the point.