Cross Addiction How it Happened

Simon Says: I go directly from the ICU to Fairview Riverside's Lodging Plus Chemical Dependency Treatment Program. I've been through this program twice before so I know what its all about. It used to be called St. Mary’s treatment program. Not sure why they changed their name but I do know it's called Lodging Plus because technically it's not an inpatient treatment center, It's Chemical Dependency Treatment with lodging. That's got something to do with the insurance, someone is making more money or paying less money. Anyway you get billed for both the treatment program and then separately for the lodging. It doesn't matter, in reality it's inpatient treatment. A short program, 21 days. The one nice thing about the place is they provide a smoking area outside and if you ain't in group therapy you can go out and smoke all you want. It's not a locked down program either, you can go anywhere in the hospital you want and outside as long as you stay on campus. That's cool in the summer but this time around it was winter; I spent last Christmas in this treatment program. I was a total ball of nerves when I went in there, like a continuous anxiety attack. I felt like I had a million things to worry about and I had just recently stopped getting phone calls from Vicki. I just kept thinking that if Vicki would call me everything would be cool. She never did and it was a year before I saw her again. I don't know why I fell for her so hard but I'm sure it had something to do with the condition of my brain at the time. I was in a major depression and having this anxiety disorder on top of it. Thinking back now I don't know how I made it through. I was on the edge of having a major nervous breakdown. I needed a drink or a hit off a crack pipe but neither was going to happen for the next 21 days and I was melting down. I kept to myself as much as I could and gradually I began to feel better. I never felt good but at least I stopped feeling like I was going to explode or something. The thing about me is I never want anyone to know when I'm freaking out and that just makes me freak out more. You have to remember that I had just spent four months isolating myself in a dumpy hotel and now I was supposed to sit in therapy groups and talk about my feelings. I was a nervous wreck for the first 10 days or so. I was practically begging for some benzo's but that's rarely allowed in treatment. Eventually I got to know a few of the guys in my therapy groups and it seemed most of us had the same primary concern. That was where did we go from there. I couldn't go back to that hotel because I knew I would probably die there. I stayed at that particular hotel because it was the cheapest one I could find in St.Paul. I wasn't even sure I could go back there because of the condition I left the place in and I had already been hauled out of there in an ambulance and brought to Regions hospital once before. It seemed like most of us in treatment had managed to wreck our lives to the point where we had nowhere left to go. There was a certain sense of camaraderie amongst those of us looking for a place to go when we were released from treatment. The only place left for some of us to go was into a sober house where the only two requirement for living there are sobriety and rent. There are other rules too but they seem minor when it's cold out and you need a place to live. The rents are normally lower because you are just renting a room in a house along with other alcoholics and addicts. At first it seemed like there was a shortage of sober houses with vacancies but then at one point they started popping up everywhere. I really didn't want to live in a place where I'd be under constant scrutiny and if anyone suspected you might be using drugs or drinking; you would have to submit a urinalysis. Produce a positive UA and you would have to move out immediately. With the only other options being a homeless shelter or a halfway house I was happy to find anyplace at all. Well three of us found a newly remodeled sober house in St.Paul not far from Como Park and were accepted as the new residents. We had it all set up so that on the day of our release from treatment we could move right into the sober house. With the housing problem solved we could start focusing more of our attention on our addiction problems. At least it was a big sense of relief for me. One of my new buddies in treatment opted for a halfway house because he couldn't afford to pay rent, that was Mark who ended up playing a big role in the rest of my story. I guess I'm telling this story more for myself rather than anyone else. Trying to recount what this last binge cost me and how I ended up here where I am now. I know that the way I'm posting this story on my blog puts each posting is in reverse order of the big story so I'm trying to make each post like a story in itself. The last week or so of treatment went by fairly fast, it's the same routine every day with a little change in the schedule on the weekends. Next thing I know I'm being released from treatment and headed for the sober house. I remained in contact with my daughter throughout treatment and she gave me a ride to my new residence in St.Paul. At the same time I was getting out of treatment my daughter was preparing to move to California for a new job. She moved there about a week after I moved into the sober house. I was the first one in the house and the other two guys moved in the next day or so. I was sober now and had a decent place to live and I was trying to figure out what I was going to do next. One of the minor requirements of living in the house is you had to get a job. Since I was on disability and could afford the rent without a job they wanted me to get a volunteer job somewhere so I started looking for one. I never realized that getting a volunteer job is almost like trying to get a regular job. I finally found one but I got kicked out before I started it. I wasn't the first to get kicked out, I was the second. I can't remember the name of the guy that got kicked out first but he got booted out for using something, I think it was crack or meth. It was the third guy in the house that turned him in for staying out all night a couple times without telling anyone he had something preplanned. That led to his getting the boot. The snitches name I won't forget because he got me kicked out too. The guys name was Dick. He still owes me $50 too. This is where Mark came into the picture. You know we all had every intention to stay clean and sober it just didn't go that way. Mark moved into a halfway house not too far from the sober house where I was. We had all became friends in treatment so it was only natural that we started hanging out with each other since we all lived in close proximity of each other. Mark was a former methamphetamine dealer and he went to treatment and into the halfway house to save his marriage. His wife demanded he do these things or she was leaving him and taking his kids with her. Anyway that was his story. He and I got to be pretty good friends, he was coming over to the house most days and hanging out. Mark had a truck so we were going to AA and NA meetings together and just doing regular sober stuff together. I met his wife and kids and everything seemed to be going cool. Then I guess I started hinting around that I'd like to try out some meth some day because I just can't drink alcohol. I was serious too, I was afraid of alcohol but I'd never tried smoking methamphetamine before and I did want to try it but I was saying it in a passive way. Well then the inevitable happened, one day we got some and smoked it. Then we did it again and again and pretty soon we were smoking it every day. I ended up buying a scale so we could divide the shit up. Mark started selling the shit again so we could smoke for free or at least less money anyway. I liked it, I could get high and actually be more productive as apposed to alcohol that always ended up making me sick as hell. I was looking for a new place to live because I knew Dick was suspicious because me and Mark were hanging out a lot and never inviting him to come along. I was actually in the process of negotiating the rent on a room in one of Mark's friends houses when the day came that Dick caught me sitting in my room weighing out some meth. He didn't knock or anything, just came charging into my room to see what I was doing like he already knew. He assured me he wouldn't say anything to the house managers but later that day I got a call on my cell phone informing me that I was to move my shit out of the house the next day and that I couldn't stay there that night. I kinda just took it in stride because I already had another place to live where I wouldn't have to worry about using. I stayed there that night and the next day I went to the sober house with my new roommates van and moved all my shit out, which again wasn't that much. My new roommates name was Rick and this is when the shit really hit the fan. Of course that's a whole nother story which I'll start telling in my next post.

Self Destruction

Simon Says: Well anyway, Vicki was never really into me, she just found me convenient. Took me for a few bucks but we had fun. I imagine I'll hear from her again if she really needs something but I'm through with that. Too bad because I liked her a lot, finally found someone who liked to get fucked up like I did but everything when we both sobered up. I guess that's all we really had in common. I still like her but there's no future in our relationship, at least not if we are going to stay sober and that's my plan right now. Like I said, I ended up in Regions psych ward several times while I was living in that dump of a hotel, the “Economy Inn”. I lived in that damn hotel for almost four months. Spending all my money on alcohol and crack within the first two weeks of every month and then suffering for two weeks until I got paid again. I was lonely, I missed Vicki, and I was scared. I would be so broke for two weeks every month I had to walk to Dorthy Day's to eat and couldn't even afford smokes. Dorthy Day's is a homeless shelter where they feed you for free, it's right across from the Excel Energy Center and was about a mile walk for me. It was getting to be December and I didn't even have a warm coat, I would freeze my ass off when I would walk to the shelter to eat. I would get so depressed I could hardly get myself to walk down there but I knew I had to eat something. I lost a lot of weight and knew I was sick. As soon as I would get paid I would start all over, get as fucked up as I could until I ran out of money and go through it again. I was getting so fucked up I would hallucinate and then when I would sober up because of lack of money I would shake so hard that I couldn't even hold a glass of water up to my mouth to get a drink. I couldn't stop myself from this pattern of slow suicide. On top of all this shit I didn't go to court for my DWI and assault charges and there was a warrant out for my arrest. Vicki would call me once every couple days for awhile and she could tell I was sick, don't blame her for disappearing on me. I had totally isolated myself, no one associated with me knew where I was or what I was doing. I had lost my phone and bought a new one with a different number. The only person who knew my phone number was Vicki. I didn't have computer access so I wasn't answering any emails. I just totally dropped out of sight for about five months. Every time I saw a cop I would freak out because of the warrant for my arrest and the possibility that I had been reported as a missing person by my daughter or my parents. One day I was at Dorthy Day's eating and I met a homeless woman who was eating at the same table as me. I was sober enough to get fed (they won't let you in if you're drunk or fucked up) so I could at least talk, even though I was having a hard time hitting my mouth with a fork. I guess I was having a moment of clarity as they say in AA and I felt I had to make contact with my daughter and let her know I was still alive. I asked the woman who’s name was Missy if she knew where a library was so I could use a computer and send my daughter an email. She was nice enough to take me to the Public Library which wasn't that far of a walk. I got to use a computer and I sent the email. I can't remember what I said but I just wanted her to know I was still alive and I gave her my new phone number. I didn't get a call from her but the next day I went back to the library to check my email and she had responded with her phone number. My daughter was about to get her PhD from the University of Minnesota and she had to defend her thesis to the faculty at the University as a last requirement. She knew I was sick and I wouldn't be able to attend the ceremony. I wasn't even invited because she knew I wouldn't be able to make it. I was so depressed I wanted to commit suicide, for real. It seemed my whole life was upside down and it was. A week later I got paid again and I resumed my pattern of self destruction. Something was going on in my mind because during a black out and I was always blacking in and out of consciousness I called my daughter and asked her for help. I knew I was going to die if I didn't get some help and consciously I didn't care. I really don't know why I called but I did and a little while later she showed up. She gathered up my things which didn't amount to very much and she brought me to Fairview Riverside Hospital on the UofM campus. I had so much alcohol and crack in me I didn't care what was going on. She brought me in through the ER and they put me in the ICU (intensive care unit) to detox me. I think I spent at least a week in the ICU and they detoxed me with ativan which made detoxing fairly painless. From there they put me in there chemical dependency inpatient program which I had been through twice before. I think I just wanted to get out of the rut I was in living in that hotel and Dorthy Day's because I wasn't done yet. I made it through their 21 day treatment program and that's where I met this guy named Scott. This binge wasn't even close to being over and I'll carry on with the story in my next post.

Alcoholic relationships

Simon Says: Vicki and I got a hotel room right across from Regions Hospital. We didn't waste any time getting back into the bottle. We had a lot of fun as usual, making all kinds of plans for the future and drinking a lot. Drinking way too much, and then one morning I woke up and Vicki was gone. I guess I had blacked out and had kicked her out. I didn't remember a thing, all I knew was she was gone and I kept waiting for her to come back but that never happened. A couple of days later I got a phone call from Vicki and she told me what happened. We got into an argument and I told her to leave. She had no where to go and she almost jumped off the Robert street bridge. Instead she went back to Regions Hospital and checked herself into the psych ward where she was calling me from. She was in the psych ward for a couple weeks and she was committed. Social Services put her into a long term treatment program (90 days) and then from there into a halfway house for women in St.Paul. That's where she is now and it's been over a year. She's convinced that if we got back together we would start drinking again and she's probably right. I went on drinking among other things and I just recently found out where Vicki ended up. I went to an AA meeting in downtown St.Paul about three months ago and there she was, we talked a little, she borrowed a little money from me and I haven't seen her since. So much for alcoholic relationships. I haven't been doing so well, been in the hospital several times, treatment twice and got committed myself. I've done all this since Vicki went into Regions that night from the hotel.

More of the story

Simon Says: OK, the only reason I'm telling these stories is to bring you up to speed as to what I've been doing for the last year or so. I'll get back to the present soon enough. I've only managed to be sober for the last six weeks or so and it ain’t easy. Every time I go off on a binge it gets a lot harder to come back. The anxiety and depression seem to hang with you for a lot longer. I'm trying to get back and I need to write to keep busy. Back when that Ralph character screwed me over and Cheryl and I had no where to go we ended up staying at a couple different hotels and I actually ended up renting an apartment in one of the hotels, the only hotel in Farmington. This hotel was a real dump but the apartment wasn’t to bad. I had a hard time controlling Cheryl and she ended up buying some weed from some kids that were also living in this hotel. They ripped her off and I got pissed. I ended up confronting them with a baseball bat and one of them clobbered me with a 40oz beer bottle. That's the last thing I remember until the cops brought me to Ramsey county detox. First they brought me to jail and charged me with assault. So while I'm in detox I ran into a woman, Vicki who was in rougher shape than I was as far as her situation. She was pretty, a little taller than me and had no where to go. Somehow we got to be friends and spent most of our time together while waiting to get out. While I'm waiting to get out of detox I find out that Cheryl got me evicted from my apartment. I don't know what she did but I was out. I had offered to rent Vicki a room in my apartment and now all three of us had nowhere to go. Vicki and I got released from detox about the same time and Cheryl picked us up, she was drunk and said she took all my anxiety pills (60mgs) clonazepam (klonopin). We didn't have anywhere to go so I decided to go to this hotel in Burnsville only to find out they wouldn't rent me a room there because Cheryl had gotten me kicked out of there maybe six weeks earlier. I didn't know I was banned from renting there for good so we went to a bar to think about what to do and while in the bar Cheryl gets into a fight with some other chick in the bathroom and this other chick is on her cell phone calling the cops. Meanwhile Cheryl is so fucked up that she can't walk and is crawling on the sidewalk outside of the bar. We have to leave fast because the cops are on their way so I scooped up Cheryl put her into the car and the three of us take off. Never did see the cops but I was worried about Cheryl because of all the klonopin she had taken and the way she was acting. That's when I decided to take her to the Fairview ER and that's the last time I saw her. I didn't want to leave her behind but I just couldn't handle all the drama and close calls with the police. To this day I don't know what happened to her; I hope she found her way back to Tennessee where she was from. Vicki and I hit it off and got another hotel room in Lakeville until the money ran out. Then we were broke and once again no where to go. At this point I've got no choice but try to go back to my place, after all the apartment is full of my furniture and all my stuff and food. Only problem is Ralph is there and he has an order of protection against me but I was desperate and figured I could convince him to drop the protection order and let me and Vicki stay there for a week or so until I got paid. I talked with Ralph and he said it would be cool so Vicki and I went to my place and everything seemed like it was going to be OK. We weren’t there for more than two hours before Ralph starts begging me to go to Walgreen's and get his medication because he's all out and needs it right away. Ralph doesn't drive so he's got no other way to get his medication. I really didn't want to go because Vicki and I had been drinking and I didn't want to take the risk of driving anywhere. Finally I cave in and agree to go get his medication. Ralph was setting me up. I went into Walgreen's and Vicki was passed out in the car. When I got to the Pharmacy counter they wouldn't let me pick up Ralph's meds which was weird because I've done it for him many times before. When I come out of Walgreen's there are three squad cars surrounding my car. They charged me with DWI and took me to Hastings Jail. They took Vicki back to Ramsey county detox. My car got impounded. I ended up having to walk from Hastings back to Eagan which took me all day. I went back to my place and of course Ralph was there acting all surprised and shit about what had happened. At the time I hadn't figured out what had happened but it didn't take me long to figure out that Ralph had set the whole thing up. I was drinking pretty heavy and I had made a deal with our neighbor to give me a ride to detox to get Vicki. Vicki called me about an hour before I was supposed to pick her up and I guess I was pretty out of it and she didn't think I was going to make it to pick her up. I did make it there to pick her up but I guess she was afraid I wasn't coming so she took off with some other people that got released the same time she did. I was about 10 minutes late but I had no idea where Vicki went. So we went back home where I was going to wait for her to call me but the call never came. By now I was really hitting the vodka hard and was out of my mind worrying about Vicki. All her things including her ID and purse were with me. I could tell Ralph was acting weird too and I was going to have to leave soon. It was only a couple of days left before I got paid when Ralph tried locking me out of the apartment, I can be a little crafty and it wasn't hard for me to get in. Ralph had asked me if I wouldn't mind taking my dog for a little walk because his social worker was coming to see him and he wanted some privacy. So I take my dog for a walk and when I come back the apartment is locked up tight and Ralph is nowhere to be found. I got in the apartment and Ralph stayed away for a day, he was at his girlfriends apartment across the parking lot the whole time hoping I would leave. The next day he he shows up, looks around a little and goes back to his girlfriends apartment. About an hour later the cops show up and tell me I've got to go, they said that they would give me another hour to get my things together and when they came back I had to be gone. That extra hour gave me time to give my dog away to the neighbor and drink about a half a gallon of vodka. I wanted to be brought to the hospital because I had no where else to go and when the cops came back that’s where they brought me. I ended up being detoxed in the ICU in Regions Hospital and then they moved me up to the fourth floor of the psych ward. The second day I was in the psych ward, guess who is admitted to the same floor, Vicki. We had a nice little psych ward reunion and hung together the whole time we were in there. Once again we got released at the same time and we were off to another adventure that I'll write about in my next post. I know all this sounds crazy as hell, but every bit of it is the truth.

Parkinson's Fake

Simon Says: Hello, one part of my story from this last year is definitely interesting. At least to me it is. I had this roommate, his name was Ralph Livingston. I met Ralph while living in a shared house in Burnsville, MN. There were four guys living in this house and we were each paying close to $400 a month for a room. The house had two shared bathrooms and a shared kitchen. Two of the residents were just kids in their early 20's and then there was Ralph and I in our early 50's. The younger guys pretty much trashed the place, never cleaning up after themselves and always bringing all their friends over to party. Ralph and I would party along with them but at least we tried to keep the place clean. Neither Ralph nor I had much of a taste for weed but the house was always foggy with marijuana smoke. My thing was alcohol and Ralph was addicted to prescription pain killers (vicodin, percocet, and phentynal patches). The highest guy in the house was usually Ralph but he could be high and no one would really know it. I didn't know it at the time but Ralph was a natural con man. Ralph claimed to have Parkinson’s disease so he could get a large portion of his drugs prescribed to him legally. I became suspicious when the only time he exhibited any symptoms is when he had to go see his doctor. He was prescribed some 20 different medications a day but only took the pain meds, the rest he would just throw in a drawer and they would pile up fast. Every now and then he would empty the drawer into the garbage. My being an alcoholic and with everything else going on in the house I didn't really care what he was doing. Needless to say Ralph’s Parkinson’s disease symptoms would mysteriously disappear after his doctors appointments. I did some research into Parkinson's and found that the disease can only be diagnosed by the symptoms. There are no blood tests or any other kind of tests that will indicate Parkinson's. The only definitive way to diagnose this disease is after the death of the patient when an autopsy can be performed to confirm the presence of Parkinson's. I was told this information directly from a PhD Neuroscientist. So if you want to get pain killers you can research the symptoms of Parkinson's disease and just fake it when you go to the doctors office. Anyway, I didn't care what he did as long as it didn't affect me. The only reason I checked into it was because Ralph eventually conned me out of everything I owned. Along with Ralphs diagnosis of Parkinson's came Social Security Disability. He also got County funded housing and food stamps because his Social Security wasn't considered adequate. So Ralph gets a free apartment in Eagan and a pretty nice one at that. Since Ralph and I had become friends and we were both fed up with the younger guys living in the house, Ralph offered me a room in his new apartment where I paid about the same amount of money. I lived in the apartment for a little more than a year off and on. Ralph would get so fucked up on the pain killers, especially when he put the phentynal patches on, that he couldn't walk or talk or do much of anything but stumble around. At one point I couldn't take it anymore and moved into another friends house for about six months and then back into Ralphs when I had to move out of my other friends place. Ralph continued to get wasted and I just tried to stay out of the apartment as much as possible, more or less just a place to sleep. One morning I woke up and Ralph was bleeding from his mouth and ass. I called a friend of mine and asked if it was anything I should worry about. The answer was yes. The Tylenol in the pain killers and his heavy drinking had burned a hole in his stomach and caused some serious liver damage. I got him into my car and told him he had to get to the hospital quick. He didn't want to go because then his social workers would become aware of his addiction. The whole way to the hospital he kept complaining that he was all right and didn't need to go to the ER. I brought him there anyway and when I arrived at the ER the medics didn't waste any time getting him out of the car and onto a gurney. I'm no hero but the doctor there told me that if I hadn't brought him in when I did he would have died. He was in the ICU there for about a week and then they released him back home where he continued to abuse the drugs and began acting different. He was getting so loaded that he was stumbling around the place knocking over furniture and basically wrecking the place. I had to start gluing things down so he wouldn't knock shit over and break everything. One day he fell down in the shower and banged his head on the water fixture and had blood all over the bathroom from trying to get back on his feet. I ended up having to clean the bathroom, he claimed he was having trouble because of the Parkinson’s and I would just say oh because I didn't want to confront him on his bullshit. His pain killer addiction was out of the bag since his visit to the hospital and he knew it. He didn't say anything to me about it because he had to thank me for saving his life but he also blamed me for alerting social services that his real problem was an insatiable need to be totally fucked up on pain killers. I have to admit that I had tried them a few times myself but could never see what the big deal was. One really crazy thing about this story is Ralph had a young girlfriend for awhile and one day they found her dead in her apartment, overdosed on pain killers. Pain killers that Ralph had given her. I guess the phentynal patches were the thing that had pushed her over the edge. The coroner questioned the phentynal patches but no one seemed to know where she got them. Her death was ruled a suicide but I've got a feeling it would've been called something else had they known where she got the drugs from. Ralph told me this story one day when he was a little out of it. Ralph is about 6'5” and about 240 lbs. His girlfriend was just a little dainty thing and I don't think she could handle the same doses as Ralph. So like I said, Ralph was acting a little weirder than usual after I brought him to the hospital and one day I had brought my girlfriend over and we were cooking some dinner. My girlfriend and I got into a heated argument about something, I can't even remember what it was about. All of a sudden Ralph physically attacked me, I'm a smaller guy but I was able to hold my own against this big dude and I ended up throwing him into a chair which completely gernaded because of his size. I remember trying to tell Ralph to just cool off and settle down. I think he could see things weren't going to go his way so he jumped up, grabbed his cell phone and ran out the patio door. He called 911 and told the police that I had attacked him and chased him outside. When the cops arrived they talked to him first because he was outside waiting for them and he was the one who had called for help. I had been drinking that day but I was still in control of my faculties which didn't matter one bit. They gave me a breathalyzer and that was it, I was on my way to jail for assault. Ralph files a restraining order against me so I can't even go back to the place I've been living for over a year. Everything I own is in that apartment including my dog and I couldn't go back there. I went there anyway and he acted like nothing ever happened. Then he calls the cops again to have me removed from the apartment. I had a few drinks again so this time the cops bring me to Ramsey County Detox. While I was in detox I met another woman and that's another story that needs to be told. When I get out of there I end up having to get a hotel room and I can't get my stuff, most of the furniture in the place belonged to me. I guess I could have got a police escort to get my things but I had no where to put it. It wasn't like I was expecting this crap so I didn't have enough money to get a storage place so my only option was to leave it there until we could settle it in court. I had a classic Jaguar parked in the garage with expired tabs because I never drove the car. Ralph pushes the car out of the garage and parks it in the outside lot then he calls the cops and tells them there's a car parked in the lot with expired tabs. By the time I find out about this, three weeks had passed and I didn't have enough money to get the car out of the impound lot. This is where he really starts screwing me over. I was financially screwed and he knew it. I ended up having to sell the car to a friend of mine for the cost of getting it out of the impound lot. I lost a ton of money on that deal. Meanwhile, unknown to me, Ralph has to go into treatment for his addiction and while he's there he decides not to pay the rent on the apartment so he lost his apartment and I lost all my belongings. At least that’s what he's telling me now. A friend of mine saw Ralph at Target in West St.Paul and she said he was perfectly normal, not showing any signs of Parkinson's disease. The guys got to be starting to stress out because you just can't fake a progressive disease forever. The County is now paying for this guy to live in a nursing home where I heard he uses a walker to get around and shakes like a leaf. His only relief has got to be when his girlfriend picks him up so he can stop putting on the Parkinson's deception. To give it up now would make him guilty of fraud. I know this story sounds a little too bizarre to be true but it's for real, but this is the short version of the story. I'll be filling it in more and more with other stories that relate to this one. I wish I could turn him in but it would take a lot, he would have to be caught faking it and how do you catch someone who's pretending to have a disease that can only be diagnosed by the symptoms?

Big Mistake

Simon Says: When things go downhill they seem to go fast. I had two years of sobriety and was attending AA faithfully. Then Facebook happened. I managed to connect up with my very first girlfriend from when I was 12 years old. Back then it was 1970 during the Vietnam War. Both our fathers were Army and Vietnam Vets. We were stationed on a little island called Okinawa which is a part of Japan. I lived there three different times for a total of nine years. It seemed all us kids were always coming and going which is the way of the military. Military brats were a different sort, especially during the Vietnam war and the draft. Fathers coming home on leave and crazy as hell, which in turn made us kids a little crazy. Where I was living in Okinawa there was no age limit on alcohol sales so we started drinking very young and matured at a rate that exceeded that of our civilian counterparts in the States. Well, anyway, my girlfriends name was Cheryl who had a twin sister Charlotte. I started out with Charlotte but ended up with Cheryl. We were doing things that 17, 18 year old kids do. The war was ending and as we moved back to the States we lost touch. Then Facebook happened and Cheryl and I started talking again. She lived in Tennessee and I was here in Minnesota. It had been 35 years since Okinawa and I was thinking I was talking to that same little girl I knew when I was a kid. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We got to talking about personal things and she began telling me about how her boyfriend was physically and mentally abusive to her. I told her she should come to Minnesota because the social services here are excellent and she would be able to get help dealing with all the stress she had been living with. She agreed to come here for help and I agreed to help her out. What a mistake, I guess I wasn't thinking clearly myself for some reason and the shit hit the fan. I started drinking again and trying to take my regular medication at the same time. Needless to say things didn't go to well. Cheryl was a raving maniac. Got me kicked out of two hotels because she was just acting crazy and bothering the other guests. She was totally out of her mind, asking strangers if they knew where she could buy some weed, having strangers bring her home from the bar which I plead with her not to go to. One day the cops came to the hotel to check on her welfare and the next thing I know I'm getting kicked out of another hotel. Anyway, she took a bunch of my pills and drank them down with vodka and I thought she was going to die or something so I brought her to the ER at Fairview and left her there, never to see or hear from her again. I just had to let her go if I was going to survive. Understand that this is the short version of the story, there was a lot I left out because this could turn out to be a book if I included everything. What happened here was half my fault and I do feel very bad for abandoning Cheryl the way I did. I just want you to know some of the things I've been up to over the past year or so while I was not making entries to my blog. Believe me there's a lot more I want to tell before I get caught up with what's currently happening.

Road to Recovery

Simon Says: Alright, enough of that shit, suffice it to say that methamphetamine addicts are the yellow underbelly of the snake of addiction. I've been down the road of several addictions and these people are the worst. Selling Epsom salt to your friends for $100 a gram just ain't cool. The freaky thing is that two weeks later it's like nothing ever happened and everybody's friends again. I had to get the fuck out of there and I did. Only one problem; no where to go. Been in this situation before and always seemed to figure something out. I hadn't been to AA in over a year but I still had my old sponsors phone number on my phone so I called him and asked him to give me a ride to detox. Well, he gave me a ride to Fairview Riverside ER. I was detoxed in the ICU (intensive care unit). Spent about a week in the ICU and then I was transferred to station 10 of the psych ward. I guess I was sicker than I thought because the doctors on station 10 petitioned the courts to have me committed. So, next thing I know I'm being transported to Hastings, MN where the courthouse is located. There I get to go before a judge and find out if I'm going to be incarcerated in the State Hospital for the mentally ill. I've done this a couple times before so I pretty much know what to expect: a stay of commitment. A “stay of commitment” is just like being on probation, you have to take the medications the doctors prescribe and stay out of trouble or you'll be put in the State Hospital. That's the boat I'm in right now. Actually I'm kind of in a double trouble situation because I'm on probation for the next two years due to a DWI I got a little over a year ago. I also got ten days in jail which I just finished up last month. The DWI I got is another story which I got to tell but in another post. As a condition of my stay of commitment I was ordered into an inpatient treatment center. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) was the main emphasis of this treatment program. I've been through this treatment center before so I knew what to expect. Its a good place called Theo1 in West St.Paul, MN. DBT is based on Eastern philosophies of Zen Buddhism, its basic premiss is to develop a “life worth living”, originally developed by Marsha M. Linehan, a psychology researcher at the University of Washington, to treat people with borderline personality disorder (BPD). I served my 45 days there and I didn't mind it one bit, haveing no where else to go except maybe the Dorthy Day homeless shelter. While I was in Theo1 a Dakota County social worker helped me find an apartment where I'm living now. Stay tuned, this story never ends.

Adventures in Homelesness

Simon Says: Well one day Monster decides to go to Arizona to visit hi.s girlfriend that just got out of prison two years ago. About a month prior to monsters trip to AZ monsters sister Michele (that's how she spells it) moves in because her boyfriend ended up in jail and she has no where to go. When Monster left she assumed charge of the house. Michele is worse than her brother. Lying, cheating bitch. Her and I get along well enough but one day she decides I have to go. I tell her to go to hell but she is aware that I have a warrent out for my arrest because I never showed up for court on a DUI charge. Next thing I know she calls the cops on me and I end up being thrown into the Anoka county jail. I spend a couple days in Anoka county jail bit my warrent is out of Dakota County so I'm transfered to Dakota county and brought before a judge. The judge set a court date and releases me. I didn't plan on getting released, I thought I would be sitting in jail for awhile but now I'm out on the streat with no where to go and in a small town valles Hastings, MN where there aren't any buses or cabs. I've got about $300 so I end up getting a cheap hotel room and a few bottles of vodka. I get really drunk and this chick I new and was talking with on the phone called the cops on me and told them I was suicidal. There's a knock on my door and the cops haul me to Regions hospital where I end up in the psych ward again. Say tuned, theres a lot more to this story and I've got nothing better to do but write. I'm getting a new computer soon and I'll be fixing up this blog. A lot has happened this past year and I'll be posting all of itching.All that I can remember that is. Everything I post is the bizarre truth.