Back to Insanity

I had never felt so low. I had never been fired from a band before, and it was little solace to me when I found out the band didn't survive my leaving Detroit. I felt used and betrayed. And now I was heading into a No Man's Land, because I was going back to the place that only a few months earlier, had felt like Hell. Although I didn't want to go back, I had nowhere else to go. I was overwhelmed with powerful feelings...anger, fear, shame, embarrassment, self-doubt, grief, confusion...it was chaos in my head, and I couldn't shut it off. And the closer I got to Conn., the stronger the feelings got. One thing that helped was the fact that my drummer, who had witnessed everything that had happened in Detroit, thought I had been screwed, too, and at that time, any validation of what I was feeling, helped. We decided to make another attempt at the band that the murder had unexpectedly ended. I was very grateful for my music. It was the only thing that seemed to make sense in a life that had become insane. I look back on it all now, and realize that I was in the early stages of a breakdown, but I had no clue...so I just kept on putting one foot in front of the other, the only way I knew how. As soon as I got back to Conn., I immediately got back into dealing...I was totally broke, and I knew how to make money fast doing that. One thing that happens when you're a dealer is...you always have lots of drugs, and once I was back in safe and comfortable surroundings, I found myself using more than I ever had before. And I was totally OK with that, because I felt a little bit better when I was high. I was still in a lot of pain, but it seemed bearable when I was loaded. And it seemed like everyone else I knew  was using like I was, so I never questioned it. If people stared at me when I walked down the streets of my hometown... either I didn't notice, or I didn't care...or so I thought at the time. I expanded my drug business, selling large amounts of pot, and found that although I was using very high grade stuff all the time, it wasn't costing me a dime, and in fact I had more money coming in than I had ever had, and that was "proof" that I was OK...It was also a very good thing that I was making a lot of money, because very soon I was going to need it. The pot just wasn't working the way I wanted it to anymore, it just wasn't taking care of the emotional pain that was building inside of me, and I was about to  move up to hard drugs...as cocaine came into my reality.