Going, Going...Gone

I remember very little about the next two years, although a few things stick out. One thing that I do remember is.. that I felt much more alone, unhappy, and more completely lost than I had ever felt. I was trying to hide what I was doing from the people I was closest to, and although I still had some contact with them, and they knew something was different about me...they didn't know what it was...or why it was happening. I think they probably thought I was just still messed up from the murders, but nobody really wanted to know that either...and I don't think they ever even considered heroin as the culprit. And of course, the murders had something to do with all of it. I can't say if I would or would not have used heroin, had the murders never occurred...but it sure felt like that was when all the intolerable pain had started. In my group of friends, and in my family, I was the first person to have had a problem with heroin, and I guess nobody knew what they were seeing, or what to look for. I didn't want them to know, anyway... because I couldn't even explain it to myself. So I isolated myself from them...and pretty much everyone. And an addict alone is in bad company. I buried myself in my using. I don't remember thinking about my music, my career, or anything relating to bands at all, during those two years...and for that to have been true, I can honestly say that I had to have been totally gone...just not there. And things just got worse. My main New York connection had cut me off, because I was screwing up in business, too. And that forced me onto the streets in my hometown, a very small town, but a major heroin distribution outlet...exposing what I was doing to all who knew me, as well as to the police. I still believed that the police would eventually arrest me for the murders, but they were waiting for me to destroy my own credibility...by letting the dope do its work...and then they'd be able to bust me for drugs first...and then the murders next. I lived in a constant state of fear, waiting to make a mistake that would open that door for them. As the truth became obvious to my friends and family, it also became obvious to my customers and connections, and many of them stopped doing business with me, because my problems were now putting them at risk...the ultimate irony. Suddenly, I had a $1500.00 a week drug habit, and now, no business to support it. And it was becoming very obvious...that something had to give.