The Pits – Damascus, MD 2012 – Age 24

You could see every star in the sky from the pits. The pits was a beautiful place, in how ugly it was. An abandoned
paradise closed off from the rest of the world by trees and
brush.

You could only get there by foot, after walking
through the older, more rundown side of a large mobile home
neighborhood. There was a path just behind someone’s
house. I was always afraid someone was going to run outside
with a shotgun every time we crossed their yard at two and
three in the morning.
We spent that night running up and
down hills, climbing over abandoned machinery, riding the
waves of the pills we just ate. We never really got tired —
even after an hour of running around like maniacs — but we
settled down eventually, sitting together in a large circle to
ride out the rest of the high.
Conversation was effortless. I’m normally not much of
a talker, but with ecstasy you feel like what you’re saying has some worth, that someone might really be listening, not just watching you talk. That’s about as mental as ecstasy
gets. The rest of it is physical: you become extra sensitive to touch; colors, even at night, are more vivid, and music more engaging.

I met a kid once who was addicted to the stuff,
who loved it for how elated and optimistic it made him feel.
I was sitting in the back row of a chemical dependency
class I only just graduated from two years ago. He didn’t
seem like the type. He was too healthy-looking. Where I
had become gaunt, disheveled, and dark-eyed, he was the
opposite. Life seemed to be oozing out of him, good, hopeful
life.

I can’t remember his name, but I remember how
faithfully he described his love for ecstasy. I remember how
unsure he sounded when he came to the end of his testimony
and struggled to promise himself he was going to get clean. I
clapped when he was done talking, hoping he meant what
he’d said.
You see too many relapses in groups like these; too
many people who are overcome by the tyranny of their
addiction. I’ve only been clean for six months, but I’ve gone
longer before relapsing again. This writing has everything to do with my earnest desire to stay clean, and moreover, to
understand my mental illness, to come to terms with the
pitfalls I’ve taken.
Despite how hard I try I can’t remember what my
consciousness was like before the wars, and before the
tower. This time of health and new beginnings, this time I
refer to as amnesty, is the closest I’ve ever been to delusion
free, paranoia-free thinking.

You have no idea how beautiful your mind is, how absolutely divine and perfect your brain is. I’ve done unimaginable damage, in such a short amount of time, yet here I am, well again: thinking rationally, logically, like anyone else might.
I tend to disagree with atheists, not because I think
they’re wrong, and forgive me if I offend, but because they
come off as ungrateful. I don’t tie myself to any one religion, but I do believe in God, Allah, a Higher Power, the Universe, whatever you want to call Him. We – let me rephrase — I, need someone to thank for my blessings. I can’t just dismiss everything off as luck. I believe everything has purpose, every coincidence has meaning, and value, every person, is blessed. I hold nothing against atheists, but it’s interesting to wonder how one might get through life without, at one point or another, thanking their lucky stars.
More often than not the success stories that come out
of alcoholics anonymous and narcotics anonymous are
people who’ve surrendered.

You can fight it all you want, like I did for so many years, but until you “let go and let God,” you won’t win. I’ve heard too many older members say that they’d go cold turkey for months, sometimes years, only to relapse again because they hadn’t truly surrendered, because they hadn’t admitted to themselves that they were powerless over their addiction.
No one wakes up saying, “I’m going to admit I’m
powerless today.” That’s not in our nature. It’s something
else, something divine almost, to forfeit power over to
someone, something else. Only after forfeiting your power
over to your Higher Power, do you regain control.

Keep in mind that your “higher power” can be anything. As an older member once explained beautifully, your higher power can
be your wife, your husband, your children, your brother, your
sister, your minister, yourself. So long as you have
something worth fighting for, something worth forfeiting for,
you have a fighting chance.