EndGameNYC

I'm waiting at a bust stop yesterday in Brooklyn, in a Russian neighborhood. There was an anxious looking guy there, smoking a cigarette and pacing back and forth. He approached me and asked with a distinctly Russian accent, "Is it you?" I thought to myself, "Of course it's me. Who else would I be?" I did not reply, and instead waited for more information. After a healthy pause, he asked, "Are you Paul? Do you live right up there?" I said "No, I'm not Paul." He said I look just like Paul, as though my knowing this would have caused me to change my mind. He went on a bit about how much I look like Paul, and then said, "Yeah, I'm supposed to drop off some weed for him, but he hasn't come yet. I don't know if he'll show up."

My first thought? "I wonder how much he's selling it for? I can get some rolling papers on my way home, and Paul will be none the wiser." I then started thinking about how much I was willing to pay, how I'd assess the quality of his product, and that maybe I'd miss my evening appointment so I could head straight home and get high. I entertained these thoughts for longer than was comfortable for me to do so. And then I started thinking that maybe he was an undercover cop or maybe a CIA operative left over from the Cold War.

Anyway, I believe that his thoughts matched mine as he continued to lament the fact that he had this weed to unload but no taker. He finally gave up and asked me for a buck so he could take the bus. I gave it to him. He then thanked me and went on his way.

I made my evening appointment, and then didn't think about our exchange until this morning when I read a comment about smoking marijuana.

courage2

I had a slightly similar experience in Long Island City, Queens this morning. I got lost walking, late. I got all up in my head about how another time I would have already been drunk by then, or I wouldn't have gone at all (even though it's my legal obligation) but would have found a way to cover it up or lie about it, or if I was stuck going, lost or not lost, I'd have rewarded or consoled myself for the trip by slogging over the icey sidewalks to my favorite liquor store on Queens Blvd & 41 St for a pint of gin to put in my overcoat pocket.

By that time one part of my head was deep in fantasy world.

But another part of my head figured out where I might have made a wrong turn, took me to my destination -- too late for the job -- apologized, and asked for help getting the job done another day.

Lesson: stay out of the outer boroughs.

EndGameNYC

Indeed.

I've worked and/or studied in each of them except, mercifully, Staten Island. My favorite is Brooklyn, and not just because I was born there.

courage2

I like Queens, where I lived (and drank) for about 6 years. I lived in Brooklyn for about a year a long time ago-- not a good year, neither. I visit the Bronx for work regularly -- I'm surprised how much I like it, but I don't go all around LOL. Never drank in the Bronx that I recall. Never Staten Island, mercifully. The best borough for me is Manhattan, because it's now, and I'm here.

alphaomega

Isn't it something how we can just snap right back into it without a second thought.

While grabbing my mothers meds to bring to her in the care center, I found a treasure trove of narcotics.

And her extra large bottle of Bombay Sapphire.
Like a magnum.
Only bigger.

I quickly closed the cabinet and high tailed it the hell out of there.

biminiblue

"recoiled as from a flame." <sic>

Well done, all of you. It takes but a nano-second. My brain is randomly untrustworthy.

Fly N Buy

EndGame - sounds like Marathon Man......
Is it safe??? Is it safe??

I use to travel to the City several times a year. Had good friend who's a drummer in Reggae band. It seemed we always ended up in Brooklyn at 2 or 3 in the morning.......

Amazing I survived all that. C2 brought back some memories.....

Verte

Addiction feels like the ultimate personal battle. At this particular moment I am in need of calling upon more real-life resources of support. Thanks to this and a few other telling posts by my fellow sobrietists. Thanks for sharing EG. Brooklyn is one of the many homes away from home that I have established in my drinking career. A short walk from the subway stop to one of my dear friend's homes means a nearly endless line of beautiful bottles with beautiful labels and treacherous contents. I have been sober 10months and I have no idea when I will be able to safely take that short walk. I am feeling a sort of 'miss' that might be the weather or cabin fever.

No glory here. Only angst and private hell. Actually, asking friends to scrape me off the sidewalk is a fairly unromantic, public hell which could not possibly last forever.

EndGameNYC

Yeah, I get that.

In my past sobriety, none of these things entered my mind...until I relapsed.

I now usually go about my life undisturbed by the availability of alcohol and other drugs. But, yes, I can start this morbid carousel all over again in less than a minute.

Who knows? On another day, in a different frame of mind, I might have taken up Boris on his clandestine offer. What would happen after the product was in my possession I cannot know.

AddictGuy

I was at a grocery store yesterday in the old neighborhood, someone called my name. It was a guy from the next checkout line over: my old dealer! Firm, warm handshake. I had always liked the guy. He was always funny. He once told me he was my friendly neighborhood crook. I just didn't know if I had run into an old buddy or my old dealer. I didn't know if he said hello because he was glad to see me as a person or if he knew that I had put a lot of money in his pocket and knew what I liked. Confusing.

He asked me if I had heard about so and so -- a mutual friend. I hadn't. The cigarettes had killed him. That hurt. Another great guy. Generous with his drugs. If it hadn't been the cigarettes, it could have been other stuff he smoked, or the booze, or the pills, or . . . or . . . I had moved, gotten away from those guys and I've come a long way toward cleaning up my act.

But there he was, in my face. He didn't mention the elephant in the room, I didn't either. But there it was. He did say that nothing was new, so I gathered from that he was still dealing for a living. It would have been so easy to just go down that road with him right then and there and pick up where I had left off years ago. Too Damned Easy. There was the old pull, as fresh as the morning, the buddihood, the exhilaration, and the fear, and the heartbreak -- the whole thing. But I got through the moment.

His voice these days would have made a doctor want to look down his throat for sure. No surprise, this guy was a real partier still -- tobacco too. Still chasing the dragon, I guess you could say.

We were going our own ways and I kinda closed with saying about our old newly-dead mutual friend, "That lifestyle will kill you." My old dealer buddy said, "Not yet."

He always was funny.

RobbyRobot

You know, I'm not liking reading the above. I do understand the working value of honesty with ourselves, and yet with that said, your choice of words .. "who knows" ... leaves me wanting to respond with "I know that I will never use again. No matter what. End of story. Anything less is just addictive vanity..."

Sure, you qualify your statement with a scenario of what if's ie being in a different frame of mind. I get that. Yeah, possibilities and probabilities are different terms of understanding, as we know.

Hey, I'm surprised with your word choice, my friend.

DuhDave

As a 1 year stop drinking and well into recovery anniversary gift to myself, I intend to hop the Amtrak train and ride it to NYC. When I get off, under Madison Sq Gardens, I plan to walk to the U.S.S. Intrepid museum on the river, spend a good part of the day there and walk back to the train station and catch the train for home!

I've never been to NYC. I've always wanted to go, just to say I've seen it!

So. How many bars and liquor stores do you think I'll pass? Should I pack my "Blinders" and put them on? Do you think I'll make it there (to the museum) and back (to the train station) ...alive?

I've always wanted to visit Brooklyn too. I just dont know why. It's weird, like it's calling to me. Another life?...maybe. But that will have to be another trip.

DD

sva777

I lived in Manhattan for 13 years and from Penn Station to the Intrepid yes you will pass bars, they are everywhere. Take a cab and skip that walk it's not a great one anyway.

Verte

Robby, could you tell me more about addictive vanity? Thank you.

Aellyce

The story he told you about "Paul" may or may not have been true. This sounds like a method that probably earns him quite a few new costumers, just like it made you tempted.

I routinely go to the "outer boroughs" for work. When I first moved to NY, in the first 3 years I was in the Bronx almost everyday because part of my work was done in a VA hospital there. I actually enjoyed the experience of diversity. I also ran into drug dealers while walking between the hospital and the subway station quite a few times. I found myself sometimes taking that route despite my workplace operating a bus that takes employees between out Manhattan campus and that hospital many times daily during the week, just to see a "different version" of life from what we are typically used to in Manhattan. Never even considered the offer of the dealers I ran into there, and it's interesting to recall all that now that I was reading this post. I also routinely went to Brooklyn during a year about 3 years ago when I had a close friend there; first him and then a bunch of them. He is a writer and introduced me to a few of his other writer friends, we had weekly book clubs in Brooklyn. And drank a lot. Weird to recall all this now, I don't normally think about it. It was definitely an era that I can't say I hated.

I also work with controlled substances and they are right there in a cabinet with us everyday, including THC and other cannabinoids. And an endless supply of pure alcohol that we use in the lab. Interesting how these never gave me any sort of temptation, not even now that I'm reading this thread and thinking about the possibilities.

I go through your thought process sometimes regarding psychedelics, which I consider my DOC far more than alcohol, and I feel lucky that they are not addictive like alcohol and other drugs, I think I might already be dead if they were. But I discussed this here on SR a couple times and with you, EndGame, also. I don't think we can really control the thoughts... only how we act (or not) on them. Kudos to you for not engaging in impulsive action. I really understand because I have quite a few friends in NYC who have easy access to psychedelics, including the ones that use them for research purposes like I do with the other drugs. I could get any very easily, anytime. Kinda odd that I haven't used my DOC for over 6 years now in spite of this.

You may now associate weed with Russia / Russians for a while now, after this experience, which is I am sure interesting for you. The only thing you may want to rethink is if it's normally hard accessibility, not knowing how to get them etc, that keeps you away from drugs.

silentrun

I kind of got the hebbies reading part of that story EG. You made it 22 years once compared to my 2 so I will ask you. Do you think you spent to much time contemplating using? I would be in big trouble if I let it that far inside my head.

courage2

Been thinking about you all day, EGNYC. I celebrated my 1 year anniversary at my home group tonight & I even told my little story about Queens. But I don't think my story meant to me what yours meant to you. I imagined my own experience from the perspective of myself actively using and dismissed it. It had no attraction. No nostalgia. If anything, it hit me what a fool I'd been for so long, trying to drown sorrows at the same time I was creating them.

You're a smart guy EG and a pro. What's up? Don't let February eat you alive. If you're down, open yourself to people who can help, without intellectualizing or story-telling. The sooner the better, because our heads are not always our friends.

Your friend --

DuhDave

Sounds more like a EnTrapment Operation to me by the cops.

Dangle a carrot in front of the mules nose and when he takes the bait...BAM !...you're in handcuffs! Wanna bail out a jail ? Just more revenue for the city.

Just my thoughts (experience).

DD

RobbyRobot

Vanity employed in the sense of leveraging one's egotistical drives to eventually satisfy one's wanting for whatever - in this example spontaneous urges for future addiction abuse. When we ask of ourselves can we stay quit, and we answer ourselves with who knows? we are being vain within an addiction empowered mindset. This kind of vanity requires a measure of selfish satisfaction be embraced and nurtured to be later rewarded with addiction abuse for the risky undertaking of such foolishness in thinking.

I'm thinking when the risk of possible future failure in staying quit has greater probability because of so-called "unkown's" being played out in one's mind overcomes the risk of possible short-term consequences, thereafter staying quit becomes less a forever task and more just a temporary effort. In this mentality one's AV runs riot, and one then struggles with self-created delusions of unwanted failure in quitting against desired success in abusing.

For me, vanity and projected unresolved addiction scenarios go hand-in-hand. In my experience with addictive voice, I cannot be entertaining AV and at the same moment be straight-up with myself. To play with my addiction voice is to at the same time play with my vanity. That is, to play myself as being ignorant of the real consequences not only in the final result of abusing myself with alcohol and drugs, but importantly also in real time abusing of my sober mentality and mindfulness well before any actual taking of whatever drug. To do such real harm to my psyche, and then to cop-out on myself by declaring myself irresponsible for my probable actions because I'm playing the "who knows?" card would speak directly to my vanity being in full bloom.

Hope that helps to understand my meaning, my friend Verte.

Fluffer

I for one am glad to be the hell out of the city and into suburbia of a different city where I couldn't find coke if I wanted it. In Brooklyn I was always a few beers away from copping some blow and being up all night. It's kind of ridiculous when they sell out of your local bodegas. No external controls at all.