lelapants

Through the course of the next few months, I began to lose touch with reality as well as with everyone around me. The deeper I got, the scarier things started to become. Not only was I a paranoid mess but the people that I was doing business with were just as suspicious of my craziness. But the money kept pouring in and for the time it was ok. There would be nights that I may have said too much, and had to be checked into place. Usually with a back hand to the face, but that was the business I was in, and obedience and respect were a prerequisite for my job. If things got sticky there would be no loose ends left undone, and I thought about that every day. Whether it was a phone call asking me to drive one of Tony’s associates to a certain location, or a sit down with an uncle, I was always consumed with fear that it was my time to go. Going without sleep, and constantly chasing a high, was turning my life into a nightmare. I can remember sometimes thinking to myself, when was the last time I ate, and for the life of me, I couldn’t even come close to remembering. People could see how bad I was getting, lips peeling off, cheek bones protruding out of my face, my nose was so ****** that it usually took about a half gram just to eat away at the scar tissue that was building in my nostrils.

It was around this time that I started to get romantically involved with Jodi. Jodi was a fellow freshman who lived just down the hall and would buy pot from time to time. She was a sight to behold, tall, slender, and had long curly brown hair that came just below her shoulders. A rare beauty, and a Jewish princess, the only major problem was that she did not approve of my lifestyle, and only put up with it for about a month or two until she finally gave me an ultimatum. Obviously, I just couldn’t walk away from what I was doing so I told her that in time I would slow down and back away. This worked for a while, and I did slow down, a lot. But I couldn’t keep the junkies at bay, and I had a real hard time telling my Italian friends that I wouldn’t be needing as much product anymore. So just as quick as I slowed down, I had to pick up heavy again, just a little bit more discreet. I can remember many nights coming back to my room around three or four in the morning to see her sitting, crying at my doorstep. I knew this wasn’t going to work, this girl was a little crazy and in my line of business crazy gets people killed.

I had another love interest at the time, her name was Lindsey and she lived in the dorm building right across from mine. She was the polar opposite of Jodi, and a natural beauty. She was the kind of girl that I dreamt one day I would marry, dark hair, dark skin, and beautiful eyes. She didn’t care what I did, or who I would associate with. So I tried to spend more time with her, seeing as I could take care of business and have a beautiful woman at my side supporting me. Who could ask for anything more? I can remember one night while she lay asleep in my bed; I was up and waiting for tony to come by, there was a knock on the door and in he walked with two others. They were here to talk about business and drop off some new product. This was Lindsey’s first encounter with organized crime, and although she lay still her eyes were wide open as Tony sat down on the couch a foot from her face, pulled out his pistol and started railing out some of the new stuff. She pulled away slowly, but he noticed of course, and politely asked if she cared to partake. “No thanks,” she said and rolled over. That’s my kind of girl I thought to myself as I inspected the drugs. But I am sure that’s when she realized that her new boyfriend wasn’t just a normal campus pusher. Can you Imagine, just a small town girl from Wisconsin having a gun put in her face as she lay in her boyfriends bed, while he and his “associates” discuss how to control the drug trafficking on campus, unbelievable, but she stayed….

lelapants

"Strange City, Crazy Women, Good Drugs.." Page 9

This was the point of change in my life, where my addiction escalated into what eventually would bring down the walls of self-control. At no point did I realize how bad things were getting; there was no hesitancy on my behalf. I was running hard, and not looking back. There would be brief intervals of clarity, only to be interrupted by my phone buzzing and another sale to be made. It was a never ending cycle of abuse coupled with an overwhelming sense of egotistical pride that plaques me to this very day. Evidence of self-neglect and mental insanity could be seen by everyone observing my life and actions. Even now, as I write, looking down at my torn up hand, I can see that this disease is continuing to destroy and trying to end my life. The reference to my hand comes seemingly important to my writing, because even though I am trying to piece together what has happened to me, I still go out and search for that remedy which would allow me to be just one of the normal people. Well this week my search ended upside down in my car, and later in a mental hospital for a few days.

When I entered into Tony’s world things just got more intense. I was introduced to his people who were scarier than he was, and I became their guy at the university. There would be many late nights, and early mornings. Guns scattered around my dorm room and threats made to my floor and dorm supervisor. I had free reign to do whatever I wanted the building was my playground. People could come and go as they pleased, and my poor roommate was forced to live down the hall with one of his friends, to scared to stand up for himself, seeing as if he did, he could end up in a trunk of a car in the Chicago river. I was in way over my head, and all of my people I sold pot to were now cocaine junkies. I much preferred the weed junkie to the cocaine junkie, because when a person is strung out for days on cocaine, spending their trust fund money, they are very unpredictable. After being caught with a half gram they were always the first to flip and tell the police everything. This is why I made it very clear to my clientele just who they were ******* with. They would come into my room sit down and nestled by my keyboard in plain sight was usually a pistol, or one of Tony’s many associates would be there looking like he just stepped out of a Scorsese flick. It was completely out of control. I didn’t really have friends anymore, Dan was the only one that still hung out with me, we would go out to the bars most nights and run into friends, but I was usually way to fixated on sniffing out potential buyers.

It was like working two full time jobs, one was selling weed, now usually by the ounce or quarter pounds, and the other was selling cocaine. I would get the potheads hooked on coke, because when I would go to deliver a bag I would always rail myself out a line and say, “hey man try this new coke I just got.” Very seldom do people turn down free cocaine, and although a slight loss, it always came back to me three fold. I was on the move all day every day from building to building, paying people off, selling, picking up, and it was cold as **** in Chicago but I stayed high. People were happy, I was happy, blinded by the light of intoxicating ecstasy that coursed through my rapidly depreciating body. At this point I wasn’t concerned with my health, my weight was dropping, my mind was going, but I was making money and loving every minute of it.

lelapants

Hello, My Name Is Charlie Im An Alcoholic...

SUNDAY, JULY 8, 2012

"Strange City, Crazy Women, Good Drugs..." Page 8

There was a certain sense of reluctance that winter, when my parents dropped me off at school. Although they hadn’t seen my grades for the previous trimester I assured them that all was well, and that my scholastics took precedent over anything. Realistically, the only mathematics I was computing were the profits from which distributing drugs throughout the campus would bring. It totally consumed me; I felt that I needed a jump start on the New Year and a step up in the drug world. I immediately stated discussing prices and quantities with all the different players in the dorm buildings and slowly I began delivering a chain of supply that even my dealer couldn’t keep up with. Either he was scared to start moving more, or he was just too concerned with his school work. But to me this was a full time job and there was absolutely no time for anything else but improving my clientele and personal growth. I had gone from being a nickel and dimer, to a supplier.

I had no time to wait on my feeble minded supplier. So, one weekend when he had to go back home to where ever the hell he was from, I had him introduce me to his connection. This is when the business started pouring in and finally I was having trouble keeping up with the influx of pot being delivered. Not a problem, I just had to find more customers, and I did.

Before I took this last leapfrog move over my previous connection, I was doing pretty well, normally making close to a thousand a week. But as my mother always says, “easy come, easy go” my buddies and I had started to dabble slightly in cocaine, but I really didn’t understand the drug. Dan and I would sit in my room snort lines and talk. Subjects ranging from our conservative political views, women, past high school experiences, and listening to music such as talking head’s psycho killer, and of course Eric Clapton’s cocaine. We were doing it all wrong, I came to find out later that cocaine by itself is torture, it can really only be used as a social tool. One which allows the ability to drink the night away and keep going to oblivion.

It wasn’t until one night while I was doing my usual, sitting in my room serving people up bags of pot, that my friend matt introduced me to Tony. Tony epitomized the Italian meatball, standing about six foot four, muscle tee, and tattoo of Italy on his bicep. I could tell he made my buddy nervous just being around, but he said that he “had” to meet me. Immediately, he started to inquire about connections and prices but I really wasn’t really interested in discussing my business with him. But he assured me that he could get better prices and better quality. Well I didn’t know anyone in my entire campus that had better weed than me so I blew off his proposal and sold him a small bag to smoke on. Disregarding the encounter I showed them out and quickly pulled my friend aside and said he really shouldn’t be bringing people like that around me.

Well, about five hours later, I was getting ready to close up shop and go to bed, when there was a loud knock on the door. I couldn’t tell if it was the police, resident advisor, or just somebody that really needed some herb. I looked through my peep hole, and sure enough there he stood, the beastly Italian that was annoying me five hours ago. I opened up the door, he rushed in, sat on my bed, looked me in the eyes and told me, “hey man that was some good weed, I want some more.” “Ok,” I said “did you want the same amount?” “No man, I got something for you, we can call it a trade,” he said. What happened next changed my life forever. He reached in his pocket pulled out a bag, and set a rock of cocaine on my desk. This was more cocaine than I had ever seen in my life, It weighted well over 40 grams, and I had to take a hammer and flat head just to break it in two. I railed myself out a line, looked Tony in the eyes, and said “I think we can do some business here.” The next few hours were filled with enormous lines and a lot of planning. Satisfied with my new partnership I watched the sunrise outside my dorm getting a little fresh air, things were going to get real serious, and I was excited.

lelapants

"Strange City, Crazy Women, Good Drugs..." Page 7

During the month of December, my father let me work at his office. Although obviously concerned about my behavior at home, he chose to take a naive standpoint towards the situation. Working for the family business was a complete nightmare. His older brother was in charge of the entire operation and my father was the whipping boy, always doing all the work behind the scenes. There was a constant disharmony between the two, that had obviously been festering since childhood. The business was started at the turn of the century by my grandfather, and his uncle. It was kept in the family, and had been around close to one hundred years.

My uncle and father sold coaches, limousines, caskets, and basically everything you could find at a funeral home, that was not part of the building itself. My uncle was very much stuck in the old ways of doing things, while my father constantly tried new ideas towards bringing their business into the twenty first century. Of course, having no real knowledge of technology, my uncle was constantly pestering my father on the intercom between their offices. This was always very traumatic to my father, raising his blood pressure to dangerous levels. Ever since I was a child, I spent a lot of time in their company, always seeing it as a steel cage death match between the two; it was truly a smoke filled, sweat locker of raw human emotion. My aunt had worked at the office years prior, but in avoidance of a similar fate to my father’s, she left and entered into the field of education. She obviously knew that dealing with a bunch of pubescent high school boys, was much easier than dealing with the craziness that consumed the office.

So there I was, in front of a computer, piecing together what would become a new catalog for the funeral coaches. It was easy work, I could show up at ten, stoned out of my mind, and do monotonous work until it was time to punch out. I was earning around eight dollars an hour, but once I found where my uncle stored the petty cash, my salary rose considerably. I’d say there was at least a thousand dollars at a time in a little white envelope stored safely away in my grandfather’s old desk. Just about every day I would wait until no one was around, slip over to the desk, and procure a one hundred dollar bill. Never knowing when my devious activities would be thwarted, I always placed the money in my sock for safe keeping. This continued basically for three and a half weeks, until one day I went into the desk to find no envelope, but the damage had been done. I was happy with what I had gotten out of the job, and now it was time to go back home to Chicago.

Even though my job at the office was quite lucrative, most of my nights during the break were spent out with friends from high school, spending most of the money I stole. Our time was spent going to bars, and chasing the dream of any college student home for the holidays. Not too much unlike myself, most of my friends from high school were also heavy drinkers. Although when it came down to keeping up with me, most couldn’t hang. I was constantly trying to stretch the night out well past its means. I would always think to myself, “these state school fraternity pussies, they’re falling all over themselves, and I’m picking up the pieces.” This was to me, was obviously, a huge inconvenience. But sometimes, when their pieces would consist of their cute little sorority friends chomping at the bit to meet someone as mature as myself and embarrassed to be with such a fool, I benefited greatly. So once more I was placing myself ahead of others, ego constantly at a boiling point, and my reality skewed beyond possible recognition. To me this was a joke, my home town, my friends, and my family had absolutely no place in my new life. I had been reborn, I had grown up, and now finally it was time to leave everyone behind and truly make my mark on this world.
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TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 2012

"Strange City, Crazy Women, Good Drugs..." Page 6

So, now it was thanksgiving break, which for our school lasted through Christmas. I had dropped all but one of my classes, and had to go home and try to convince my parents not to strip me of my life in Chicago. This seemed like it should be an easy transition, especially when I found out that my parents wouldn’t be seeing any of my grades in the mail until after Christmas, and by then I would have already left home and be sitting in my dorm enjoying life. Even better, the payment for tuition was due December fifteenth, and I knew if I acted like everything was ok, they would be forced to continue my education.

All of this being said, it was a very hard transition for me to be back under the control and supervision of my parents. I can remember one night after being at a bar downtown, coming home to my parents’ house a little after two o’clock. Stumbling up the stairs I found my mother sitting up in bed awaiting my arrival. I didn’t even stop for a word, just opened the door to the attic and walked up the stairway into my room. My mother, with the stringency of a Nazi storm trooper, immediately halted my climb, insisting I come down and speak with her. Well, after having my independence the feeling of someone crawling up my spine the way she would seriously irritated me, and in turn, I walked down with quite the negative attitude towards the situation. Her words ran something on the line of, “where were you, how could you drive like that, how many drinks have you had???” Well, all I heard was a string of empty questions that I had absolutely no time for, I was drunk and wanted to go to bed. I think my response toward this series of questions was, “what the **** does it matter?” I then quickly turned, not thinking too much about what I had said, and proceeded to walk up my stairs once more. In my family obscenities were frequently used, and through my adolescence my mother had grown quite accustom to the disrespect I had for her. Screaming and yelling at the top of our lungs, came to be a weekly and sometimes nightly occurrence. I wasn’t too nervous about being drunk, because my drinking was something that in high school, my parents tended to bat an eye at. Well, I don’t know what she said to my father to wake him up, but the next thing I heard, while nestling my drunken ass to sleep, was my father getting out of bed and screaming my name. Now I had had it “who the **** do they think they are, no one talks to me this way, no one tells me what to do.” I immediately burst out of bed and down the stairs to see my father standing in the door way. I got up in his eyes, breath reeking of alcohol, and told him that “if he ever ******* talks to me that way again I was going to break his ******* face, and if that bitch in there says another word she’s goanna be sorry too.” My dad was tired, and pissed off now, I can remember him grabbing me by my neck, as we pushed and fought all the way down the stairs. I considered myself to be somewhat tough, and strong enough to put up a good fight, but his old man strength bested me in seconds. He threw me to the ground at the bottom of the stairs, and I arose with such anguish I thrust myself into the wall, leaving a body sized imprint in my father’s stucco living room. My dad is and always has been one of the most respectable men in my life, although drunk, young, and stupid, it never kept me from letting my temper erupt. He could have broken my neck and pummeled my face, but always in our physical confrontations could never bring any harm to me. He usually just threw me to the ground and let it be, I would eventually tire myself out. Sobering up the next morning, I had some apologies to make and also a few new promises to create. This was usually how it went in the beginning, I would **** up, apologize, and life would move on. That morning it did.

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"Strange City, Crazy Women, Good Drugs..." Page 5

During this time of my life, I was constantly fixated on immediate gratification. There was no feeling of impending doom, there was no mental occurrence that maybe I was going to end up in jail or back home. There were only feelings of addict necessity, although they were masked by the tall libraries, mess halls, and class room buildings, which surrounded me. I was constantly fooling myself into believing that this was just another ordinary college experience, and that somehow some way, at the end of the trimester, I would be able to pull it all together. I survived on this lie until the day finally came to capitalize, and I fell enormously short of success.

My personality is, and always has been one of extremes. Later in life, I would soon come to understand that this was a very common trait in an alcoholic as well as someone mentally ill. I seem to fit both categories; either I am running high on natural emotion, or sinking deep, due greatly in part to my drinking. Drugs were also a constant tormentor, although at the time, being unable to comprehend the gravity of my situation, I tended to disregard my usage.

I was always looking for the next high, the next party, or the next women. Even in high school I can remember being out at parties drinking with my friends and when the time came to leave, depression would overwhelm me. College was no different; I would stay away from most parties, because I felt I had matured well past kegs, and natural light. The bars were really the only realistic option for me, it would never be lame, and if it was, there would always be fun lurking around the corner at another bar. At this time in my college life I was still very popular amongst my friends, no one really knew that I never went to class, and everyone thought that I was just a party animal pot dealer, who had it all together. I was always able to maintain a decent sense about me when I was drinking, before cocaine, I really didn’t make an ass of myself too often.

As I said before, in the first few weeks of my college life, me, Dan, and Rob, attracted a lot of attention from a variety of different people. Although very much like most guys our age, we were way more concerned about the women in our school than anything else. Rob was smooth, he always had some different type of women around, most couldn’t really hang with me and Dan, most didn’t have fake id’s, and were way too involved in schools or sororities. The girls that were hanging out with us on a regular basis were a little bit more into drugs than anything else. Sure we would see them out at the bars and clubs, but at the end of the night we would all walk back to the dorm buildings and retreat to my room to finish off the night with some pulls from my bong. This was my one and only move to pick up women at the time, “let’s go get high,” and it worked quite often. Capping the night off was usually a regular occurrence for me and Dan, but to some women who weren’t always as stoned as we were, it acted as an extra social lubricant, opening up opportunities for us to move in, consensually of course. At the time my biggest problem wasn’t finding women, it was keeping them from falling in love. I know it sounds conceited, but the type of women we were attracting really looked to me as some sort of a dorm kingpin, and either loved me or loved the attention that I brought. But how could I complain, I was on top, every need met, building an ego that soon would turn into a whirlwind of self-demise, and destruction.
Posted by Charlie Miller at 10:11 AM No comments:

lelapants

"Strange City, Crazy Women, Good Drugs..." page 4


I coupled my career of selling drugs, with a career in professional poker. Gambling to me was a totally different kind of high, I loved the idea of being able to sit at my computer and make money. During high school I had spent many nights in my friend’s basements losing enough money to be able to grasp a pretty good understanding of Texas hold’em. The internet game was quite different, sitting in front of a computer screen for hours, while playing at multiple cyber tables, wagering money that exists in some off shore bank, in some third world country. Interestingly enough, for the first few months I was in Chicago I had won a few thousand dollars. The extra money always helped, for when
I would receive a check in the mail, it was time to hit it hard.

Of course my luck in poker didn’t last forever; I was soon forced to start a series of bank scams that got me in some hot water. At the time I had one bank account set up at a nearby branch, from this account I had personal checks and a debit card. Having some experience in check fraud, I decided it’d be best to open up another account with a check from my initial one, even though there was no money to be withdrawn. Upon entering the bank I would act like a normal college student that was interested in changing banks because I didn’t care for the fee’s or people at the branch I was currently banking through. Always looking extremely responsible, I would say to the personal banker that I wanted to transfer funds from one checking account to my new one via check. I would then start making small talk with the banker telling how I needed to purchase a new laptop for school, so I would actually like half the check back in cash. I couldn’t tell you why, but for reasons unknown to me, they would never run the check through to see if there was any cash on the other side of the line. Maybe it was my delivery, maybe there was a glitch in the system, but before exiting the bank, and after I had set up my account, I always made sure that the banker print me off some checks with my name on them, so I could continue piggy backing my scam on other banks. Now at the time I did understand that this would eventually come back to me seeing that they did have all of my information, but it really didn’t seem to bother me. All I wanted was the greenbacks in my hand, to support the lifestyle I had grown so accustom to.

Around the time I was committing check fraud across Chicago, I had also bypassed Matt and had begun getting pot from his dealer. This was a huge benefit to me because, I explained to my new connection the reasons he had been selling more lately, was majorly in part to my hard work in the dorms. Also I discussed with him that there was always opportunity to create more business if I had more to work with. So in turn he began to give me more, a lot more. Selling pot was beginning to consume most of my time, but I loved it. I was never lonely, very popular, and everyone seemed to give me a little bit more respect than I deserved. I can remember coming home from my connection’s house, only to see Dan and Rob sitting, eagerly anticipating my arrival. I would walk in, open my backpack, and toss a pound or two on Dan’s lap asking what he thought. I knew everything was on point, when his eyes would light up, opening the bag to take a whiff… ummm.. headies…..
Posted by Charlie Miller at 4:16 PM No comments:
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"Strange City, Crazy Women, Good Drugs..." Page 3

My experiences those first few months in Chicago were characterized as joyous celebration of a new found freedom. But the reality was, having this awakening of sorts, was something I was altogether very much unprepared for. This blast of light, churning my brain into a primordial ooze, regressed my state of mind into what soon came to be the narcissistic mindset of a five year old. It wasn’t as if I had forgot the reason I had come to Chicago, but simply, that I was truly carrying out my mission I had set forth months prior. In essence, everything I came to college for was being carried out lavishly, with a grandiose approach.

After the first two months, roving through the streets of Chicago, I had almost completely burned through the money I had saved for the entire year. Knowing that continuing my lifestyle would necessitate much more cash, I had to formulate a plan. I had plenty of friends, and the reputation of a party enthusiast, so it became pretty clear to me that perhaps getting into the drug scene may strongly benefit my pocket. Selling drugs, hustling, and quick money was always very appealing to me in the past, but living at my parents’ house made these things quite tough, so I never really tried. But now I was in an epicenter of college students, and had my own room. This was basically all the justification I needed to start bringing in drugs to my building.

I started small, I knew that the guy I was currently getting my pot from would be able to sell me a little bit more, but at the time I didn’t have near the money to start the investment. This was a problem obviously because you had to have money to get the drugs, but I had a silver tongue and at the time was quite convincing. So I laid out a plan to sell a couple of bags to people that I knew would be purchasing on a regular basis, mostly my friends.

Matt was a good old boy from Kentucky, tall strong and country fed. He was desperate for acceptance into our closely knit group of friends, and when I went to him for a front, I used this knowledge to my advantage. Leverage was always a huge benefit, when trying to muscle out a dope peddler, he gave me pot, and I gave him a life. It was really good at first, but there was one problem, most of my friends that I had planned to sell to, were already buying weed from Matt. So with an entrepreneurial mindset I had decided to take a few losses and undercut his prices. Seeing that we had the same weed, I figured people that lived in my building would obviously come to me for cheaper prices. It worked, in a few weeks’ time I was moving way more than Matt and basically diminished him to being a middle man. Now it was time to take the next step up and cut him out completely.

Of course with the drugs came extra money, extra weed, and most importantly to me, extra friends. This was my favorite part about having the stigma of being a drug dealer, it cut out the ********. People knew what I was and the ones that wanted nothing to do with me stayed away. The people like me, loved being around, smoking free, going out, getting paid for, and in turn, I loved supporting it. This was ultimately my downfall, but in retrospect, my good times in Chicago far outweighed the bad. This was a happy time in my life, on top of the world, setting myself up for the fall.

Posted by Charlie Miller at 7:50 AM No comments:
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SUNDAY, JUNE 17, 2012

"Strange City, Crazy Women, Good Drugs..." Page 2

The only other person that I knew would be attending school with me was a right winged pot smoking conservative named Dan. We were from the same high school, and tended to indulge in similar extracurricular undertakings. There was only one problem with knowing one person in the entire University, where was I going to get my drugs, and more importantly how was I going get drunk? I didn’t have a whole lot of worry when it came to alcohol seeing as this was a college setting, and there were going to be a lot of parties. But, I tended to take it to a whole new level, and knew that there would only be a handful of students that would be in my inner circle. Dan had defiantly made the cut, especially when I found out he had brought with him, a rather large bag, of some of the stinkiest weed our home town had to offer. As so much goes to say, we made friends rather quickly.

The second addition to the pack was Rob. Rob was from Birmingham Michigan, he was a good looking kid who acted way to urban, to be from one of the richest cities in America, but we put up with him. So for the time being, that was that, the three of us, out and ready to take over the city, or so we thought.

The scenery around our school was that of any University in a big city, a lot of traffic, a lot of commuters, and a lot of bars and clubs. The three of us obtained fake identification rather quickly. It was fairly easy, Dan had herd through the grapevine that there was a student at a neighboring university that was fabricating them on his computer and making them look pretty damn near the real thing. That was all we needed to hear, and let me tell you this now, it was the best hundred dollars I had spent all year. That fake id unlocked the gates to the kingdom, and the three of us were free to frequent any bar in Chicago. Our favorites of course were the ones closest to our dorms. We would go out just about every night at first, praying for an opportunity to catch an unsuspecting coed a little too intoxicated and gently escort her back to our rooms. But most nights ended with the three of us wobbling back to the dorms, sometimes screaming obscenities, sometimes fighting, but most times rushing to get there quick so we could hit the bong, eat some food, and watch south park.

The three of us loved to drink and party, but we also loved to just sit around. Sitting around entailed smoking one of a variety of different kinds of pot, out of a variety of different overly priced glass apparatuses, our favorite being the Roor bong. This was no ordinary bong; it came to us all the way from Germany, and cost about five hundred dollars before shipping. The anticipation after ordering our new toy was one of extreme expectancy. Every day we would go together and check the mail room, only to be painfully depressed when it didn’t arrive. It took about five weeks but finally after those grueling thirty five days of eagerly waiting, we finally were able to see a cylindrical package made out to Dan. We had it, the bong of bongs, and now we could get higher than anyone else in our school.

Someone once told me that the beauty behind smoking pot, was it gives someone an excuse for boredom. Whoever the hell that was, they were right on target, because during the day, before I found cocaine, that was my way of life. I loved it, bringing brotherly bonding to a whole new level, we would depend on one another to get stoned. Having a spiritual connection with my friends, I would rejoice at eight o clock in the morning, meandering down to Dan’s room to hit our bong, and be brought blissfully back into a world of peaceful slumber.
Posted by Charlie Miller at 12:12 PM No comments:
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Chapter 1 "Strange City, Crazy Women, Good Drugs...."

Chapter 1

“Strange city, crazy women, good drugs…”

Ever since I can remember, living on my own, without rules, authority, or supervision was something that I constantly yearned for. Just barely graduating high school, gave me that opportunity. My high school career was one of maladjustment and bong hits. But somehow, someway I managed to gain acceptance to a very prestigious University in nearby Chicago. Never once was I excited about the academia that I would soon be thrust into, rather my interests lay in the big city lifestyle. There I would set the standard for self-reliance; I would finally have a chance to be an adult.

My parents saw it fit to personally deliver me onto my new life in Chicago. The nightmare that ensued, should have been the first sign, that this was going to be a big mistake. My excitement overwhelmed me as we ripped through the highway in my father’s 91 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham. My mother hated this car, but being stuck in the seventies, it was a piece of history to my father as he took every chance he got to take it on long road trips. Personally I thought it was a gem, clean, huge, and comfortable, driving in it would make me feel like I was making rounds on collections, like the mafia heroes I had come to adore. Cruising into the city was quite impressive, the tall buildings, the chic store fronts, and the foreign groceries, I had arrived, this was it.

Now came the rush to rid myself of the two things that still stood in my way of what I thought to be total independence. Rushing to my room, back and forth from the car, I tried to put everything I could in the center of my dorm room praying that no one saw me with my parents. Which at the time didn’t seem odd to me but now looking back, everyone was with their parents, what made mine so embarrassing? What was it that scared me so much about being seen with them? In a state of total mania, I assured them that everything was fine and that they should leave as soon as possible, it’d be easier that way. Without giving my mother so much as a kiss goodbye I kicked them out of my room, like drunks leaving a bar. Finally, I had made it, alone, my dreams come true, now I was ready to start carving out a new, free life for myself.

I choose to arrive to school a few days before my roommate, in order to situate the room as I so desired. Choosing my bed was simple, obviously the one closest to the window would suffice, being a smoker, this seemed like the most logical of decisions. Situating the furniture was the next step. Looking at my desk, which had shelves standing about six feet high, would act as a perfect partition to grant me total isolation. Then came the next problem, if I was going to entertain, I was going to need more than just a bed for my guests. The traffic in the dorm building was still slow because of my early arrival, so one of the couches from the hall seemed a perfect fit. This is where my circle of comfort started, couch, television, fridge, thus beginning my integration into total self-deterioration.
Posted by Charlie Miller at 9:33 AM No comments:
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FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 2012

Preface - Welcome To My World

“Celebrating sobriety one day at a time seems to be a strange way to live one’s life, especially at the beginning.”

Unfortunately, celebration wouldn’t quite be the word that best describes early sobriety. Pain, fear, paranoia, and a utter confusion that no one can possibly explain, seems to be a more fitting explanation of what I have been experiencing here in the last few days. But trudging along, I yearn for the promises that are spoken of at the tables of alcoholics anonymous.

Aside from emotion, I have had plenty of time to reflect on the past, as I sit in utter isolation. Trying to basically shut myself off from the world, with an urban existentialist mindset, I have truly given myself back to the nature that I have come to know throughout my life. Simply put, a television, couch, and refrigerator, leaving room for escape throughout the day into such situations that may increase my attitude towards healing my mind, body, and soul.

Of course, part of my healing process consists of reaching out and placing myself in the most difficult of situations, explaining why exactly I cannot function as a normal human being in society. Defying all forces of nature, regression is not an option, seeing as how far I have traveled through the wormhole of addiction only to start clawing my way back to reality.

Strange as it may seem, I do feel myself getting better. The break from life, and the cocktail of psychotropic drugs, newly prescribed from my emotionally challenged psychiatrist, must be doing something. Aside from the surreal nightmares and the constant emotional roller-coaster which consumes me, things are starting to look up. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, or at least maybe a glimmer of hope which may entail some sort of positive lifestyle.

Of course I have been here before, convincing everyone that life was ok, that I had overcome this impossible disease, that maybe, just maybe there was hope for me. Only to tear it all down and rip the hearts from every single loved one’s that lives I had touched. What a son of a bitch…

Although this time seems to be different, I am not quite sure yet why, but there is defiantly motivation that has never existed before. Together we will investigate this, delving into my past, present, and future, we will soon understand my purpose for existence in this world.

My interpretation of life thus far is that of immediate gratification. Soothing my inner most desires at any cost, without trepidation. This narcissistic way of living has created a whirlwind of hurt to anyone who has entered into my world. Selfishness and self-centeredness has consumed me.

Throughout my entire life I have been able to ease by without much effort. Depending on looks and a quick word, I have navigated my life into a level of existence that is a detriment to society. Drugs and Alcohol are simply a symptom of a much greater problem, which without proper assessment could continue to wreak havoc in my life of sobriety.

But, amongst all the negative skills that I have acquired throughout my years on the earth, I do believe that man is inherently good, and accordingly so am I.