Waiting for the Rock Bottom
Posted on Monday, January 17, 2011 by Alex R. Cronk-Young
That podcast would have been a huge help to have back then, because it's brought up everything that I completely missed. Of course, our entire relationship for that year or so was doomed from the beginning, just like it was with Kevin and Jay. You can't babysit an addict. Sooner or later they will find a way to betray your trust. Only until they hit rock bottom can they begin to pull themselves back up, and protecting them just prevents that from happening. I know that now.
The one day that I trusted him by himself, was the day it all went to shit. Zoe grandpa had died and I wouldn't be able to make the visitation because of papers. My cousin said he could do them for me, so I entrusted him with my car. This was obviously a mistake, as he drove to his old drug dealer and cleaned out the change in my car to buy a bunch of Xanax and some beers. When we got home later that night we found him passed out on the couch and the fun began.
I went through his stuff and found his old drug stuff was still around, so I called the cops. They came and took it away to test it, which sent him over the edge. He left out the front door with a backpack full of clothes in the middle of the winter. Apparently he slept on the steps of a church. I saw him the next day and without the beer and Xanax he was much less angry. He was waiting for his brother to come pick him up, someone who has more than enough addiction problems himself.
I doubt that was his rock bottom. I'm not even sure if he has hit a rock bottom. I haven't talked to him for a couple years now so I'm not really sure. I imagine if he had recovered I would have gotten a call or email as part of that whole owning up to all the people you hurt part of the process, but I haven't.
Listening to Jay and Silent Bob Get Old just brings up those old memories. I kind of miss having him around all the time. In between the occasional moments of having to act like a parent to my 6-months-older-than-me cousin, it was fun. Of course, I don't think we're at the point of hashing out all of those nasty little details yet. I'd love to get a call from him and be truly convinced that he is over all of the addictions. It would be great to have one of my best friends back, because that entire experience really ruined our relationship. I used to look up to him, but a lot has changed.
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1 Response to "Waiting for the Rock Bottom"
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Tom Heistuman Says....I believe we've both discussed this topic before. I had the exact same "Jay and Bob" situation. It was my best friend/brother from high school. He wasn't related to me by blood but you wouldn't know it by how we were. Not one second went by where our free time wasn't spent being together. This is why I call him brother.
His drug slide was from weed to ecstasy, to cocaine, to heroin. He did whatever people gave him. It took three years but he finally changed for the worst; stealing my money, kicking me out of our apartment, stealing and selling anything he could find.
His rock bottom probably hit after his third time in jail, after nobody came to visit every weekend, after being forced to live in his car outside of his mom's house. He tried calling, only once, but I had said when he threw me out that he was making a mistake that I would never forgive him for. I stuck to that promise.
He was stabbed to death six months later outside his home, in the middle of the night. It wasn't a drug related crime and I'm not sure how I'd feel if it had been. I just know that I never got to reconnect with my brother.
We have similar experiences in life and this is where I hope your story differs from mine. I hope you can write in 5 years about the bad times being over. About how maybe things aren't the way they used to be, but they're better than they could've been.
I apologize for the long comment. I don't get to write about it all that much.
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