My Drug Addiction

My name is Dan Abshear, and I am a recovering drug addict.

My substance abuse began with alcohol intake, in my early teens. My mother used to insist me and my older teen brother, also a young teenager, party with her, by getting drunk with her.

My mother would give alcohol to us, and my older brother's many young teenage friends, often. This went on for years. My mother, by the way, should have gone to prision for this, as this is contributing to the delinquency of minors, which is a felony. But, thanks to lazy cops and apathetic neighbors, this never happened.

However,I blame myself for my alcohol addiction, and no other. Like many other recovering drug addicts, I have a very addictive personality. That personality contributed to my abuse of substances such as alcohol.

My drinking continued to be heavy until the age of 37 or so. It was then I broke my back, sleigh riding with my daughter. And it was then, a doctor prescribed me vicodin.

Vicodin is known as an opoid analgesic. Opiates have been abused and used by many, for thousands of years (http://redroom.com/member/dan-abshear/blog/the-euphoric-violet-delight). The effect vicodin had on me was amazing.

Because, at least in my case, vicodin not only takes care of physical pain, but emotional pain as well. The drug provided a much wanted and welcomed euphoria in my life.

For those of you who are familiar with the T.V. show, "House". This is what Dr. House abuses, throughout the show.

So, while on vicodin, I stopped drinking, and started exercising intensely. I was able to do this, because I was pain free on vicodin. In fact, I got in the best shape of my life, while I continuously consumed more and more vicodin.

But, within two years, I was a full blown opiate addict. My tolerance increased with that drug, rapidly, so it seemed. I was taking between 10 and 20 high dose tablets a day, at the height of my addiction to this drug.

And, the euphoria I initially experienced with vicodin also faded to the point where it was unnoticeable. But, I kept taking vicodin, because withdrawals were not welcome, when I did not have vicodin in my system.

So, in the year of 2004 now, and I'm at a doctor convention with work. For many years, I did pharmaceutical sales, for very large pharmaceutical corporations. I'm at work with a younger guy, who noticed the tiredness and boredom of myself, and a couple of others, at this convention. This younger guy had some adderall on him, and offered a tablet to me, and a couple of others at this meeting.

Adderall is basically long acting amphetamines, used to treat ADD and narcolepsy. I had heard of the drug before, but never chose to take it. But, since I was a vicodin addict at this point in my life, I thought I would give it a try, and took the adderall pill at that doctor convention.

The effects of adderall were amazing. That night, my mind was at maximum efficiency, I felt. I began to write, and I wrote all night. It was as if adderall awakened these dormant neurons in my brain. I absolutely loved this drug.

It also initially increased my sex drive. While I had a high sex drive already, adderall initially intensified my orgasms. That combined with what I preceived to be maximum cognitive efficiency, I had found a new drug to love.

As with vicodin, I began to increase my intake of adderall as tolerance developed, while high on this drug. Also, with my adderall use, I did not sleep. In time, I started to experience hallucinations.

So I went to my favorite doctor who had been prescribing vicodin and adderall to me, and asked him for some benzodiazapines, better known as tranquilizers.

Benzos, as they are called, work on the GABA inhibitors in the brain- the same area of the brain that is affected by alchohol intake. So while on benzos, not only did I sleep, but I felt like I was drunk on this drug, on this class of drugs, which I also ended up abusing aggressively, of course.

Memory loss was a problem at this point in my life, and benzos made my memory problems much worse.

I'd say, from the years 2006 to 2009, my life is a blur. I recall very little, during this period in my life. This is all do to my enormous drug intake, from these drugs in particular.

My lovely wife at the time wanted me high on drugs all the time. We had marital issues she did not want to address. While high on drugs, I did not address these rather significant issues in our marriage. Because while high on drugs, I stopped caring about anyone, or anything.

She wanted me that way, completely full of these drugs I ended up abusing so badly, so she would go to her own doctor, and get me these drugs I was addicted to quite badly. So, I was high all the time, the last 3 years of our marriage in particular. She finally ended our marriage, my wife at the time, in the year 2009, by falsely accusing me of violently abusing her.

The law was on her side, with her false accusations, because when she did falsely accuse me of violently abusing her, I was this unemployed drug addict. Little does the law know that when I was high on these drugs, I could barely move.

I became almost completely dysfuctional, as I existed with toxic levels of the drugs vicodin, adderal, and the benzodiazapine. So abusing anyone was almost impossible, due to my toxic state, with all of these drugs in my system, almost constantly.

I also became isolated. I did not socialize with live people often. I'd just hang out at my house all day, and pop pills. The last year of my drug addiction, I was not the father to my daughter, I had been the years before this one.

Of all the destruction that has happened in my life due to my drug addiction, failing my daughter as a father the last year I was with her, will pain me for the rest of my life.

When my drug addiction finally ended, I was abusing vicodin, adderall, and a benzodiazapine, washing those pills down with about a case of beer a day. I re-acquired my alcohol intake, when vicodin stopped working for me. I was a complete train wreck, when I stopped abusing drugs, and I was also impotent, at times.

I entered drug rehab in the Spring of 2010, and I've never been compelled to use again. I was well aware I was a drug addict, when I was using these drugs Ive mentioned to you. But, I reached a point during my drug addiction where I was afraid I'd never be able to stop taking these drugs.

My addiction to them was that intense. I thought I'd be a full blown drug addict for the rest of my life. So once I stopped abusing these drugs, I never wanted to take them, ever again. And I don't miss the high from these drugs, either. I get high from other things in life now, instead of poisioning myself.

My health is remarkably well, considering what I abused for so long. There is no physical damage, from these drugs I took. Any damage I did to my brain from these drugs has been repaired, I believe.

Adderall, Vicodin, alcohol, and whatever benzodiazapine I could get my hands on- I don't miss you one bit. My experience with you was enjoyable and regrettable at the same time. You made me more aware, but you also almost kiiled me. You should not exist, but you do, and that saddens me, because that means you are harming many others now. It is my hope you are not used, by anyone, ever.

A Very Angry Email From My Daughter, Hayley

As some know, over two years ago, my then wife filed a restraining order against me, falsely accusing me of physically abusing her. As a result of her lie, I not only lost everything, but anyone I felt close to, at the time.

The day after she filed this restraining order against me, she moved in with a desired lesbian lover, who also falsely accused her own husband at the time of physically abusing her some years ago.

I remain homeless, and presently live with other homeless veterans.

Out of all that I lost due to this lie by the ex wife, my greatest loss has been that of my daughter Hayley. Predictably, our relationship has become progressively fractured, since her mother decided to try and destroy me, with a small army of like minded women she recruited for that purpose.

In the two years that followed the eviction from my own home, I have hand wrote my daughter once a week. Rarely did she ever write me back. I have Hayley's email, but I do not have her phone number, nor does she wish to share that information with me.

During the past two years, I have wrote articles, describing not only what has happened in my life, but also about the true nature and disposition of my ex wife. These articles were widely read, and received a lot of criticism.

Some believed the content i composed in these articles were full of lies. Others praised me for my bravery, for sharing my pain with the world.

Out of desperation, I decided to finally share these articles with my daughter via email. I asked her to email me back, and this is what she wrote me.....

I'm conceerned about her anger and use of foul language, but I'm also impressed with her overall vocabulary.

The lies she has been told by her mother and others are quite obvious, with what she wrote me. While painful, this did not shock me as much as you would expect. This is parental alienation at it's finest, folks. It is my hope Hayley will re-acquire a relationship with me, when she is older:


You want an email? Fine. Ill give you an email.

Stop acting like YOUR the victim here. Your not. If you are looking for a reason why your family is so fucked up I'm sure there's a mirrior somewhere. You send me links to your blog about your girlfriend, and how mom is a lesbian and how you were blamed for molestation when I was younger.

You know what? You know what that means? It means I'm not your daughter. I'm just another person who reads your blogs. Another one of your pathetic audience you try and obligate to pity you.

You send me pictures and your stupid ass love letters from you to carol and carol to you but frankly I don't care. Not one bit. If your going to contact me, have some decency to at least ACT like you care about me.

I'm not stupid and I know your only trying to get to mom through me. Don't you know how much that hurts? Your ruining my life. I sat on the bus the other day, on the way home CRYING because I sat there and read an article you sent me.

Every single one, actually. And it sickens me to the core. We may have established a father daughter relationship but that's over. I want no more. When I get an email from you, I wanna hear about how much you miss me and wish you could see me.

Not about your heaps of LIES you tell to get sympathy from every fucking person who absentmindedly reads your articles. Unfortunetly, I'm one of those people. However, other than the others,

I know EXACTLY what your talking about and I know just as well as you do that its all BULLSHIT. Every. Single. Thing I have sent to you has been from me. And if you won't believe that, then writing to you is POINTLESS.

I obviously haven't, and I'm not going to. I could go for hours about this but its a waste of my time. Metaphoricly speaking, Your not the victim. Your the murderer. And I hope that all your little friends know damn well that's true.


Oh, and for the record, this is Hayley. Not mom. If you want me to prove it to you then fine. But I'm sick of getting hurt by you. Your supposed to be MY father, however, mom's boyfriend, is more of a father to me than you EVER were. Goodbye. I'm done with you.

-Hayley

The Value Of A Handwritten Note XII

Hi Baby,

Right now, I'm enjoying a cheap beer at the Fountain on Locust. This is a very comfortable place for me to be. There are a few people here, enjoying their afternoon. They appear to be mostly middle class people here right now. I use to be middle class, not long ago.

I'm wearing my sport coat right now. So, I look like I'm now middle class myself. I'm intentionally deceiving people, so they do not suspect I am in fact homeless. There are a couple of light skinned and attractive black girls here. My black friends call such light skinned black girls, 'red bones'.

They are waitresses here, and they both have very nice smiles. My chef salad for lunch earlier today was not bad. I feel I will lose some excess weight, once I am living in Milwaukee. I've never been this heavy in my life. My friend Patrick is in jail right now.

You may recall, Patrick is my older white friend at the salvation army, who is out of control. he still uses drugs, even though he is suppose to be doing drug rehab, with the rest of us. Patrick finally got kicked out of the salvation army earlier this week.

He got kicked out for breaking curfew here, and getting busted for using drugs. So during the night last night, he showed up at the salvation army, high on drugs, trying to get his stuff here, he did not take with him, when he was kicked out of the salvation army earlier this week.

Apparently, he got into a fight with security people there, and they called the police. He'll likely be in jail for a month or more. When I was in jail over 2 years ago, my cell mate was in jail for assault, and he did about a month there in jail.

The last long bus trip I took, was when I went to Atlanta, over 2 years ago. During that trip, I wrote my daughter Hayley a long letter, that is published on my blog. I also met a few interesting people, on that bus trip. Each of us are on our own unique journey in life.

So I find people interesting, for that reason. Also, I feel that sometime, I will write about community living, which is how I live now. I live with some very unusual people in this type of setting, and I also live with some very intelligent people right now.

During my time at the salvation army, I've become friends with those who initially did not seem to like me, for whatever reason. Kenny, I think I'll miss him the most. he is the older intelligent black friend I have at the salvation army, who watches movies when I'm on the computer there.

We find each other interesting, so we talk often- mainly about human nature. Also, I've decided that I will write a book, the next time I'm in jail. I will journal what I experience and notice, while in jail. The last time I was in jail, I mainly wrote letters to Jacki, who became my girlfriend in Atlanta.

Those letters I wrote to her are on my blog, and largely reflect my state of mind, at that time. I feel I am more stable now, so the next time I write while in jail, I'll be more objective. I'm glad I'm able to help quite a few people with writing letters and resumes, where I stay now.

And I find it shocking how many people older than me lack the skills to read and write. I find such skills essential to progress in life, yet they have made it this far without those skills. I'm done writing to you in this magical notebook now. I hope you are enjoying your time with Carolyn, and you will be with me very soon.