The Needle

I had remained sober since my first AA meeting. Was it easy? No. But the fact that I was in this new and, what I thought, wonderful relationship made it easier because we went to meetings together Until I walked into the apartment one day.

There was Bob, pulling up a syringe of something. The apartment was so small there was no way he could hide it.  He said it was cocaine and would I like to try it. He revealed much later that his intention was to get me hooked so that we would both be hooked.He said it would have been much easier to carry on with his addiction if I was just as addicted as he was.  Why in God's holy name I said this I will never know but I said I would like to try it so I sat down in a chair, he found a vein in my hand and popped me with it.

It must have been like a scene straight out of “The Exorcist”! I remember that my head fell back after it hit me, then it flew back up, I shall never forget the first words out of my mouth - “I want to feel like this all the time!”

He drew his own, shot up and we were flying! My mouth got so dry from talking that I had to drink water constantly so that my tongue would stop sticking to the roof of my mouth. Sex was the last thing on my mind but I remember sitting on top of him on the bed MAKING him talk to me.

I had to have more! I called up the couple of friends that I thought might have some but to no avail! So what did we do at 1:00 AM? Jumped in the RX7 and made a drug run to Natchez! All Bob's connections were down there so it made sense to us and our drugged up selves! By the time we got on the highway our high was nearly gone.

Needless to say by the time we got there at 2:30 AM none of his dealers were answering their telephones. He actually found a little cocaine in his pocket so we snorted that for a much needed lift! It makes me cry now to think how sick we were. So very, very sick.

About the time folks started waking up and getting out we were on the lookout for dealers! We still had not slept. Every single connection Bob had that we ran down came up empty. We were scraping the bottom of every barrel in town and still nothing.

About 10:00 that night we were more exhausted than I can even describe to you. We gave up and were too tired to drive back to Jackson. We got a room at the Terrace Motel and, yes, it was as bad as it sounds but we didn't care. We walked into the room without even turning the lights on (which may have been for the best), fell out on the bed without even pulling the covers back and we passed out.

Had we found more cocaine that night or day and shot it up, because I liked it so very much, no doubt I would have been dead in just a few months.