But, then again, there were a couple things people said that did stick with me. Not like they were gonna make me do a total one-eighty or anything, but they were still there, nonetheless—nagging at me—corroding the complex, nearly flawless infrastructure of denial and self-justification I’d constructed all around me. They fucked with my high. They held me back from losing myself so completely. Hell, they even say that about the twelve steps—something about how once you start going to meetings, you’ll never be able to go back to getting high the way you used to. And it’s the truth. Once I had some knowledge about alcoholism and addiction, it was impossible to go back to using all carefree and fun. The meetings and the things people told me had pierced the armor of my fantasy world. Somewhere inside I knew the truth. And, yeah, once it was there, I could never get rid of it completely. Even tweaked out of my brain, holed up in some apartment—even then a little twelve-step saying or whatever would come creeping into my consciousness, poisoning me with doubt and unwanted self-reflection. ’Cause, yeah, people definitely aren’t lying when they say ignorance is bliss. The only problem is, well, in this case ignorance can kill you. And the bliss doesn’t really last that long, anyway.
So, who knows, maybe these kids are hearing something that might stick with them, and maybe they aren’t. Either way, they do seem fairly entertained, so at least that’s something, right? They laugh at my dumb jokes and gasp at the brutal parts and stay quiet in the sad parts, and it feels good. I tell them my story, and I try not to swear, and I follow the fifteen-minute time limit as best I can.
When I finish, the crowd really applauds loud and long, and I’d say at this point I’m mostly just glad it’s over. I mean, we still have, like, a ten-minute question-and-answer period left, but that’s actually the part I like the most, anyway. I way prefer listening to other people’s shares, rather than blabbering on about myself. So I ask the audience if they might have any questions, and surprisingly, like, twenty hands shoot up. In fact, each time someone asks a question or shares or whatever, more and more of the kids keep raising their hands and shouting things out and getting super excited about participating.
But after answering a question from a boy who asks what I think he should say to his friend who recently started doing cocaine, I notice a young, slightly overweight girl with black ringlets raising her arm up very straight and still—crying silently, so her heavy black eyeliner is smudged and running down her sickly pale, translucent skin. Of course, I can’t help but call on her. I mean, it definitely seems like there’s something she wants to say real bad.
So, yeah, I call on her, and the entire auditorium goes quiet as she struggles to let her voice out.
“Th-thank you for sharing your story with us,” she stammers, her still-childish voice wavering unsteadily. “It was very… uh… br-brave of you. And you… you’ve made me realize that I need to ask for help. I’m… I’m exactly like everything you said. I feel exactly the same way you did. You said it all perfectly. And… I… I don’t know… I’m really scared. I need help. My… my mom and dad just got custody of me and my sisters back after seven years, but now they’ve started using meth again, and I know I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but they’re really scaring me. And now I’ve started doing it, too… just a couple times, but, still, I had all the same feelings you had, and now I don’t know what to do.”
She cries hard and loud. There are a couple of her friends sitting next to her who take turns cradling her while she cries. Everyone else in the auditorium is beyond quiet.
“Man,” I say stupidly into the microphone. “What you just did was so amazing and brave and totally inspirational, and I wish I could make everything better, you know? I wish I could tell you what the right thing to do is. But, I will say this, having just shared right now, like you did, is absolutely the first step. Everyone knows now. And I bet that’s pretty scary, but it also means that now you’ll be able to, hopefully, depend on the community here to give you the support you need—especially if you don’t have that support at home. So all I can really tell you is just to keep being open about what’s going on with you, and I’ll totally give your principal here some contacts for professionals you might want to talk to and… and… shit, I don’t know. I’m so impressed with how courageous you are. I wish more than anything I’d had that kind of bravery and insight when I was your age.”
I see her nod as her friends continue to hold and rock her in their arms. The rest of us stay silent for a while—doing what? I don’t know—just breathing, maybe. We are all here together, and I feel this intense closeness suddenly with every one of these kids. I mean, I have to admit, it’s pretty amazing to realize that through getting honest about my own shit, I’ve allowed other people to maybe start doing the same thing in their own lives. It’s weird. But, uh, cool, too. And being here, I do have this feeling like this could be something I truly want to do with my life, you
