It was thirty minutes until time to head to the airport, and I was screeching away in my car to buy drugs.
I met the supplier and got my Oxys. As I drove toward home, breathing a deep sigh of relief, I felt my car hesitate. The car lurched, and I realized my Mustang was out of gas. I had to pull over by the side of the road, with no time to fool with flagging someone down to get gas. I could fill the car up or make my flight. Not both.
I called my parents frantically, and there was nothing for them to do but hurry to where I was. Mom was going to drive with me to the airport, and Dad would stay back to get my car running again. They had to change all their plans on the spur of the moment.
I had no words. How much stress could I cause them? Did they have a limit?
We did board the plane, took off, and as we rose above the clouds, I told Mom, “Well, we’ve gotten through the easy part. Now all I have to do is defeat drug addiction.” Mom didn’t laugh, but then again, it wasn’t very funny.
We landed in San Diego, crossed the border, and met some of the other people making the same recovery pilgrimage. I remember seeing this tall, blonde woman with her son, who was skinny, dead-eyed, clearly addicted. She was tense and anxious; he was damaged and beaten down. I realized that for everyone out there with my problem, several innocent bystanders surrounded them, people like this woman who was suffering helplessly, desperate to rescue someone she loved. And I wondered if my mom and I offered the same appearance.
The clinic was in a very ordinary, unimpressive building. It could have been the corner chiropractor’s office. We stayed at a motel nearby, and we walked past all the local farmacias every day to get my treatment.
During the first morning, I met a guy named Carl, an addict who’d come by himself. I knew that broke the rule of “bring somebody with you.” Carl and I started our regimens of IV treatments that lasted several hours. All it really took was patience—little sickness, no agony. Not a bad deal.
Dr. Hitt explained how drug abuse damages the neuroreceptors in the brain. I already had issues in that department as someone with ADHD. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that regulates motivation, rewards, and pleasure. Do something satisfying and you get a happy little dopamine surge. People with certain kinds of neuroreceptor issues become sensation seekers. They’re born, to some extent, with an addiction to positive stimulation. They chase the surge.
This is enough of a difficulty to live with on its own, but drug abuse takes all that and renders it a train wreck—it damages the neuroreceptors, and it creates a cycle of seeking the drug and needing it even more. Anyone can be an addict, but certain people are absolute walking targets for addiction. That was me.
After a consultation with the doctor, I knew I was in the right place. The success rate of his treatment was superior to any other treatment on the market. At the clinic, the nurses injected an amino-acid solution into my blood. The job of the aminos was to repair damaged proteins and help the damaged neuroreceptors rebuild in the right manner. To put it more simply, I was receiving intravenous treatments that fed my body’s craving, but in a healthy way—which bought enough time for my body to get over its need for the wrong stimulation.
Within a couple of days, I could feel the difference. I was thinking clearly, the way I used to. I was feeling better, had a good appetite, and was alert.
Within three or four days, my mom told me she didn’t recognize me. “Robby, you haven’t looked this good in years,” she said. “It’s remarkable. But what’s going to happen once we check out and go home? Are you going to go right out on the street and buy some more pills?”
“I don’t think I will,” I said. “I have no desire to. The cravings are gone.” I felt stronger, but I wanted to be as honest as possible. “For now, Mom, it seems like I don’t need that stuff anymore. But we’ll just have to see how all of this holds up.”
Mom nodded her head. She wanted to believe.
On the fifth day, the doctor asked me, “Robby, have you seen Carl?”
“Come to think of it, I haven’t, Doc. Hasn’t he shown up?”
“Nobody has seen him.”
That evening we heard the news. Carl, who hadn’t brought anyone to support him, had seen someone selling black tar heroin, something he’d always wanted to try. As I said, Tijuana has its dangers. In a moment of weakness, Carl had tried some—maybe he figured just a touch wouldn’t do any harm. He couldn’t have understood it undermined the entire, expensive, time-consuming treatment he’d come here for.
Carl was found beaten up, left by the road, and in no condition to continue. He had to be sent home.
I always wondered what happened to Carl. Was that his one shot at getting better, or was he able to raise the money all over again to come back to the clinic, or even recover some other way?
I realized how important it was to fend off that dangerous impulse, that “moment of weakness.” No cure is foolproof, because we all play the fool; it just takes that one bad moment. I told myself I’d never be like Carl—I was too smart. Thinking that, of course, was the ultimate sign I wasn’t smart enough. And it wouldn’t be long before I, too, would play the fool.
After ten
