Fool moon green man with red rose – foto by Smith

Junkie Business

I’m losing my last two crutches:
coffee
and marijuana

In the old days
I could have coffee
after dinner.

You know,
this junkie business
is for younger bodies

You keep doing it,
and pretty soon,
you end up like Keith Richards,
falling out of trees
and landing on your head.

— Smith with Lady K, 2006 (in Marrakech, Morocco)

I’m losing my junkie status.

No, that’s not true; I lost my junkie status over a decade ago. It’s just now I’m accepting it.

This year was legal prescription drug heaven. And hell.

During my hip replacement in May, they put me to sleep with Propofol. I said, “Isn’t that the drug they killed Michael Jackson with?” They answered, “Yes, but we’re much better at it.” I waited to judge its effects, but there’s not a single memory between being told what it was and waking afterward.

When they took me to recovery, the nurse injected me with Dilaudid, and as soon as it hit my system I smiled real big at the nurse and went, “Wow, now I know why this was Elvis Presley’s favorite drug.” I know it sold on the street 15 years ago for $50 per pill because I bought one, although it was probably counterfeit because it didn’t work.

They moved me up to rehab and gave me two Percocet pills every four hours, the drug Jerry Lewis became addicted to. I can see why — it do kill pain.

I came home two days later with 90 legal Percocets to control the pain, plus I had another 60 scripted Vicodins left over from pre-operation pain management — and they both very effectively dulled my MAJOR bone-on-bone torn-flesh sawed-bone agony.

And earlier in the year I got a Valium prescription to help me handle me as I was trying to keep calm helping Lady through her reality attack.

But I’m no longer as young and vigorous and healthily stupid as I once was; and while I seriously appreciated the pain relief, I did not like the logy, thick, dull dense body high; in fact the “high” was no longer a high, just something to put up with. And of course serious pain medication creates serious constipation problems, so you gotta choose your misery cuz you can’t have it both ways.

This morning I foolishly drank two cups of super strong Costa Rican pan made cowboy coffee and my body started screaming “why did you swallow so much speed?” So I dug out my prescription Valium, took the last pill, then swallowed the Valium dust in the bottom of the bottle that had accumulated from cutting each pill in half (which probably equaled a whole nuther pill) and I got a body high so high my mind said “No. Enough. I do not like this. THIS IS NOT ANY FUN.”

So I’m finally biting the bullet, giving up coffee, foregoing any pills unless absolutely mandated by the doctor, while still wishing for the one drug I still love – grass . . . which of course I cannot afford here in America. It cost me $30 for a quarter pound of top-shelf Kind/Chronic smoke during my 15 months in Mexico, which I purchased every month, plus a couple grams of hash and opium — all that up here would cost me over a thousand a month . . . probably way over.

I’m also cutting way down on sugar, which is another poison drug; fortunately we’ve already cut out eating meat most days.

So, welcome to reality Mister Smith. Although I’ll be clean and sober, I’ll never be “straight” — I was bent before I ever did drugs and alcohol, and shall remain strange after.

I guess it’s about time — I’ve had a 44 year run on drugs, maybe 20 on alcohol before I drank myself to death in 1991 and woke in intensive care — haven’t had a sip since.

Folks wonder about my art and poetry and drugs. I wrote poetry and made art way before I ever took a drink or did drugs; I wrote poetry and made art all through drinking and drugs; did the same during my mostly drugless 14 months living in Europe; and will easily do so now.

It’s time. I’m tired of being mini-me; time to become maxi-me.

Oh the adventures I’ve had along the way.

Oh the adventures that await.

Life is good. Loving Lady even better. Having my health the icing on the sugarless cake sans coffee. (I’ll still toke ganja at parties though, as long as I’m not buying.)

This all is slightly humorous because I wrote a drug song this morning just as the Valium was nicely kicking in; we’ll record Thursday and if it’s any good, I’ll blog it Friday. It’s titled Prince Valium . . . maybe I’d best re-title it Goodbye Prince Valium.

I’ve known for twenty years this day was coming, and I fought it every day of the way.

“When you’re headin’ for the border lord
You’re bound to cross the line”
(Kris Kristofferson – Border Lord) – fotos by Smith