IT’S TIME - ZACH’S RESPONSE
When you read my mom’s article, you probably imagined a man engulfed in darkness. An evil, dissociative, and sociopathic monster with one goal: to get more. A nearly homeless drug addict and alcoholic who you would consider dirty, disgusting, disgraceful, and selfish. You’d be right. I was all those things. Let me tell you the thoughts of the boy mentioned in my mom’s article. This is not an attempt to justify, this is simply to further reiterate and corroborate her nightmare- to emphasize the insidiousness of my substance use disorder. I grew up in a perfectly beautiful small town, with dedicated friends and good grades to match. I played sports, drummed in a band, and took pride in who I was and the endless possibilities I had in my future endeavors. That was until 2009. By 2012, in just three short years I had: robbed, stolen, cheated, lied, destroyed every relationship in my life, dropped out of college, got fired from my job, crashed my car on multiple occasions, broken into homes, and found myself on the receiving end of hypodermic needles on a daily basis. Have you ever had that nightmare where you scream and can’t make a noise? The one where you run for your life but your feet won’t move? This was my addiction. Every day felt the same, the substance that once quieted those pesky thoughts and emotions so effectively was no longer working. I needed more, and that’s all that seemed to matter. I swore time and time again that I couldn’t do it anymore and that it was time to stop.
Then, suddenly I would blink, wasted, and look around wondering “How the hell did this happen?”
All the power and the choice I had once had were gone; I had no say in what I wanted anymore - I had forfeited the steering wheel. My parents whom I idolized and adored became easy targets to manipulate and gaslight. The friends whose relationships I cherished didn’t matter anymore. Anyone who could not be used as a tool to get “more” was pushed to the side (once their pockets were checked, of course). I became a soulless machine with a hijacked mind. I was too tired to live and too afraid to die. My only mercy was to live through a greyed blur with a severely disrupted recording of memories; my parents, on the other hand, suffered as forced biographers of my escapades. They remember every single horrific and disgusting thing I did and put them through while I was fully confident I had them fooled. My parents are extremely intelligent individuals, both having held very successful and lucrative careers. They raised my sisters and me with absolute unending love and support.
ZACH’S STORY
HOLA SOBER | MADRID
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