(3/13) “Three months later I’m out at a club with a friend. It’s...

(3/13) “Three months later I’m out at a club with a friend. It’s 2 AM. I’m getting tired, so I say I’m going home. He pulls out a key and says: ‘sniff this.’ I’d never done a drug in my life, not even weed. Not even once. But I figured I’d be dead in two years anyway, so I said fuck it. One sniff. And that’s all it took. Meth makes you feel invincible. It erases all your insecurities. The perfect drug for a guy like me, hiding a secret like I was hiding. But it wasn’t cheap like today. And when you really want something, but you can’t afford it, there’s only one option. At first I was just selling to stay high, but I have to be the best at whatever I do. Not a bad quality when you’re managing a 5-star restaurant. Horrible quality when you’re selling meth. I went from a quarter-gram, to a gram, to an ounce, to a kilogram. Never violent, never hurt nobody. But the drug turned me into a sociopathic scumbag. I’d rip people off, and not give them their drugs. I’d get 57 parking tickets on a car I was borrowing. I withdrew from all my friends, all my family. My mother never gave up on me, I will say that. She’s relentless. It was four years of unanswered voicemails: ‘Why are you doing this? What are you running from? Why, why, why?’ There were no voicemails from my father. But I did see him once, at the garden shop. I’d lost 20 lbs. I hadn’t shaved. I hadn’t showered. He said: ‘Whatcha doin’ Johnny? You’re breaking your mother’s heart.’ And that was it. He could never tell me that I was breaking his heart too, because that would require an expression of emotion. But I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything. I wasn’t even Johnny Gargano anymore; I was a taker. And every taker runs out of things to take, and people to take from. Takers end up in Room 911, with their face pressed against the carpet, and their hands cuffed behind their back. I’ll never forget when the Feds marched me out of the lobby, this 6’5” black guy walks up. He’s wearing a suit. He’s got a walkie talkie in his hand. He says: ‘Excuse me, are you John Gargano? You’re never allowed in a Lowes Hotel again.’ Even the cops laughed at that one. I said: ‘Bro, I’m going to jail for the rest of my life.’”