Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

by Nic Sheff

Isn’t that the greatest gift in the world—just not to care? I feel so grateful for it. That’s nothing I ever knew sober.

You’ve had all the good times you’re ever gonna have with meth, heroin, or any of that stuff. It just gets worse from here on out. But there is another way. I was no different, man. I was just like you. But today, man, I love my life. I love my life.” He grins with his big block teeth and steers the car fast around the steep mountain curves. I feel like maybe he means it. “So how do I get that?” I ask. “How do I start to love my life?” “By committing yourself to the program. By doin’ what I did—going to meetings, working the steps, and by helping other alcoholics and drug addicts so we don’t have to be thinking about ourselves all the time.” “But I tried all that before.” “Did you?” “I think so.” He smiles and I can see my reflection in his wraparound black sunglasses. “Did you work the steps? Did you commit to this thing with your whole life?” “Sort of.” “There is no sort of.” I drink from the coffee that Spencer bought me.

“Everything I have in my life is a result of working the twelve steps. My wife, my child, my career, my house—everything. As long as I put my recovery first, I can never lose.

I swear, every time I’ve relapsed has been the same story. And, each time, I get a little closer to being dead. Things fall apart more quickly. I hurt more and more people. I cannot let that happen again. I cannot. Somehow I have to make this different. But how do I accomplish this?

I wonder to myself if maybe there is something chemically wrong with me. I feel so completely crazy sometimes. I don’t know which way I’m facing. All I can do is just shove all this shit to the side and try to move forward.

He tells me that each day I’m able to stay sober is only by the grace of God. I admit that I do feel very blessed, or lucky, at times and prayer does help me clear my head and all, but my rational mind always tells me that these are only coincidences. No matter how much I want to, I can’t actually believe that there is a power guiding me. It just doesn’t make sense to me on a deep, visceral level. I don’t believe in God—not really. Honestly, that scares me. I’m worried I won’t be able to work the twelve-step program. Spencer tells me to be patient. The longer I experiment with relying on God, the more I will come to believe. So I try it. I ask God for help in every aspect of my life, even if I don’t really believe it.

A disease of amnesia, right?

I want to be good, do good, be a worker among workers, a friend among friends. But there’s also this part of me that is so dissatisfied with everything. If I’m not living on the verge of death, I feel like I’m not really living.

If I wasn’t dating someone, I was searching for someone to date. It made me feel more complete. By myself I felt like I was nothing. I guess I still feel that way. Right now I have nobody. And, ironically, sometimes twelve-step meetings just make me feel worse. They remind me what a loser I am. The days that I don’t work are even harder. All this free time makes me go crazy. I have all this anxious energy in me that I just can’t release. This morning I got up and rode my bike for eighty miles. I pedaled up the PCH to Trancas Canyon. It takes over an hour to ride out there, then the climb to the top is another hour, then I have to ride back. As I stood in the shower after the long ride, I felt a rare clarity in my head. It was like my thoughts had finally turned off; I was literally too tired to think. But now I’ve drunk a cup of coffee and eaten some cereal and my mind is just going again.

I hear his voice and I start crying. The dogs are licking my tears. “Spencer, I want to die. I mean, really, I just want to go back to San Francisco and use and then die. I’m sick of trying. It’s just too hard.” I hear Spencer laugh. “Congratulations,” he says. “Welcome to the real world. I’m glad you made it.” “But I don’t want to live in the real world.” “Yes you do. You do. You called me, didn’t you?” “Yeah.” “Well then, you want to live. Look, I know how hard it is. When you’ve got nothing it seems like you’ll never pull yourself out. Give it time, Nic. You have such a beautiful future ahead of you. Just stay sober.”

“You’re right,” he says. “Right now, what you do is up to you. Once you get high, though, then you’ve got no more choices. You get high and you lose everything. But you have a real shot at building a great life for yourself and your family. Look, if you fail in ten, twenty years, whatever, then deal with it then. But if you stay sober, I guarantee that you will learn to love your life and you will not fail. I believe in you,

“It’s crazy how fast my moods change,” I say. “It’s like from moment to moment I never know what I’m gonna feel. I just wanted to die, you know, but now I feel so grateful to be alive.

These writing projects usually go nowhere, but it feels like I always have to be working on something. Writing gives me a purpose. I think in some ways it has helped keep me alive. Without it I’m not sure I would ever have enough hope to get sober—to make that decision to live.

Spencer has told me that I need to experiment with asking the Higher Power for guidance throughout the day. That way, he says, like a scientist doing research, I will collect examples of how my life changes once I start developing a relationship with God. Spencer tells me that I need to find my own interpretation of a Higher Power. He says that there is no right or wrong way to think about the Power. He says he uses the name God because it is just simpler that way—though his God has nothing to do with any religion. Spencer thinks that should make coming to believe easier for me, but I still have a hard time with it. I still don’t really believe in any of this spiritual stuff. But I trust Spencer. And I have no options.

Spencer has told me to always pray in the affirmative, as though the prayer has already been answered. I should say, “Thank you, God, for helping me be kind and patient.” As opposed to, “Please, God, help me be patient.” Affirmative prayer reinforces that you have already received the guidance, therefore you are able to focus on the solution. Saying that I need help just reinforces the problem—helping me wallow in it.

“I think I’m starting to get this talking to God thing. But I swear, man, my head hurts from trying to control my thoughts all day.” Spencer laughs. “It shouldn’t hurt, Nic. Just let go, it’ll come naturally. It really does become effortless.”

Then the meeting starts and we all take our seats. We listen to a man’s story about his crack addiction and then we all take turns sharing about our own struggles. I ask God to be with me, to help me hear. I repeat that over and over. It does seem to help, really.

It makes me wonder what my life would be like if I hadn’t relapsed. Things had been good. I had good friends who I cared about. I feel like an idiot. When we finish dinner they tell me how good it is to see me. It feels so good to hear that. I hug them when they drop me off, agreeing to call both of them tomorrow.

Some soap opera is on TV and he talks about how amazing the colors are. I laugh and try not to let on how high he’s acting. Still, he tells me that he’s sorry I have to see him like this. “It feels good,” he says. “But would I give it all up for this high? Would I give up Lucy? Michelle? My career? Our bike rides together? The friends I have?” I take his hand in mine, as awkward as that feels at first. “No,” he continues. “The life I’ve built for myself sober is better than any high a drug could ever give me.

“Being sober isn’t just about not using. Being sober is about the joy a life of clarity and living by spiritual principles can bring. There is nothing greater than that. Forget drugs. Forget needles. Forget everything. We are living to experience the undiluted amazement of life on life’s terms.

It’s like, well, it just seems so easy for everyone else and so difficult for me. I turn from these extremes of feeling on top of the fucking world—to feeling so despondent. They don’t have to struggle like I do—or maybe that’s just me comparing my goddamn insides to everyone else’s outsides.

Spencer was very supportive. He’s home from the hospital, although he can still barely get out of bed. They have him taking Vicodin, so he has Michelle dispensing the pills to him. That way, he says, he won’t be tempted to abuse them. I admire his commitment, though it’s kind of scary that after fifteen years sober, Spencer still has to be so cautious. They tell you in the twelve-step program that once you are an addict, you will remain one the rest of your life. I guess there’s still a part of me that wishes that wasn’t true.

“As long as you look for someone else to validate who you are by seeking their approval, you are setting yourself up for disaster. You have to be whole and complete in yourself. No one can give you that. You have to know who you are—what others say is irrelevant.”

“Is it weird to see me after such a long time?” I ask. He looks down at me from his bunk. “I guess it was at first,” he says. “I thought maybe, you know, you might be different or something. But you’re the same old Nic.” I let that sink in. Maybe, I think to myself, underneath it all, I am not this awful person, but a caring, loving little boy. Maybe that has never left me, even after everything.

Strange, I think, in the past there’s no way I would have been able to pull myself out of that spiral of negativity, anger, and hopelessness. I mean, at least not that fast. Something has changed. And then it hits me—maybe it’s the medication. It’s been two weeks since I started that new antidepressant and the bipolar medication. I’d forgotten about that. Sure, the change isn’t very dramatic. It’s not like shooting meth or something. But there is a slight difference. Keeping my head above water suddenly doesn’t seem so tiring.

Now is now. That’s what he always tells me. There is nothing but now and I try to hold on to that. The past is gone, the future hasn’t happened yet. This, right here, is all there is.

I’m actually shaking from nervousness as I drive back to my apartment. It’s like I’m physically sick with it. All the little tricks and whatever that Spencer has taught me are suddenly all blanks in my mind. I can’t think of one prayer—one anything.

you know, I love you,” I say. “I’ve loved you for a long time. I will devote everything to you if you’ll let me.” “Oh, sweetheart,” she says. “You’re so young. You don’t know what you’re saying.” That hurts. I feel a cold shiver all through me. “Baby,” I say, “I’m so much older than my age. I’ve seen so much—so much.” “I know you have, my darling.” We talk for a while—just saying nothing really—and then she falls asleep. She wraps herself tight around me and I can hear her snoring loud in my ear. Me, I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep. I’m lying here with my fantasy—my dream. She’s holding me against her nakedness. I think about her—about her life—about this obsession I’ve had with this girl for more than a year. The thoughts just keep spinning like a record player in my mind, but eventually I fall asleep. I fall asleep next to this girl.

Anyway, the combination of praying and exercising to that extreme brings me to an ecstatic place—a height where I feel like I’ve become a part of that EVERYTHING once again. It’s like drugs. I mean, it is. Shooting crystal was the only way I ever got to connect with that “oneness” in the past. On the verge of death—chemicals turning my blood to poison—barely able to speak or move—in that helpless state of drug addiction, I have experienced a sense of connection with the very essence of death and life that has been unparalleled. And, similar to that, working out to the absolute furthest extremes of my body’s capacity—my lungs and legs torn apart—while using Spencer’s methods of prayer and talking to God, well, it is euphoric. It has replaced drugs for me, absolutely. It is such a great high.

This movie star is talking to me about his struggles getting sober—asking me questions, which I’m answering like an expert. Everything I say seems so clever and I hold the entire audience at complete attention. Honestly, I never want this feeling to go away. I am, finally, somebody. That may be shallow, but it is the truth.

“Just acknowledge it,” says Wayne. “Hopefully someday you will love yourself enough to choose a partner who instills peace in you, not fear. But for now just try and feel it.

The focus here is really on loving yourself. That idea is something I never really understood before Ray. He talks to us with such honesty about his own struggles hating himself—not feeling like he was good enough. As Ray shares, I can see so many similarities in our stories. Maybe it was my self-loathing and insecurities that made me act the way I did. That’s sort of an amazing realization for me. I never really thought about the fact that I’d have to learn how to really care about myself in order to stay sober. I always thought it was more about learning to care about other people. Like, I should stay sober for Jasper and Daisy, my dad, Spencer, friends, girlfriends. I never understood that I have to really want to live for myself and as myself—not as anyone else. If I could be content with who I am, I wouldn’t have to escape myself always.

There’s something amazing about being able to actually feel stuff now. I’m not sure what it is exactly that they’ve done to me here, but as hard as it is, I am so grateful to actually be connected with what’s going on with me.

“I’m not good enough on my own,” I say. “I mean, I am just nothing.” I’m crying a little now, the tears hot on my face. “You’re not nothing,” she says. “Stay here with us, Nic. Trust in this process. We can teach you how to feel confident about who you are. You don’t need to escape through drugs, or sex, or anything anymore. Don’t deny yourself the gift of recovery. You deserve it. You deserve to love yourself.” “How long did you think I should stay again?” I ask. She smiles. “Three months, at least.” I look down at the paisley carpeting. “Okay…yes…fine,” I say. Annie gives me a hug and I don’t pull away.