Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

by Nic Sheff

My friend drank a little bit and stopped, unable to take anymore. The thing was, I couldn’t stop.

I drank some and then I just had to drink more until the whole glass was drained empty. I’m not sure why. Something was driving me that I couldn’t identify and still don’t comprehend. Some say it’s in the genes. My grandfather drank himself to death before I was born. I’m told I resemble him more than anyone else—a long face, with eyes like drops of water running down.

I’d been sober exactly eighteen months on April 1st, just two days ago. I’d made so much progress.

And yet there I was, standing on Haight Street, drunk on Stoli and stoned out on Ambien, which I’d stolen from the med room at that rehab.

Honestly, I was as surprised by my own actions as anyone else. The morning of my relapse, I had no idea I was actually going to do it. Not that there weren’t ominous signs.

So yesterday I relapsed, driving up the 5, drinking from a bottle of Jäger.

He did a lot of drugs and we immediately gravitated toward each other. Somehow that always seemed to happen—we addicts can always find one another. There must be some strange addict radar or something.

But early that morning, when I took those off-white crushed shards up that blue, cut plastic straw—well, my whole world pretty much changed after that. There was a feeling like—my God, this is what I’ve been missing my entire life. It completed me. I felt whole for the first time.

I guess I’ve pretty much spent the last four years chasing that first high. I wanted desperately to feel that wholeness again. It was like, I don’t know, like everything else faded out. All my dreams, my hopes, ambitions, relationships—they all fell away as I took more and more crystal up my nose.

Then there were the treatment centers, two in northern California, one in Manhattan, and one in Los Angeles. I’ve spent the last three years in and out of twelve-step programs. Throughout all of it, the underlying craving never really left me. And that was accompanied by the illusion that, the next time, things would be different—I’d be able to handle it better. I didn’t want to keep hurting people. I didn’t want to keep hurting myself. A girlfriend of mine once said to me, “I don’t understand, why don’t you just stop?” I couldn’t think of an answer. The fact was, I couldn’t just stop. That sounds like a cop-out, but it’s the truth. It’s like I’m being held captive by some insatiable monster that will not let me stop. All my values, all my beliefs, everything I care about, they all go away the moment I get high. There is a sort of insanity that takes over. I convince myself and believe very strongly that this time, this time, it will be different. I tell myself that, after such a long time clean, these last eighteen months, I can go back to casual use. So I walk down to the Haight and start talking to the first street kid who asks me for a cigarette.

though the blind hungering for the high that only meth can bring has me pretty anxious.

In the next couple days, I’ll start looking for work. I mean, I’ve got it all figured out. Really.

I wonder how long it will be before the calls start coming in—how long before he knows I’ve gone out, relapsed, thrown it all away.

it is all so effortless, not like being sober and consumed by worry and fear and inhibitions.

suddenly it doesn’t seem like these are impossible dreams anymore. I feel like it is all happening—that my book is getting published and I can get any job I want

Nothing, I mean nothing, can stop me.

But as I got deeper and deeper into my using, my surfboards went untouched on their racks in the garage. I lost interest. There’s something devastating about that, though I try not to think about it.

Meth gives me that childlike exuberance. It allows me to see, to really see. The world appears miraculous

Walking through the house, I feel dirty—like I’m this charcoal stain polluting everything I touch. I can’t even look at the goddamn photographs—it hurts too much.

Her voice trembles—wanting desperately to sound…what, innocent? Something like that. Of course, there’d been times when I’d done the same thing—lying about being sober, trying to hide the fact that I’d relapsed. Lauren is able to convince her parents—at least for now. They believe her, I suppose, because they want to. My parents had been that way. I got thrown into

ended up having a sort of

breakdown—wandering the streets and talking to people who weren’t there.

What struck me wasn’t so much the specifics of his story, but rather the feelings he described.

But my parents were so hopeful and the counselors would give you more privileges if you cooperated, so I did. I said what they wanted me to say. I shared about my commitment to repairing the damage I had caused. I talked about being willing to adopt the spiritual principles outlined in the twelve steps. And I suppose part of me meant it.

didn’t want to become like some of the other men at Ohlhoff House, grizzled, toothless, having lost everything. But I still had this feeling like it could never happen to me. I had a 4.0 in high school, for Christ’s sake. I was a published writer. I came from a good family. Besides, I was too young to really be an addict. I was just experimenting, right?

The car just seemed to drive itself across the bridge to Oakland. I never came back that night.

As my behavior grew more erratic (stealing credit cards, writing checks to myself) and my lies more improbable (I just wanted to buy presents for Jasper and Daisy), my dad continued to dismiss what was happening—I was wasting away in front of him.

But since there was no crystal I could find in western Massachusetts, I started using heroin.

But the drug was expensive and snorting the white granulated powder was a waste. That was my excuse to start sticking myself with needles.

When I came home for summer vacation, I had my first experience with opiate withdrawals. It was just like in the movies—I was throwing up, shivering, sweating, scratching at my skin like there were termites crawling underneath.

Once I started IVing that drug, well, that was pretty much the end. After being off crystal for so long, my tolerance had gone back to nothing. Shooting it, the effect was so powerful, I plunged immediately into a period of about a week where, to this day, I have no idea what I did.

There was nowhere for me to go, really, but I couldn’t stay. I filled my bag with as much as I could carry. I hoisted it on my shoulder, put my eyes on the floor, and started walking out of there.

“Nic, we know you’re using again.” “Yeah,” I said—my head down. “I’m not coming back.”

“You can’t just leave,” my dad said, the tears coming now. “I have to.” “We’ll get you help.” “No. I need to do this.” “Nic, no, stop.” He reached out and tried to physically stop me. I pushed him hard. “What the hell are you doing?” I screamed. “Jesus Christ, you people suffocate me.”

But I was so scared of coming off the drugs. It was like this horrible vicious cycle. The more I used, the more I did things I was ashamed of, and the more I had to use so I never had to face that. When I reached a certain point with my drug use, going back just seemed like too far a journey. Accepting responsibility, admitting guilt, making restitution, hell, just saying I’m sorry—it had become too daunting. All I could do was move forward and keep doing everything in my power to forget the past.

I follow Gack up the rotted-out, stained, carpeted stairs, to the third floor. Hollowed-out men and women pace the halls, smoking cigarettes and calling out to us with offers of different crap we can buy.

We’ll buy a bunch of really good shit, then cut it with, like, Epson salts

or something. I’ll sell that shit so fast, man, and we’ll be able to use for free, maybe get a place to stay. I could, like, work for you. We could start our own syndicate, man. We’ll get walkie-talkies and shit.”

My head starts to tingle and I feel waves of pulsing calm sweep over me. My body goes slack and I look over at Bullet. He is smiling so big. I drift off somewhere for a minute. It is like everything is infused with this warmth and okayness.

We sit back, talking on like that. I nod in and out, not giving a damn about one goddamn thing—knowing, just knowing, that it is all gonna work out.

I am ashamed of myself and, for a moment, I can’t even remember why I’m doing any of this. What is the point? I guess it’s crystal meth. I mean, that’s always the bottom line, isn’t it? That’s the ultimate trump card for me. It is more powerful than anything.

Everything is all better after the tar and meth enters my bloodstream. I’m not even sure if that car chase was a dream—or real. But my smoking car answers that question. Everyone knows I’ve relapsed now.

I have twenty-seven messages. I listen to the first

second or so of each one, then delete them.

and there’s a cold tingling up the back of my neck. I think about Spencer, my mom, my dad, my job, and friends I left behind. I wonder if I really have come too far to go back. Yes, I reason, I have. Besides, things aren’t so bad. It’s not like I owe those people anything. This is my ...

I think about Spencer, my mom, my dad, my job, and friends I left behind. I wonder if I really have come too far to go back. Yes, I reason, I have. Besides, things aren’t so bad. It’s not like I owe those people anything. This is my life to liv...

I always get so overwhelmed trying to do everything perfectly. I can’t do a job and not put everything I have into it. I need to be the best employee, the best coworker, the best whatever. I need everyone to like me and I just burn out bending over backward to make that happen. Having people be mad at me is my worst fear. I can’t stand it. There is this crazy fear I have of being rejected by anyone—even people I don’t really care about. It’s always better to leave them first, cut all ties, and disappear. They can’t hurt me that way—no one can. That’s

soles of my Jack Purcell sneakers—the left one has a hole starting to eat its way through the bottom. Still, I keep walking and I know that as soon as I do another shot, I won’t feel the pain anymore. It’s the same with my throat. As I start to come down a little bit, I can feel that I’m sick. My

I stole from my grandparents. I stole from aunts, uncles, friends. I stole and justified it and stole more. I feel sick being on the other side of

it. I feel unsafe,