“HEROIN IN THE MIRROR” Mainstream Media Misses the Mark

                           Karen J. Stuart 1957 - 1987

                 
An Original Collection of Provocative and Powerful Essay's by R. B. STUART. Her Work Begins and Ends at the Crux of Truth, Sorrow and Humor---Capable of Slicing Through Your Psyche and Piercing Your Heart.


By R. B. STUART
Part Thirty 

It was disturbing to hear Dr. Oz, who has become mainstream America’s Doctor say, that the attraction to Heroin is “its purity.” And ABC World News Tonight reported the telltale signs to watch for is, “paraphernalia, tracks, and pinned pupils.” I am certain that the average American does not know what a track is, never mind pinned pupils. And while we have the attention of the world on this soul-taking addiction, as the great actor, Phillip Seymour Hoffman succumbed to the need to be psychologically transported into the ethers, until he went so far he could never return…

Let the misjudgment on Hoffman’s behalf, by his agent or manager to propose the 2007 Sidney Lumet project, “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” of a Heroin addict to a former Heroin addict---be partially to blame. As being back in the mire of Heroin’s accoutrements contributed to him acquiring the taste to get high once again.     

Allow his mistaken death be the voice that reaches the families and loved ones struggling with the addiction---because ultimately the person addicted isn’t trying to kill them self, just be temporarily removed from the world that is causing him or her so much pain.

Watching my sister become an addict after her introduction to methamphetamines and cocaine at the age of 16 by a hustler/pimp ten years her senior, he knew that if she wasn’t persuaded into becoming a prostitute for a black man sober---then being high she would be. By becoming the source of what made her feel euphoric, and needing the mighty dollar to buy the drugs that made them both feel unstoppable and immortal, he’d convince her they’d have all the resources they needed if she went to work in Boston’s Combat Zone as a nude model.

After two years of physical violence and psychological abuse, she left him to seek me out in New York City. That’s where she met those new “friends,” that would show her New York’s underbelly and street scene.

No longer was CB-GB’s and Max’s Kansas City her hang outs---but shooting galleries throughout the Village. Cocaine and methamphetamines became speed balls (shooting up a blend of speed and downs), then graduated to the un-watered down high---straight Heroin.

Fast forward to the age of 29, as she laid in a Florida Hospital bed in 1987 diagnosed with AIDS. She blamed the shooting galleries in NYC and sharing needles with other junkies the culprit of her dire diagnosis. She died three weeks after she was diagnosed. Her death became a gift to transform my life, and I stopped smoking, drinking, doing recreational drugs and having casual sex.

It wasn’t only her that I watched dance with the needle, between consciousness and unconsciousness, Heaven and Hell, but a handful of other friends and acquaintance’s. My first injection at 20, guided by her hand, gave me the depiction of the high after vomiting, “I feel dead inside….nothingness. No thoughts or feelings.” She retorted, “Yes, that’s what I love about it.” I never shot Heroin again, but skin popped Dalaudids, which she complained was a waste of good drugs if you’re not going to hit a vein.

The definitions of Heroin usage for the unsuspecting public to detect in a loved one is broken-down:

 + Skin popping; injecting in the fat of the arm and not a vein.

+ Tracks; permanent black /pencil colored pin marks along a vein where an injection site is used repeatedly for shooting up the Heroin. The areas on the body can vary from the crook of the arm, to veins in the hands, behind the knees, and the feet.

+ Pinned pupils; when the black pupil of the eye becomes constricted.

+ Paraphernalia; works i.e. hypodermic needle, rubber band/bandana/belt to tie off the vein to make it protrude for injection, a piece of foil/silverware/table spoons to cook the Heroin into liquid form, cigarette lighters to hold the flame under the spoon to cook-it (the flame will leave a black soot on the bottom of the spoon), mirror used as a surface to crush the Heroin if it’s not in a powder consistency, a razor blade is used for that purpose.  

+ Vomiting within minutes after an injection.

+ Physical symptoms; a dry mouth, nodding off, scratching, slurring speech, not bathing, cluttered/unkempt living quarters, losing weight, lying, stealing (if money is a problem to buy the drug), burn holes (if a smoker) in clothes/rugs/furniture, uninterested in food, horse sounding voice, loss of concentration, skin abscesses in areas that are used repeatedly to shoot-up, swollen feet/legs/arms, sweet cravings, excessive “sleeping.”   

The quilt-work of my family and friends that became drug addicts and Heroin users during a 20-year period from 1980 to 2002, four others besides my sister would die from AIDS, one other was a Heroin overdose. And while I couldn’t grasp the reasons for the severity of their addiction during their lifetime… I found a correlation between my sister and five other friends as I became more self-aware: the common denominator was the secret of being sexually abused as a child; by a family member, Uncle or step-parent.

Twenty years ago we couldn’t comprehend childhood sexual abuse, never mind discuss it. I heard each friend’s declaration during glimpses of sobriety, but being unfamiliar with the damaging effects molestation has on the child as they reach adult hood, those intimate stories of their childhood was meant with silence on my behalf. I wish that I could have been receptive to their inner turmoil, suffering and pain, brought on by their abuser. I later realized that the only thing capable of drowning out the emotional and psychological childhood trauma---that was running on a loop in their psyche every waking hour---was Heroin. It became their savior, and later their Angel of Death. It may have temporarily eradicated the suffering---but without help, therapy, and understanding---the addiction compounded the shame and suffering, and ultimately became impossible to escape. Whether AIDS or overdose…. death was only one needle away.  

 

© COPYRIGHT 2014, R. B. STUART. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction of this Blog in any form. 

 

End of The Line: “When a Branch of Your Family Tree Breaks”

By R. B. STUART
Part Twenty-Five


Studies show that when a woman is shown images of babies their pupils dilate. I have never experienced that sensation but know when I see furry images of a floppy-faced, innocent eyed puppy, my mouth breaks into an immediate smile and my heart is filled with joy. Like when The Grinch is converted by the unconditional love and compassion of little girl Who?, in the town Whosville he’s taken Christmas away. An x-ray of his heart shows it expanding and beginning to pulsate with love and joy, while the sparkle in his eyes give way to half mooned grin. That’s how I feel when I see dogs.

Was that the prediction that I would never bear children? Or was it because me and three other sisters were molested for a three-year period all under the age of 12 by our ex-stepfather and his 16 year-old pedophile son?

When that psychic scar penetrates your entire life---with a secret that distorts all your romantic relationships. If by your 30’s you don’t allow it to surface into the rage it’s festered---then we turn on ourselves.

As my older sister Karen did with hard drugs introduced to them at 16 by a street hustler twice her age. He infiltrated her life preying upon that protection she craved since the death of our father when we where six and nine. The drugs numbed out the childhood pain, and glazed over the domination, exploitation and beatings he’d give her to keep her submissive and fearful of leaving him.

In her 20’s her love for heroin was stronger than the addiction she once had for him. And she parlayed that for a new life for herself with other functioning addicts that didn’t abuse her. But it was only time before the drugs would call her home….

At 28, while she was going through a period of sobriety she said to me she longed to be someone’s wife, at the same time her demons clawed at her and wished she’d contract AIDS and die. She married a pharmacist with a drug habit and access to pharmaceuticals….and with all her fortitude attempted to salvage her once reckless life. But the mantras of death had already begun to weave their web and she developed full-blown AIDS Easter of 1987. She died that May at the age of 29.

Tormented by sexual abuse of my ex-step fathers hand, Karen partied hard and lived recklessly until her body couldn’t withstand the violation it absorbed when she was 12. I watched as she psychically willed herself to death.

It left four sisters and a brother to grant my mothers wish of grandchildren. The latter would be removed from carrying on the name since he was gay. The future rested in the wombs of the four remaining.

When she died I was 27 and the loss shook the foundation of my holy trinity as she would never reach her 30th birthday and I would ultimately outlive her. Her life was frozen mid-stream---her image burnt into the Kodak paper in my mind. Like a caveman in search of a fossil---I clung to her personal effects as remnants of a life half lived, but had evaporated into the ethers. Her remaining belongings reduced to a few cardboard boxes were sifted through by the family---like wiping the dust from the rubble of a gold mine---in search of the one nugget of artifact that extracted the totality of her life. That would essentially invoke an image, thought or feeling of her.

Now only I was the locket of our shared childhood of bumps and bruises, lies and betrayals, jealously and envy, love and empathy. I inherited what was and had the power to change what would be for my own life.

I stopped drinking, getting high, partying, quit smoking and became celibate. I lost the support of my intoxicated weekend friends and turned inwards for the first time in search of myself, my pain, my God.

As the calendar months flipped by, so did the decades. As I celebrated the milestones of 30, 35, 40---I marked the loss of what could have been for her. Having come from a family of five girls and one boy, after our fathers death in 1966, our innocence was sacrificed for the pleasures of out ex-step brother, as three of us had suffered sexual abuse by him. It would permeate every facet of our life, and forever stain our ability to love, trust and experience intimacy with a man.

So damaged, I observed each of us girls become abstinent and relinquish our maternal clocks. While I feel the pricking of turning 50 in a few months I am acutely aware I am childless. Having lost my mother in 2002 at the age of 72 I am now parentless---officially an orphan. Being emotionally maimed by abusive relationships until I was in my mid 30’s---I find myself spouseless. The psychological injuries obtained stunting my ability to love again---trust again. As I’ve resolved it’s too late for me.

My family jests my apartment is so over run with memorabilia and collectables---that when I die they dread having to dismantle my tangible life. Threatening me and my objects of affection with a garage sale or much worse the dump. As I scan each intricately placed photograph, shelved Norman Mailer books and an assortment of his framed letters of encouragement and sketches to me, souvenirs from my world travels and longings for Italy hang side by side, religious artifacts, and wall of achievements---my eye rests on a Bible sized, Italian leather bound coffee table book, with a cover etched with a trio of naked female figures.

Within the parchment pages is my New England Family Tree dating back to 1834 and 1844 in Naples, Italy, 1616 Scotland, 1711 Belfast and 1847 County Cork, Ireland. My fathers and mothers lineage ends with me and my siblings.

Having four childless and spouseless sisters prepares us for a life of spinsterhood. But even more jarring is there’s no one to tell the family stories to, no one to leave the genealogy with, and no other generation who’s interested in my baubles, much cared for chronological photo albums of 25 years---all of which will one day lay on a wobbly aluminum table in a dusty thrift shop. Being picked over by the pelicans of the future.

Like those before me who beloved trinkets line flea market tables or antique shops because their family found no attachment or they had no one living that would carry on their memory. No one to leave their every hope and dream, shared laugh and tear, no one to mark the life they had lived.

It brings sadness to my heart, as I mourn the life I’ll leave behind. The life that will ultimately vanish into the incinerator of death. The only value of my achievements will be in the money I leave behind. There will be plenty of takers for that…. But my grandmothers cameo pendent and engagement ring, my grandfathers communion ring, my fathers WWII dog tags, my mothers Mother’s ring and ruby, the jewelry from the chapters of my own life---will they lay encased in a darkened, antique store marked with white price tags? Will they strike a strangers fancy and find a home ‘round their finger or neck….their history forever dormant.

Or do I have all those keepsakes buried with me, or thrown into the crematory with me? Is it vulgar to ponder adopting a teenage boy and girl to selfishly carry on my Family Tree, and who will mourn my passing by cherishing my volumes of poetry, journals, books, manuscripts and other possessions? Or do I spend the last segment of my life distributing what I’ve amassed over the years to my friends? What will come of my mothers belongings that I horded after her death? The white chest stacked with magical memories and doo-dads laced with her fragrance of “White Shoulders”….the contents and their past only sentimental to a loved one. Will it be impersonally bulldozed into a landfill for seagulls to nest?

After her death is when I became more entrenched in her lineage---the parts she kept secret or long ago forgot. I uncovered generations of grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins she intentionally detached from decades ago when she was a young bride in her 20’s. The reasons were hazy. Her estrangements made us, her six children suffer, as we knew no one else except each other.

The floodgates of her private heritage opened up with merely a brief tug. My desire to know who she was, and who I am, brought forth a domino of living great aunts, great uncles, cousins, and childhood chums who happily resurrected her life by recalling moments with her. Within two years I’d been introduced to branches of my mothers side back three generations to Italy, and three to Ireland. As I became engulfed in the family history I longed for while she was alive. I saw a pattern in the Irish genealogy beginning with the seven children born in early 1800’s---none ever married.

I noticed every generation from then on, whether in a family of two or seven siblings; one, two, three, five or six of them within that family never married. Including my own. And I wondered had their families fallen victim to abuse or dysfunction? Just as I noticed numerous drowning from boat or water accidents over the centuries in my lineage, should I beware of the water? Is it better if a family not reproduce and die-off---rather than perpetuate the dysfunction? Was our need not to procreate a good thing for our lineage? As the torment on my mothers side will end with us. Could it be our mission, our destiny is fulfilled, our spiritual work complete? Or had it been in our bloodline----a prophecy effecting certain family branches like mine?

The answers I may never uncover, and it may just be a destiny that no matter how I play tic-tack-toe with my life----the end result is the same for my family: no heirs. At some point I have to come to peace with my inability to pass along all that is precious to me. So along your journey if you come across a bauble, a trinket, old pictures or a journal along the way and find my name etched somewhere----please buy it and give it life----knowing that it came from a girl without a tree.



© COPYRIGHT October 2009, R. B. STUART. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction of this Blog in any form.

"SUGAR : THE NEW CRACK COCAINE"

By R. B. STUART
Part Seven

When I began feeling like a junkie looking for a fix---I knew I had a problem---with SUGAR. The addiction symptoms were: anger, self-hatred, depression, lack of energy, sweet cravings, bloating, out of control eating and weight gain.

Having battled a food addiction for over 20 years (food my drug of choice) and while temporarily living with my sister after the death of my mother, I gained back 20 pounds and 10 of the 12 inches I lost while diligently working-out for the last 8 years. All the hard work I did vanished, by the daily temptation (of the Drake's isle in my sister's kitchen) and endless consumption of the over-the-counter drug: pure white (co)cane sugar.

Over 10 years ago a friend introduced me to the book "Sugar Blues," by William Dufty. She passed out copies like lollipops and preached about the psychological and physical addiction. I ignored her zealot attempts to convert me shunning a copy of the book she swore by. I figured I knew it all because I ate honey or brown sugar (refined white sugar dyed brown with Molasses). Never considering what she was trying to enlighten me to was the dangerous white substance traded on Wall Street. It was lurking in the cyclical ice cream, Funny Bones, holiday desserts, M&M's, and birthday cakes (my favorite) I made excuses to inhale. Except, I wasn't aware enough to see the correlation between my inability to lose weight and the physical symptoms of the sweet junk. That is until I was unplugged from NYC and living in the country trying to reinvent myself while mourning my mother.

Everyone experiences going home for the holidays and overeating because you are out of your element, seduced by your favorite childhood foods. But when the holidays are over and you're still there---and so are the goodies, coupled with those less health and body conscious---it can equal disaster. If your constitution is built on a flaky foundation of pastry crust---you will crumble---becoming "one" with the donuts.

My observation of the negative emotions associated with sweets became prevalent when I began eating insatiably after a morsel or two of the three C's: chocolate, cookies or cake. I'd say to myself, "I'll only have two Oreo's" (or one slice of cake or three pieces of chocolate). Then before the first bite slid down my gullet, I'd up the ante to 4 cookies then 6. Of course after a lightening speed consumption (similar to the initial rush of drugs)---I'd become sick from the sugar. A nauseous feeling came over my stomach as I swore I'd never do it again.

This went in circles for months. Arguing with my sister to stop buying the junk food and seductive desserts. She reasoned her husband liked sweets (so did she and her Poodles) after dinner, before dinner, for lunch and sometime for breakfast. I began hating myself for not being able to pass it by. It was the first time I felt like an alcoholic, unable to pass a cookie jar or chocolate layered cake without having a binge. I thought maybe I should adopt AA's philosophy by taking, "one day at a time." But how could I master control over the dreaded thousand mile walk through the "pastry shop" in her kitchen?

I managed to make the conscious choice and stop due to weight gain. For two months I felt energized, confident, hopeful, euphoric, centered, a general sense of well being. Feeling elated and in control of my life and eating, I decided to test myself at a function by eating only 2 bite size squares of a brownie and cheese cake. I remembered the taste---and it remembered me as I walked back to the table popping a few more in my mouth. Instantly I was sucked right back into the void of empty calories.

This pattern repeated itself over the last 24 months---until the tape measure expanded compounded by the strangulation of my clothes. I once focused on every curve and prided myself on finally seeing my hip bones---I observed the disconnection from my body. Ignoring the outer manifestations of the miserable life I was temporarily leading, in a household spiraling out of control with carelessness and intentional sabotage. I wondered why their self-destructive ways were more encroaching to me than my conscious, healthy organic life style on them? They were a combined force like a blender whipping cream. I had to fight for my life and piece together the cause and effect of my sugar habit.

Over the Christmas holiday [2004] it began to take root as I monitored my emotions and bodily symptoms after I'd eaten sweets. Like Einstein creating the atom---I saw the connection ---and felt it when I woke on the 5th day after my last affair with chocolate on New Years eve. Finally kicking my addiction to a crack pipe of burnt sugar cubes. Feelings of being in control again, happy, almost speeding with adrenaline, no longer felt obsessive and indulgent. The sensation of being healthy, whole and alive had been lacking. The motivation and desire to reconnect to the positive side of life once again emerged. Leaving me possessed with the ability to make things happen. I was no longer ignorant to my sucrose bondage. And the negative symptoms superceded the momentary desires of---my aching sweet tooth.

It may only be a forkful for some, but others a handful leads to a trough. Dr. Phil's mission this season focuses on this countries overweight epidemic, making us understand these foods were "created to be addictive." A legal and cheap way of hooking millions of people, while making billions of dollars. Sugar is big business---a commodity which produced 147.1 million tons world wide in 2002/2003. And we consumed 139.1 million tons of the decaying substance. Which is the real crack cocaine here?


Originally written: 5 January 2004
Copyright 2004, R. B. STUART. All rights reserved. No reproduction of this blog in any form.