Cockroaches scampered up the bed and scurried across my Greenwich Village apartment floor. I knew I was hallucinating. The empty liter of Bacardi rum glared at me next to barren packets of coke.

I was 26, sitting cross-legged like a child on my queen-sized bed. It was 6:00 a.m. and I hadn’t slept. It was 1988. A frigid March wind blew in from my windows facing Minetta Lane. Every nerve roared for more cocaine.

I watched with terror as a tarantula writhed on top of my dresser. I closed my eyes, hoping it would disappear. Tarantulas don’t live in New York but when I opened my eyes, the hairy black thing was still there.

My lap was littered with confetti-like shreds of eight-by-ten glossies. My painting portfolio. How could I have done that to the only thing I was proud of? I’d painstakingly assembled each page of the spiral book, with photos tucked safely under plastic sleeves in the hopes of finding a better job than waitressing. On one of the ripped pieces, I’d pressed down so hard with a pen that it left indents on the image. Hendrix lyrics: I don’t live today.

My mind scrabbled at the events leading to this last bender. The day before, my roommate Frederic had confronted me in the apartment. His long elegant fingers dug into my upper arms so hard it hurt. An angry vein popped out on his forehead and he shook me like a ragdoll. With tears streaming down his face he said, “If you don’t stop killing yourself, I’m leaving.”

In his eyes I could see the reflection of what I’d become. Disgusting, pathetic. Shame and self-loathing buckled my knees.

Frederic was the only person that mattered. Boyfriends came and went like subway riders. If any got too close, they’d see who I was. Or I’d decide a man’s hands were too hairy or he chewed too loudly. I’d break up with the bewildered fellow and return to my plague of loneliness. Then I’d fixate on a new crush and brood when he barely noticed me.

Happy couples on the street were a mystery. I wanted to run up and say, “How do you do that? What’s wrong with me?”

But Frederic, he was my best friend, like a loyal older brother who’d adopted me.

Our railroad apartment placed his room at the opposite end. Now, as I sat on my bed with jaw clamped in a coked-out grip and eyes bulging, I begged the universe not to let him wake up and see me like this. I’d sworn to stop after he threatened to move out. I had to because life would be unlivable without him. He was the only reason I didn’t jump out a window.

I remembered stopping off at Jimmy Day’s bar on West 4th Street for just one drink. The rest of the night was a blank.

My ashtray overflowed onto the nightstand, reflecting another broken promise to Frederic. Ever since he’d quit, he hated when I smoked. Gone were the days when we’d drink vodka together and play Scrabble for hours, chain smoking and laughing. He’d quit the cigs, cocaine, and vodka.

I emptied the ashtray into my leopard-pattern tin wastebasket. Suddenly, billowing puffs of smoke and high flames shot out of it. I closed my eyes and rubbed them hard. Slowly, I opened them again. Still roaring flames. I got up from the bed and put my palms on the sides of the tin to feel for heat. It was cold. Relieved there was no fire, I was terrified there was no sanity either.

I heard the long-ago voice of my cousin Angela, “You’re so lucky you can handle the drugs, Dor. But if you ever have a problem I’m the one to call.”

I picked up the phone and dialed.

“Ang?”

“Dor?”

After bursting into tears I slurred, “Uncle Carl had the right idea. I’m gonna get a gun and shoot myself.”

“Wait,” Angela said. “Do you have any more alcohol or cocaine?”

I had only the specs of coke that lined the empty packets and a few airplane-size bottles of Absolut stashed in my underwear drawer.

“Finish everything,” Ang said.

That was a first. People never told me to drink more.

“I’ll be there soon,” she said and hung up.

Her brother Brad called.

“Hey Sweetiepie.” It was soothing to hear his voice. “I reserved a bed for you in Florida.”

“Ooh, Florida?” I said, “Is there a pool?”

I heard the front door slam and realized I’d awakened Frederic. My throat went dry but I kept doing what I was told, scraping the last snortable flakes and downing the vodka minis.

Ang arrived at the apartment and yelled “Hey Dor!” After a bear hug she scanned the closet, grabbed a knapsack, and began to pack.

While she yanked t-shirts out of my dresser drawer I moaned with agony, “I’m out of cigarettes.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “Everything is fine.”

Being exhausted and stoned made me pliable and obedient.

Angela carried my backpack while I navigated the four flights down to the lobby, gripping the banister to keep from wobbling. When we got to her double-parked car on Macdougal, she helped me into the passenger side and buckled me in. Sure I was going to puke, I unbuckled.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

The thought of eating made me gag. I managed a slurry “no.”

“We have to eat something,” she said. “It’s a long trip to Florida and when did you last eat?”

Before I could answer or stop her, she hopped over to the shake shop across the street and came back with two vanilla shakes. I got down about half of it before I bolted from the front seat and barfed on the pavement. She came around and helped me back into the car.

We headed off to JFK airport. As soon as Ang started to drive, I passed out. I have no memory of the airport or boarding the plane. I came out of the blackout while Ang was checking me into the rehab. There was a pink-skinned lady at a desk with a dopey soccer-mom hairdo who told me to sign paperwork. Then she led me down the hall to a room. Before she closed the door, I asked her to get Angela but the woman said she’d left. My tired bones collapsed on the cot’s thin mattress and I zonked out on the flat pillow till morning.

When I awoke, I tried to piece things together. Only isolated snippets. Frozen snapshots of laughing with a bartender, making out with somebody. I looked around the sparse room and wanted to go home. I got out of the bed and walked to the door but found it locked. There were no lights on. I peeked through the Plexiglas window in the door and could see a woman at a desk. I rapped hard on the window. She smiled and came over to me.

“Where am I?” I said.

“You’re in the detox room at the Hazelden Center in West Palm Beach.”

Her voice sounded like it was coming through a cloud of cotton. I could hardly decipher what she was saying, much less comprehend it.

“What am I doing here?”

She didn’t seem surprised by my question and patiently explained I’d come the day before and my cousin had checked me in, then left, and I’d be staying with them for the next 31 days.

I told her I had to go home and needed to leave right away. I demanded she find my purse. She retrieved it from a locker and handed it to me. I looked for the sliding Bayer aspirin container with my emergency line of coke and mini straw. I couldn’t find it and became frantic. She looked at me kindly and explained they’d searched my purse and disposed of the drugs they found.

Irate, I yelled, “You can’t do that!”

“Yes, dear,” she said, “we do that for all of our patients. You’re here because you’ve agreed to stop taking drugs and you signed the intake permission form.”

I demanded to leave.

“Okay,” she said.

To my horror, I found only two dollars and loose change in my wallet. I was a long way from home with no access to money. Dizzy, I asked the woman if I could lie down again.

“Of course you can, dear. That’s a good idea.”

She helped me back into the creaky cot and I stayed for 31 days.

Written for The Fix

The post The Darkest Night of My Addiction appeared first on Award-Winning Writer and Graphic Designer.

Austin Eubanks was one of the survivors from 1999’s horrific mass shooting at Columbine High School. Tragically, his best friend Corey DePooter was murdered by the gunman.  After Eubanks was severely traumatized and vulnerable, doctors began prescribing him painkillers. I know from experience, opioids are only effective for relieving short-term physical pain. They are extremely addicting and have side-effects. Long-term use can be disastrous.

Eubanks Kicked Drugs

After the shooting, Eubanks developed an opiate addiction. But at the time of our interview, he’d fought the battle of quitting drugs. Eubanks excitedly told me about his treatment and how he’d learned to live clean and sober. This is after he’d almost lost everything due to his addiction taking him to the brink.

Dealing With Survivor’s Guilt

During our interview he confided, “I could literally get whatever I wanted. Telling them I’d been shot at Columbine and lost my best friend was like getting an open prescription book from every doctor. I’d been filled with grief and survivor’s guilt. But I finally found lasting recovery.”

It has been more than two decades since this article was published. However, today, when I saw David Hoggs was trending on twitter, it brought me back to my interview with another gun violence survivor who weathered his pain by turning into an activist.

RIP Austin Eubanks (Oct 8, 1981 – May 18, 2019 ).

Those of us from Sandy Hook, Parkland, Uvalde, & Highland Park have a vision of living in a nation with no mass shootings. We thank @SpeakerPelosi @LeaderHoyer @WhipClyburn @RepCicilline for leading the effort to pass the assault weapons ban in the House of Representatives today. pic.twitter.com/1NraEelcIT

— Newtown Action Alliance (@NewtownAction) July 29, 2022

Seventeen years ago, 17-year-old Austin Eubanks was terrorized during the Columbine High School massacre. It was on April 20, 1999 and Eubanks was in the library with his best friend Corey DePooter when they heard a bomb go off. It was chaos and Eubanks ran to hide under a desk. He was shot in the arm and knee, but his deepest wounds were emotional. Austin saw his best friend murdered in a barrage of bullets.

“My injuries were not to the point of needing an opiate pain medication,” Eubanks told The Fix in an exclusive interview. “But I was immediately given a 30-day supply. Within three months I became addicted.” From then on, he said, “I used substances every day, day in and day out.”

After the shooting, his parents took him to see a therapist who said Austin was too shut down to process his horrific trauma. But the reason no one could reach him was because he was overmedicated.

“I learned to manipulate doctors,” Eubanks said. “I could literally get whatever I wanted. Telling them I’d been shot at Columbine and lost my best friend was like [getting] an open prescription book from any doctor.”

Austin never went back to school at Columbine and his parents hired a tutor. He graduated in 2000 and attended the Columbine ceremonies without setting foot back in the school. He went into advertising and married in his early 20s. He and his wife had a son, but Eubanks’ substance abuse escalated. His first attempt to get sober was in 2006. “I went to a 30-day inpatient program,” he said, “but within hours of leaving, I went right back to the same regimen—abusing pain pills and Adderall.” 

Right before Columbine, young Austin had been misdiagnosed with ADD. 

“I didn’t have ADD,” said Eubanks. “I just liked being outdoors and playing golf better than being in school. At that time, if anybody was truant at school they said, ‘Oh, they must be ADD. Let’s put them on a stimulant.’ That was why I got Adderall. I liked it because I could abuse opiate pain medication to the level that most people would be nodding out. With Adderall, I could function. Basically, I was doing oral speedballs. It was like using methamphetamine and heroin.”

His second try at living clean came in 2008. His son was three and he was separated from his wife. “That’s when I started to have an intrinsic motivation to change. I went to treatment, stayed 90 days, and achieved eight months of sobriety.”

He and his wife reunited and decided to have a second child. Another boy was born. 

“This is one of the examples that I use when I give presentations about learning every way that doesn’t work. First, I did the normal addict path. I achieved abstinence for a period of time, and built up enough false confidence to where I said, ‘I can drink, because alcohol was never a problem for me.’ I went back to drinking. After a few weeks, drinking led back to smoking weed. Smoking weed led back to Xanax, which led back to Oxycontin, and then I was right back into the same routine.”

In 2011, he was approaching 30 and estranged from his wife and kids. “My sobriety date is April 2, 2011. I woke up in a jail cell and had absolutely no idea how I got there.” 

The last thing he remembered was heading to see the Colorado Rockies baseball team on opening day. He’d been using Oxycontin and drinking, and had passed out in a restaurant. Police arrived and arrested him for probation violation. Due to his addiction, Eubanks spent years in and out of the court system for various offenses, including car theft and writing bad checks.

“I woke up, I opened my eyes in jail, sick. I was in withdrawal from opiates. I was hungover from alcohol. That was the absolute lowest moment of my life. I had ruined the marriage. I had two children I was estranged from. I told myself, ‘If I don’t stop right now, I’m going to die’ and I wasn’t ready to do that. I hit multiple rock bottoms and finally came to understand that I had learned every way that doesn’t work, and I gave up the fight to keep trying to [get sober] on my own. I went into treatment and said, ‘Tell me how to walk, how to talk, what to do and I will do it.’”

After staying mum all these years, Eubanks decided it was finally time to talk about his addiction publicly. “By talking about being at that low place in my life, it’s my attempt at helping others. I’m proof there is a path out and there’s a path out for everybody, regardless of where you are in life and what you’ve lost.”

When he finally found what he calls his “lasting recovery,” it was not in a 12-step program. “I had gone to a 12-step rehab,” said Eubanks. “I used the 12 steps, I worked them, I met with a sponsor. But I left there with two words in my mind: powerlessness and disease. Those are two dangerous words to put in somebody’s mind who is trying to enact behavioral change in their life. I’m not contesting the value of 12 steps and I’m not saying that addiction is not a disease, but I’m saying that you have to approach it from a position of empowerment to create a life for yourself that is so great you can’t imagine going back to using substances. Without that, relapse is much more common.”

He credits a therapeutic community (TC) for his long-term sobriety. “They focused on the behaviors around addiction.” He stayed for seven months. “The TC model helped me understand what was happening in my brain. I’ve always been a thinker. It was really beneficial to be able to say [to myself], ‘These decisions are happening right now in your life because this is how your brain is functioning. This is what’s happening in your prefrontal cortex. This is the reason for your impulsivity. This is what your mid-brain functionality looks like. This is what it’s going to look like at three months of abstinence. This is what it’ll look like at six months of abstinence. At a year of abstinence, if you’re able to achieve that, your brain is going to be fundamentally different than it was in the beginning.’”

Eubanks learned what his triggers were. “I could say, ‘These are impulses I’m having right now, but there’s a date on the calendar where my brain is going to be functioning differently. If I continue to exhibit pro-social behaviors and work toward that goal, I’m going to continue to make progress.’ It helped me as a roadmap.” 

Now sober five years, he works for The Foundry, a TC substance abuse treatment center in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. “We talk to people about brain function,” said Eubanks, “about transactional analysis and what that looks like; what ego states make our decisions and why impulsivity is so strong. And why an addict behaves like a rebellious child. Then we apply all that to 12-step principles, which we have found to be phenomenally beneficial for people.”

Eubanks believes that addiction is on a spectrum, similar to autism and Asperger’s. “That spectrum is dictated by a number of factors and it’s everything from IQ to socioeconomic status to somebody’s social group to the age of the first time they used. A lot of things contribute to a person’s ability to function for a life of abstinence. We have to look at that on a case-by-case basis.”

It’s true, one size does not fit all and individuals require different tools. You might have somebody able to function in an environment where there’s alcohol around and not be susceptible to relapse, while others can never be in an environment like that without the risk of slipping.

The Foundry’s TC model is based on four pillars: medical, clinical, wellness and family. Medical includes tests to determine blood levels and how a patient metabolizes medication. When appropriate, medication is prescribed. Clinical includes counseling, observation, and treatment to help patients cope with behavioral, mental and emotional problems that interfere with their daily lives. Wellness may include yoga, diet and exercise to help build a better life. Family may involve working with families on a weekly basis and then bringing them out for a family intensive, where they go through the curricula for three days with other families.

“The message I want to send to people is to ask for help,” Eubanks said. “I lived in the dark for over a decade in my addiction. I could never see the path out. Ask for help because it’s there. I finally took the road of recovery and never looked back. Through that process, I was able to re-establish a relationship with my children that is fantastic today. They play a big part in my life. I have a functional relationship with my ex-wife, who is now remarried and I’m recently engaged and going to be married again. Life is too good to ever consider going back to where I was.”

The post Mass Shooting Survivor Austin Eubanks Talks About Life After Columbine appeared first on Award-Winning Writer and Graphic Designer.

This article is the result of that Q & A. If you find it helpful, please share. Addicts and alcoholics often find the holiday season extremely difficult and many relapse.

Answers to Commonly Asked Questions about Addiction written for The Fix

The post Non-Addicts Had Questions About Addiction. Here Are Answers appeared first on Award-Winning Writer and Graphic Designer.

The memoir “Free Refills: A Doctor Confronts His Addiction” is the harrowing tale of Harvard-trained Dr. Peter Grinspoon, a primary care medical doctor whose life ran horribly amok through his addiction to prescription opioids. The book is also about his recovery and despite the somber topic, Grinspoon offers a lot of hilarity. Dorri Olds landed an exclusive interview with the candid doctor.

Dorri Olds: During your opiate addiction how many pills were you taking?

Peter Grinspoon: It would always depend on what I could get my hands on. I was taking somewhere in the range of 10 to 20 a day. Depending on if I had any major obligations, which would prevent me from taking a lot and if I had a reasonable supply.

Vicodin, OxyContin or Percocet?

All of the above. It started with Vicodin, but the opiates are all similar to each other in how they affect you. It was whatever I could get my hands on.

Did you experience side effects?

Yeah, I was constipated and sort of drowsy. I mostly had side effects when it wore off. I would be jittery and shaky and jumping out of my skin.

Some men on opiates experience impotence and lack of libido. Did you?

Yes, but my marriage was so messed up at that point anyway.

Was the marriage happy before your pill addiction?

No, we were already unhappy but my addiction made it a lot worse. That was the nail in the coffin. She knew the extent of my problem. She gets angry, so I tuned her out.

Do you think anybody could’ve done or said anything that would have helped you?

Coercing people into treatment is a controversial topic. I was forced into treatment because I wanted to get my medical license back. I think the coercion is part of what helped me. I don’t think I was able. I didn’t have it under control at all. I cannot think of anything that anybody could have said or done, that they didn’t already say or do, that would have helped me.

Can you tell me about your father? He was one of the earliest people in favor of medical marijuana, correct?

Yeah, he wrote a book in 1972 called ‘Marijuana Reconsidered.” He kept intending to write a book about how dangerous it was but when he looked into the research he found out that it wasn’t dangerous at all. That coincided with the time that my brother Danny, who has passed away, had leukemia. He found it helpful back then for the nausea and the vomiting that came along with chemotherapy. My parents had a firsthand proof of how helpful medical marijuana could be. That converted my dad who at age 87 is still chugging away trying to get marijuana legalized. He’s retired as a psychiatrist and no longer sees patients but still works at advocacy of medical and recreational cannabis. My parents were too old to have been part of the hippie movement, but their hearts were definitely with the hippies.

And the beats! It’s interesting that Carl Sagan and Allen Ginsburg were houseguests.

Yes, there were many people like that who were fixtures of my childhood. Carl Sagan was there all the time, he was good friends with my dad. And I remember Allen Ginsberg croaking at me—they’d been smoking and smoking. “Boy,” he said, “get me some water.” I wasn’t thrilled with being called boy, but in all fairness, I was only nine.

Let’s talk about your patients now. How did you talk them into giving you drugs?

Oh great [said sarcastically], the part of the story I’m most proud of. [Laughs] It was my patients who were prescribed a lot of opiates and I suspected they weren’t using them entirely above board.

You mean you sensed they were addicted?

Addicted, or selling. I was a friendly doctor so I was like, “Hey, you know I get bad migraines. What if I prescribed 215 instead of 200 and you gave me back 15?” Not one of them seemed surprised or said no.

It takes an addict to spot another, eh?

Yeah, it was like we were on a subliminal addict communication channel.

How many relapses did you have after you were arrested and forced to do your rehab stint?

I had three brief ones. I was caught through drug testing and got reported to the medical board. But I quickly got my act together because I didn’t want to lose every chance of getting my medical license back.

What does being a doctor mean to you? Was it because you had a family to support? Was it because you’d done all that education towards being a doctor? Was it you wanted to please your parents?

All of the above. But mostly, being a primary care doctor is my identity. That’s what I chose. I killed myself to become a primary care doctor. We do okay but we’re among the lowest paid doctors in the country. It isn’t lucrative or glamorous. Surgeons, dermatologists, ophthalmologists make the big money. We’re like the second-class citizens of medical care. But I have connections with patients and feel like I’m helping people. I couldn’t imagine giving that up.

“Free Refills: A Doctor Confronts His Addiction” by Dr. Peter Grinspoon is available for purchase here.

Written For Honeysuckle magazine

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