I'm 20 years old, a heroin addict for 4 years. When I was 19 my parents forced me to Maui, Hawaii thinking it would save me. What really happened was I got really heavily into meth, and did shit to get meth that I would have never dreamed of doing for dope. Here is an excerpt from the book thus far. It needs editing its just a rough draft. Feedback? Book should include a map of maui, book should tell what city I live in and where I travel to. Foreword (subject to change) Crazier things have happened. Maybe even in my own life, though, I'm not sure, what your about to read is pretty crazy. Names have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty, other then that, everything your about to read actually happened, and it happened to me. This story takes place in maui, hawaii, over the course of about 2 months. This is not an admission of guilt, and because of that, you will never see the true author of this story. Somone else will publish it, and even they will have a pseudo name. Don't get me wrong, I would love to take credit for this book, its just that todays society wont allow it, they would want to come lock me up the second it is published. After coming back from my life in maui, I always claimed that I could write a book based on the 60-65 days that I lived there, and that's what this is, I will try to tell you what my life was like there, and how different everything is from the only other place ive lived in my life, which is outside of detroit, michigan. Please keep in mind that while I may be portrayed as soulless, most of the characters in this book are good people. My parents, who sent me to maui, thought they were saving my life, but maybe I just cant be saved, who knows. While this whole story takes place, I am only 19 years old, but I, however, consider myself fairly intelligent, and I had been through alot in life up to this point, so much so, that I could write another book just on that. PROLOGUE I'm 19 years old, and I'm dopesick, or that's "heroin withdrawal" to you. And on this particular night, it's bad, and I mean really bad, I havnt shot any dope in well over 24 hours, which is beyond the mark of feeling sick. You see, for the past week or so, my parents have been plotting, oh yes. They bought 3 tickets to maui, hawaii. They've been telling me "Your going to hawaii to live". So I think sure, I'll goto maui for a vacation with you guys, detox off of dope and come right back when you find out you wont REALLY leave me there. So this current night that I'm very dopesick, just happens to be the night before the flight. With heroin, there's nothing better then the relief of that injection when your sick. I'm counting down the hours to my flight, and I'm starting to feel cornered, like maybe that relief isnt going to come before this long flight to maui, which just isnt acceptable, so I think up a scheme, which I'm often doing, being a heroin addict and all, but this scheme is hairbrained, failed from the start. My parents have stripped away my ability to drive, for fear that I will disappear and not be on the flight. My buddy (at the time, I wish him death now) mike is just getting off work, he's also a dopefiend, and has managed to hold a job for a little more then a week, which is actually a huge improvement for him, and tonight is the night he gets his first paycheck so I call him up, and say sure, Ill come get you and we'll go cash your check and we'll go down (to detroit). I Plead with my parents for a car, begging them, telling them yes I've been using heroin again, and yes, I am very sick and I need to get right before the flight. They wont budge, absolutely nothing, so I play my last card, I tell my dad that Mike needs a ride home from his job, that no one else will drive him, and since Mike is an old family friend, my dad agree's. We drive to the motel he's working at, mind you, its almost 11 at night, how we were going to even cash his paycheck at a party store was almost an impossibility, since they close at midnight. We get to the motel and he doesent even get out of there till 11:30, I walk in the lobby to get him, I'm walking him back to the car, thus far I have told him nothing of my dad driving us anywhere. So on the way to the car, I hit him with it "Look dude, you dont have a key to get in your parents house, theyre away on vacation, you need to goto mexican town in detroit to get the key from your aunt." he replies, shocked, "Dude your never going to get your dad to drive us to the dopeman, it'll never work." I tell him one last time to just go with it before we get into my dad's truck, him in the backseat. As soon as we get in, I hit my dad with the same story, and Mike actually coroborates it a little bit, to my surprise. I finally start thinking "Maybe this will work." My dad says nothing, as he will often do, a very quiet man, but he gets on the freeway to go to detroit, my hopes shot up, as I'm sure Mikes did too, but the freeway to detroit is also the freeway to my house with my parents, my dad gets off the freeway at our exit and say's "were going to go home first and Mike is going to call his mom and make sure that this is allright." Now hope is feeling lost, not 20 seconds later Mike splurts out "you can just take me to my friends house Mr._______" my dad obliges, drives him all the way back to where he was working near and drops him off. You must understand, I was not getting on that plane dopesick. My dad and I drive back home, and I'm feeling very desperate coming down my parents street, and I devise a new plan, this one a little more risky and even more hairbrained. As soon as he pulls in our driveway, I make a snatch for the keys in the ignition, it doesent work, he's on guard because of the night's events. He gives me a grave look, like he's about to beat my ass, and he's never hit me in my life. So I go inside, defeated, sick, hopeless. I'm rocking back and forth when my mom gives me a muscle relaxer, just one, its a nice joke and a feeble attempt at help, but as I've already told you, I'm feeling desperate. I immediately go to the internet, my guru for alot of the shit I know. I was searching for one thing, and that was to see if this pill I had would be soluble in water, so I could inject it, and hopefully end this sickness a little bit, if it killed me so what, I was wishing I was dead anyway. I come to find that its "slightly soluble in water" which is enough info I needed, I instantly crush the pill and put the remaining powder on a spoon, soak it with some water and put a flame under the spoon, eventually, I draw back a cloudy solution in my syringe. I put it to the vein and after that I dont know what happened. I blacked out with Leno on the TV. I wake up to my girlfriend at the time, love of my life H. Joyce shaking me, wondering if I was okay. I most certainly was not okay, as soon as she woke me up she brought me right back to this hell of dopesickness. See, the thing with being dopesick is that you cant sleep at all, so any sleep you do get, even if its drug induced is a god send. My sickness comes rushing back, Leno still on the screen. It's going to be our 'supposed' last night together, remember, because I'm supposedly suppose to disappear in maui, anyway, its guarenteed to be our last night for atleast a week. She see's how sick I am and takes pitty on me, she smokes weed, but she doesent use the shit I use. For the first time ever, she drives me down to detroit, she only had 9 dollars and I need 50 cents to call my dopeman, but I'm so sick I dont care, I'll make it work. We meet my dopeman, and I give him $8.50 for a pack of dope, when its supposed to be 10 dollars. He's pissed saying "God damnit your supposed to come with 10 dollars." Joyce and I drive back to my parents house, me thanking her the entire way. We get back and I cook up my dope the same way I did with the pill, except this time, I know for sure the relief is on its way. Once the dope is in the syringe, I put it to the vein and instantly feel the warm flush of relief, anything that hurt doesnt anymore, I have confidence, I am normal again, better then normal, feeling great, and most importantly, I will sleep tonight. Joyce and I fall asleep on the couch, and for our last night, it just wasnt right. My parents wake me up early, and I realize that our last night was wasted, and now I'm about to get on a plane, but it's okay I think, I'll see her in a week when I return with my parents. We kiss goodbye and I get in my parents truck and we drive to the detroit metro airport, prepay for parking for a week, check in, and were waiting in the terminal for our flight. My mom had promised me a xanax the night before when we got to the airport, because she saw how sick I was the night before, and she can totally see that I'm fine now. She asks me about it, accusing Joyce of being my savior, I deny it, of course, but she knows that's what happened. I have the first season of Oz on my iPod, but I had seen most of it already, so I watch the last episode of the first season over and over again, it being as intense as it is. Finally our plane is called, we have a layover flight, so we have to land and then take off again before we ever make it to maui. You can imagine how worried I am, about how sick I'm going to be over these next few days. CHAPTER 1 A little action happens on the plane. Some old ass bitch has heart problems. My mom, being the nurse that she is goes over to help her but its not enough. The pilot decides on an emergency landing. I fucking hate flying, especially landing. So I figure, if I have to land an extra time cause of some old ass bitch I'm going to get something out of it. While the plane is landed people are getting off to get food and stuff. Once the lady behind me leaves I reach under my seat and pull her carry on bag forward. I rummage through it and find a pretty nice digital camera, no charger, but hey, its a nice peice of work. Mine now. After the whole redundant flight experience, we land in maui, and now its been about 24 hours and I'm starting to get sick, but its not as bad as the night before, thank god for Joyce, or I would have been violently ill by now, throwing up and everything, its alot easier to come off of one pack then it is off say, a whole half gram. We're waiting for our luggage and of course, the airline fucks it up and my dad doesent get his suitcase for 2-3 hours past due, this whole while I'm sitting in the airport terminal feeling sick, but thankfully my ipod is comming through, blasting music helps the sickness a little bit, and Kanye West is getting me through it right now. We finally get on a shuttle bus to get us to a rental car place, the dude driving the shuttle bus is obviously hawiian, and its here I first learn theyre manner of speech, something I will later find out is something they call 'pidgeon' or broken english, not unlike a mexican or foreigner learning english for the first time, but of course, hawiian's have theyre own way about it. We get to the rental car place, I have my mom buy me a pack of starbursts, anything helps the sickness my friends, especially sugar, why? I'm not sure, certain things just help. We rent a medium sized car, my mom complains, she wanted something bigger, my parents dont get along too well. We finally get to our cabin, and right across the street is the beach, its late at night in maui, about 1 am. I convince my mom to give me 10 dollars so I can go get a pack of cigarettes, she tells me not to be gone long so I start walking. What I'm really looking for is a 10 sack of weed, ipod blasting I walk about a mile and a half to a gas station, first I ask the attendant about cigarettes, then I ask her if she knows about the 'other smoke'. She humors me with some bogus info, I buy a pack of cigarettes and walk back. Sickness growing stronger, I dont sleep all night. The next day my parents get right to it, I'm totally taken aback, theyre actually planning on leaving me here. They drive me all over town to apply at lot's of places, and I'm desperately sick now, and starting to feel really depressed. After hours of me half ass applying to places we start to head back to the cabin, I convince them that indeed I am withdrawling very bad, and I NEED something to help, after a long debate on theyre part, I get them to give me 20 dollars for a bag of weed, and even though they were reluctant, they obliged. They want no part of the actual sale of weed, so they drop me off back by that gas station I went to the night before. I walk to the beach and start asking kids if they know where I can get some smoke. One guy tells me "Yeah I can get you some if you want to wait an hour". I tell him sure and keep looking for more people. I find a group of teenagers about my age hanging out under a pavillion right on the beach. I ask "Know where I can get some smoke?". One kid replies, "Yeah, lets see your badge" So I say "Heres my badge" and I show them my tracks from the needle. I continue to tell them I'm from Detroit and my parents just brought me here, and I just want some smoke, they tell me they cant help me and I walk away about 50 feet and light a cigarette. After about 10 minutes, the kid comes back over and say's "I can help you out with that". I go back over by his friends while he tells me to wait for him to come back with it. While were waiting, were talking about various other drugs since they already know I do heroin. They tell me "Meth is big here, don't try meth, cops like meth". I'm not exactly sure what they mean by that. Twenty minutes later he comes back with a bag and we do the deal, they sell "only gram bag's for $20" he tells me, which is way different then I'm used to in detroit, I could get an eigth of an ounce for $20. Of course this is maui, and I'm sure the weed is way better so I buy it. I get back to the cabin after another long walk and I check it out, it was a ripoff, maybe half a gram, but atleast it will help me get better, increase my appetite because I havnt been eating, and maybe provoke some sleep but I doubt it. Gas stations dont sell rolling papers here so I empty a cigarette and fill it with weed. I smoke my first joint, feel a tiny bit better and I go with my parents grocery shopping to get out food for the week. To the grocery store! Praise legal drugs! Now let me explain something here really quick, I've robotripped in the past, but only a few times. What's robo tripping? Well, its when you take large amounts of dextromethorphan, the active ingredient in cough syrup and cough pills, the key is to find cough syrups where the only active ingredient is dxm. This is where I find my temporary cure. I've read a few articles on the internet in the past about dxm actually helping with peoples opiate withdrawal, so as we're grocery shopping I grab a bottle of Delsym extended release cough syrup and throw it in the cart. My parents are buying so much damn food and drink that they dont even notice it when we're checking out. We get back to the cabin, which we only have reserved for a week. At nightfall, out of total desperation with my sickness, I slam as much of the bottle as I can choke down. I've got starbursts handy for the after taste. I drink about 3/4 the bottle and a half hour later I throw up, and its pretty bad too. Lying on the beach with my headphones and ipod, thinking that nothing is going to happen now that I threw up, I begin to feel it. It feels like nothing from the past, and I figure I owe this to the setting. In maui, there is so many stars its pure beauty, and the temperature just makes it completely right. So I lay on the beach for a majority of the night, hallucinating, in and out of my body, but it feels amazing, like nothing I could describe to you in words, and it completely takes the sickness away. Before the sun comes up I walk back to the cabin and lay in my temporary bed, and I try to get some sleep. It doesent work. So, bright and early my parents get me out of bed, its time to go look for jobs again I guess. Before we go I smoke my last joint. We start the day off and I feel completely hung over, but not so much dope sick. We drive around applying at potential job sites, the experience the night before was so great, I'm a little more motivated now, I'm not so half-assing my applications. After only a brief morning of applying my parents tell me they want to goto some place called 'Hana'. I guess its supposed to be a great drive, its only 50 some miles away but the roads are so curvey and slopey that it takes 4 hours to get there, no joke. On the way we stop at lots of tourist attractions, waterfalls and stuff, take pictures, swim in the ice cold water. Eventually we get to the town of hana, no big deal for me, while we're there I get a call back to schedule an interview for the following week.
You should include more sensory details about your surroundings, or else it's just going to seem like every other junky story out there. I did enjoy reading what you've shared though.
hey man...im about your age, i also just got off heroin..after using 2 years, ive got 6 months clean man and its fuckin awesome...but hey man i really really relate to this, ecspecially the desprate measures to get into town to buy dope, the lies you feed everyone, the stealing to trade for dope..all of it man, but hey dude give some more of the story, im really diggin that.
This doesnt read like a story, it reads like some kinda account. Try writing it as if you were experiencing it right at that moment. include a little description perhaps? Just tryin to help! the concept I think is great
I agree with Kizen, this is more of a step-by-step list of actions rather than a story. Definitely put it more description, more sensory detail and emotion and I think it could really come together! Also a few of the sentences are rather long, maybe cut them into multiple sentences to make it easier to read.
i think this could be an awesome documentary account of young addiction, if you cleaned up the grammar a bit.
I don't mean to suggest fictionalizing it, I just think that more interesting details would make it enjoyable- "I go to the store. Then I crave drugs really bad. Then I call my dealer. Then I pick up the drugs." was kind of how the story read to me, it doesn't feel like there's enough substance. Of course the story itself is interesting and with some editing it could be a really great read
Its great and reads well for me. I think its because I understand the feelings that go along with it and can relate. The only thing that is off for me is that you sound overly paranoid about your name in the Forward.
don't use metephores, i didn't see any but i didn't read it all, if you use metaphores the reader( maybe a addict trying to get help or somebody trying to get inspiration for something may be confused) but so good, i'll read it another time.
