Stockholm Syndrome

Chapter 24: Lifeline

(That was the best photo of Tom I could find that represented what he looks like here. All the other ones were of him on stage. This is the last chapter. Enjoy)

*Tom's POV*

Getting Raleigh back became my number one priority after that day at the record store when I saw her. The way that she looked at me as if I was some type of monster really shook me. There was no way that I could keep Raleigh in my life if I was on these fucking pills. I couldn't go to rehab again. I had to do this on my own. Rehab did nothing for me in the end, even though I did stay off the pills for a little bit. Half of that was because I was forced to go. The minute I got triggered again was enough for me to swallow a few. But I couldn't do that anymore. I couldn't run in fear from shit. If I was able get Raleigh back, I could face anything that life threw at me, any demons that appeared in my head. Anything.

Angels and Airwaves began working on our second album called I-Empire in the early months of 2007, almost right after Christmas time. The first album sold well, but not as well as we had hoped, which hurt my ego a little bit, but I was too fucked up to care. That's another reason I wanted to kick the pills that had fucked me up for so long; to focus on music and the people that I cared about the most. My revelation to myself was that I had to get better. But I had to get better for me, not for the people around me.

One of the first things I did was completely clean my house top to bottom. I started in my bedroom with a giant garbage bag and threw everything that Jennifer ever touched away. I threw away pictures of us, even though I looked really good in most of them. I threw away my wedding ring that I had kept in my bedside drawer. I didn't even want to sell it; I just wanted it out of my life. My bathroom was cleared of all razors that I wasn't using and old pill bottles that littered the cabinets as well as the drawers.

In my music room/studio, there were also several orange bottles that were lying around in various places, but I had a giant one that had recently been refilled, tucked away in my filing cabinet in the corner of the room. I dragged the nearly full garbage bag with me and paused as I opened the top drawer of the filing cabinet. This was probably the biggest step for me. Probably the hardest one, too. I grabbed the bottle and ran my fingers along the torn sticker on the front of the bottle. Maybe I should keep these and sell them, I thought. No, I couldn't do that. I'd end up using them instead of giving them to another drug addict. I shut my eyes and tossed the bottle into the bag, then hurried up and tied it. I threw the giant garbage bag in the backseat of my car that afternoon, headed to a local landfill and tossed it into a dumpster in order to never see the bag again or be tempted to dig the pills out before trash day. My memories with Jen were gone too, and the only ones I had left were those in my head. They weren't necessarily the best, but I had to deal with them in a way that was healthier than my previous strategies.

My next plan was to get my awful fucking hair cut off, so I went to the barber shop for the first time in only God knows how long. I didn't want the emo hair anymore; that was too hard to maintain. This Jesus cut that I was sporting was really bad and it required too much flat ironing. I opted for a regular haircut. It almost felt like a fresh start, but I still had to detox from the pills.

I spent as much time as I could avoiding the worst part of getting clean; the detox. Basically, I spent a week in my bed with on again off again fevers and chills so bad that I was shaking. My head hurt. I kept a trash can next to my bed to puke in. There were plenty of times during that week which I had picked up the phone and started to dial my pain doctor to order more pills, but I thought about Raleigh and how I had to do this to get her back. So instead, I rolled back over and tried to sleep the pain and the sweat away. Eating wasn't much of a thing. I mostly ate Saltines and drank water or Gatorade, which I stocked up on before I started this detoxing bullshit. In fact, I had done a lot of research on people who had self-detoxed and prepared accordingly. Along with the hallucinations, not showering and the headaches, it was an actual week from Hell. But I had to do it.