Sliced Trees and Dead Words

14 - Forgetting feels fucking amazing.

- DALEN -

Luna has always been someone who loves going out on the town and having a good boogie on the dance floor with her friends. She's a phenomenal dancer, feeling the rhythm of the music on a whole different level to anyone else in the room. She just gets in the zone and it's really hard to pull her out, especially if she's been drinking.

Luna, being of authentic Italian stock, grew up consuming homemade wine with her dinner, likely from the ripe old age of diapers. Her uncle Tomasso makes a killer vino, which I've drunk on many an occasion over the years; and let me tell you, as a man who's been an alcoholic for half his life, that shit is delicious and packs more punch than most other drinks I've ever tried.

Growing up, I never thought of getting drunk as a bad thing. Both my parents drank a few beers every night, and regularly went out to the pub on weekends to have a few more than that with the locals. Drinking was just something you did everyday.

I don't know how much that normalising of drinking culture impacted me growing up, but I sure do know that once I started, nothing else mattered all that much. It probably didn't help that I had older friends in high school who could buy beer and had no issue dragging me out with them to parties, either at each other's houses or just down by the lake.

It's probably not a good combination—beer, deep water and depression.

Considering how much I drank down there, it's honestly a wonder I didn't drown. I should have, especially when I started falling in love with drugs, too. Heroin especially.

Smack.

Skag.

Junk.

Diacetylmorphine.

Black tar.

China white.

H.

A mate of mine back then scored some off a cousin of his or something, and I stupidly said yes when it was offered to me. Don't even know why. I just didn't care enough about anything other than masking the pain, and the rush of fire through my veins after the first hit left me nodding like a regular junkie and constantly on the hunt for more. It's surprisingly not hard to find when you live in a small country town that has very little more to offer for entertainment than sex, drugs and alcohol.

I had my turn with all of them, some more willingly than others. But heroin was the one that fucked me the most, and I sure did feel like a right scumbag whenever I came to afterwards.

Luna hated me using drugs. She's all about having a few easy drinks and unwinding, but drugs she just couldn't support or understand. I don't think you can understand the pull, the desire, the raw attraction to hard drugs unless it's something you've experienced yourself.

And I've already experienced enough to cover both our lifetimes just in mine.

I've had a few psychologists and doctors over the years tell me they 'understand how difficult addiction is,' but they really fucking don't know shit. People like that will never truly understand because they're smart enough to never let themselves get in a situation like that in the first place. There's very little possibility of becoming a formally educated, competent and efficient professional with the ability to save lives when you know how it feels to disregard and resent life as much as an addict does. Like I do . . .

I know a person who understands. I can sense them. Those people look and sound and act just like me. Heightened, constantly anxious about something, irritable, itchy both physically and of mind. Desperately searching for peace and solitude that doesn't make you feel like you're being watched and judged and followed, and who is judging themselves equally as much as they are you because they have to. Because we know it's fucked and bad and dangerous, and all other negative words and concepts that highlight how poor and misguided a choice regular heavy drug and alcohol use is.

But most of the time, we simply can't help it. And if I'm being completely honest, I'm not even sure I want to.

Forgetting feels fucking amazing.