Before I ever turned to Crystal Meth I was naïve. My world was alive

and bustling without the use of Tweek. I didn’t use secret codes with

my friends to discuss drugs like “chemicals” “X” “T” and “K”. I didn’t

know any people who were paranoid about bugs, real ones or mechanical

ones. My life was simple. Sleep, Work, Boyfriend, Friends, start again.

Simplicity was my life. Funny thing is simple seems boring after tweek.

Using Meth was like going on an adventure to a real jungle, with

real tigers with real fear and trepidation. Oh, I have ventured far far

from home. I am no longer in the backyard pretending, Candy, the family

dog, is a tiger I need to conquer. I am miles away from the tall grass

growing at the back of the yard hiding me from wild animals. I am

living fear and hunting. Always hunting. Hunting for meth. Hunting for

sex. Hunting to endure, just to get through another day. My mother

isn’t in earshot anymore, my survival depends on me alone.

This is an exciting life! I am living! It feels more exciting then

I imagined it would and I am free! Free, from pressures at work. I meet

more people because I am free. My freedom gives me confidence.

And you want me to quit? To stop?

Any city dweller, imagine being plucked out of your metropolis and

dropped in a small village of 50 or so…..and those living in a village

or town, imagine awakening one day in New York’s Time Square. City or

town. This or that. Use or quit. You choose.

I quit. So far…

I haven’t seen a black and white television in years with its

strange hues of whites, blacks, greys showing static pictures too

bright or too dark but I quit the meth and look out at the world and

see only Black and White. I am trapped in isolation. I am unnoticed.

Cut off. An entire universe made of spun glass exists beyond the

confines of my mind. I have lived in and created beautiful worlds. Yet,

I am sitting in this drab humorless world. How can I choose just one

world to live in?

I can choose because my life is simple again, sleep, work,

boyfriend, friends, start again. I raised the bar on adventure and I

will look to travel to other countries or go on a jungle safari to meet

an honest to god tiger face to face. Our pal Dorothy came back from the

mythical land of OZ full of color and sights unimaginable with nothing.

I, too, have returned with nothing from my world of spun glass but I

have what Dorothy never had. I speak in a special language with words

like “Chemicals”, “X”, “T” and “K”. I am a Tweeker from Tweekerbury! I

have traveled through time and space and I see we all end up back here

in the black and white world leaving the Technicolor of Meth behind…for

awhile.

I see fellow travelers stumble and fall. I could. You could. It is

so easily within our grasp. We are like Atlanteans drawn to California

who await the “big earthquake” that will pull them back into the ocean

and return them to their watery home. I meet fellow travelers who want

me to voyage on with them to more worlds of spun glass and my

adventurous spirit rises with anticipation until I realize to return to

this world of glass is to doom myself. That is why I left; to save

myself from the implosion. I averted disaster once and I tempt it

again. I shatter the world of spun glass against the walls of my mind

and it shatters in splinters of color and light and continues to

shatter against itself. I choose the safety of simplicity. I choose

each time I miss being high.